The WeatherTech Porsche 911 GT3 R was one withdrawal from the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and now there’s another one, albeit fortunately only for the next race.
Park Place Motorsports has parked its No. 73 Porsche 911 GT3 R for the series’ upcoming Michelin GT Challenge at Virginia International Raceway, but will be back for the final two races at Circuit of The Americas and Road Atlanta owing to existing sponsor commitments.
Team principal and co-driver Patrick Lindsey told Sportscar365 there’s more to the dynamic than just Balance of Performance as to why they’ve opted to skip the next race.
“Our view, which may or may not be expressed by other teams, is that what the series is doing is more driver BoP. It’s very elaborate,” he told Sportscar365.
“[It] turns out we ran a perfect race but we completely lucked into second place,” he added. “If other cars didn’t make mistakes, we would have been fourth or fifth at best.”
You can see more at the full article, linked above.
We pinged Porsche for comment, receiving the following back.
Per Porsche: Because these decisions were made on a team level, there isn't anything for Porsche to say.
— Tony DiZinno (@tonydizinno) August 18, 2016
Turner Motorsport, which runs two BMW M6 GT3s, took the opportunity to note the No. 73 Porsche seemed OK at Road America in the below tweet, before Lindsey rebutted it:
Road America No. 73.
— Turner Motorsport (@Turnermotrsport) August 18, 2016
Fastest Race Lap in GTD
3rd highest top speed in GTD
4th Fastest Overall Sector Times in GTD https://t.co/G5fCYMAr3U
@Turnermotrsport where was our second quickest lap? Oh yeah, nowhere.
— Patrick Lindsey (@plindsey73) August 18, 2016
Despite scoring two podiums, including a second last time out at Road America, Lindsey and co-driver Joerg Bergmeister are tied for 10th in the GT Daytona driver’s standings.
Nonetheless, as noted in the WeatherTech story, Park Place and other Porsche teams have banked results perhaps in spite of the alleged performance deficit.
Porsche sits second in the GTD Manufacturer’s Championship, seven points behind VAG sister brand Audi and one clear of Ferrari in third.