Porsche GT Team celebrates Top-5 in Petit Le Mans

Manuel Mayer led the charge for the No. 84 Porsche GT team in his first race since the 24 Hours of Spa in July. The Teisendorf, Germany driver qualified the Porsche 911 RSR GTE with the sixth-fastest lap time on the day at 1:16.041.

At the start, the 33-year old Fischer Motorsport veteran driver showed the needed coolness and experience, to keep the car clean and out of trouble – something that the team struggled with in three previous attempts at the Petit Le Mans.

“Getting that clean start into the race, those first two hours, that was really important for us. Manuel did a great job and really opened things up for us.”, team-mate Pascal Theis said.

Not only that - Mayer also showed very competitive pace and actually improved the team’s position from seventh position at the end of the opening lap to P4 by the time the first pit stop arrived one hour into the ten-hour endurance event.

Kyle Birnie qualified the No. 14 Dallara P217 LMP2 Prototype third on the grid and started the race in the top class. The Californian was looking to get off to a better start after finding trouble early in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in July of this year.

But unfortunately for Birnie, his brother Jason and David Koopmans, it wasn’t meant to be. On lap six the team saw its hopes for a competitive run in the final big endurance race of the year all but gone, when going into turn seven, Birnie collided with two GTD class cars ahead.

Birnie had to bring the LMP2 Prototype back into the pits, realizing the car was significantly down on top speed due to damage sustained in the incident.

Even though the pit crew did its best, the repair took over a minute and put the team a lap down.

The No. 14 Dallara P217 LMP2 Prototype team went back out on track in twelfth position and even though things got better after Birnie completed a clean stint and eventually handed the car over to team-mate David Koopmans, the team never got past ninth position in the race.

On lap 77 Koopmans found himself in a collision with a slower class car at turn two that damaged the car. Just two laps later two cars made contact on the exit of the chicane heading to the bridge and Koopmans tried to make the pass on the inside of another LMP2 Prototype, when the two cars crashed.

With a broken suspension, Koopmans was unable to keep control of the car and hit the wall in turn twelve. With the damage too severe, the team had to retire the car from the race.

“Yeah, obviously this is very frustrating. I’m tired of us getting taken out and getting into crashes. It’s been a rough stretch. I know we have a ton of potential as a team, but things haven’t gone our way.”, Kyle Birnie commented as the team started to pack things up, getting ready to leave for the airport.

“Some of it is bad luck, some of it is of our own wrongdoing, where we still need to get better. Today started off unlucky for us, but then we also went on to make some mistakes. It wasn’t our best race. We need to get better next year and we will.”, Birnie added.

The No. 84 Porsche 911 RSR GTE meanwhile saw Pascal Theis take over from Mayer after he completed his double stint as scheduled.

Things continued to look upward for the team as Theis went on to take the lead during his season stint, more than three hours into the race.

Leading the GTLM class in the race allowed the team to be aggressive on pit strategy. By taking two tires only on every other pit stop, the No. 84 Porsche was able to gain an advantage on track position over several other competitors.

Benjamin Fischer led the team into the sunset and night-time hours of the race with his double stint in the No. 84 Porsche. And although the German struggled with a lack of pace and dropped to sixth position, he was able to keep the car clean and out of trouble.

In the final four hours of the race, it was Manuel Mayer and Pascal Theis pushing the team back into the top-five with a double stint each.

Theis found himself at the center of some unwanted drama too many times during his second double-stint as he had several contacts with other GTLM class cars, that dropped the team back outside of the top-five.

“It was a tough race. LMP2 and GTD traffic was good. But somehow I found a lot of GTLM cars today, to make contact with. We lost a bunch of time there, which frustrates me a bit.”, Theis commented of the race.

Thanks to a great strategy call, the team brought Theis in early for the final pit stop, for a splash of fuel, just as Theis was about to get caught by a large group of traffic directly behind. Theis took the splash of fuel on the pit stop and went back out on the race track and was able to gain one position by race’s end to give the Porsche GT team its first top-five ever in the iRacing Petit Le Mans.

“This race... man. It feels like a 12-hour or 24-hour race. There is traffic all the time, so many close calls because the track is also relatively narrow. Very little time to relax. It means a lot to all of us, that we finally were able to get a good finish here. What a way to cap off the era with the Porsche 911 RSR GTE at this event. I’m incredibly proud of everybody on the team.”, team manager Benjamin Fischer said with a big smile after the race.

iRacing has announced that starting with the 2022 season the iRacing IMSA Endurance Series, IMSA SportsCar Championship and IMSA-themed special events will move to feature only the P2 Prototype and GT Daytona classes as the GTE class will not return after this year.

With this weekend’s top-five result in the iRacing Petit Le Mans, Fischer Motorsport now has scored one or multiple top-five finishes in the four big North American endurance events, the iRacing 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring, 6 Hours of the Glen and Petit Le Mans, including winning at Daytona in 2020.

© 2021 Fischer Motorsport Official Race Results - 2021 iRacing Petit Le Mans, LMP2

© 2021 Fischer Motorsport Official Race Results - 2021 iRacing Petit Le Mans, GTLM