Pascal Zurlinden, director of factory motorsport at Porsche, got on a phone call from his home with a few journalists spread around the world, including some in Spain, England and at Autoweek here in the U.S. The coronavirus pandemic, of course, peppered the entire conversation, and Zurlinden gave us Porsche’s point of view on the topic. That morphed into a fascinating conversation about the 24 Hours of Le Mans, currently scheduled to run Sept. 19-20. Read on to get an understanding of how Porsche sees racing playing out in a world dealing with COVID-19.
Autoweek: What is the most challenging part of the global situation and how are you dealing with it?
Pascal Zurlinden: The most challenging part is how to react quickly to the situation. How you can optimize the workload so that it’s working. How do you make it so people can work from home, that is the most challenging. It’s a change of working for everyone involved.
AW: Given the stay-at-home mandate in so many parts of the world, do you have specific fitness programs for drivers to do at home? Are they still going to a facility? Also, are they asked to do any kind of simulator work on home simulators?
PZ: Every driver has a training list he must do at their homes. We are asking them to do that but to also stay at home as much as possible to stay healthy, which we all must do at the moment. So they do this at their apartment or their home. Simulators: The only thing we have asked them to participate with are the Porsche esports series, which are the Porsche Esports Supercup Series or the Mobil 1 Esports edition. What they do beyond that is a private matter, if they are interested in doing other series.
AW: Has the break from racing as a result of the pandemic changed any of your priorities for future motorsport planning?
PZ: We are only a few weeks into this. At the moment, all of our timing stays the same for the future. If you look back in the past, in Le Mans, for example, since 1951, Porsche is the only manufacturer that is always represented, which makes me positive about the future of motorsport.
AW: How much of a problem is it not to have a test day at Le Mans, as temperature conditions are very different in September than in June.
PZ: For us, it’s not only about the conditions. For us, it will be the first Le Mans of our brand-new GTE challenger, the RSR 19. Looking at the start of the WEC season, at Daytona, our engineers adapted quite quickly and learned quite a lot from the conditions. We were quite successful in the few races that we had. We should use this as an advantage. And I trust our team members that they will do the right job. It will be a really competitive race.
AW: Will these different conditions have a big influence on the race itself?
PZ: We are used to racing in the summer, which is a bit warmer. We will use different tires than the summer. The night will also be different because it’s quite short in the summer, in June. It will be quite a long night in September. We are looking forward to this new challenge.
AW: Are you concerned about a fair balance of performance of the Corvette C8R, considering the lack of test day at Le Mans?
PZ: It will be difficult to put the car in the window of balance of performance. But looking at how they did the balance of performance for our car, and they’ll use the same equipment, dynos, etc., I’m quite confident that the ACO and the FIA will do the right choices.
AW: Should the WEC switch back to a calendar-year season, starting in March/April, instead of a reverse calendar like we see now?
PZ: If you look at the WEC, most of the teams are customer teams. And the question would be, when is the best time for them to start the new season?
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