Going into 2016, it’s clear that Porsche’s trio of drivers in the #2 919 are extremely motivated. After a season in which they came away with just one win (at the final round in Bahrain), Marc Lieb, Neel Jani and Romain Dumas who last year ran the #18 are hoping to pick up where they left off at Bahrain and establish themselves as championship contenders.
Lieb spoke to DSC about the outlook for the #2 car going into a season which sees both Audi and Toyota bring along brand new cars:
“I think it’s clear everybody has taken a step forward,” he said. “I think we may have just a little step compared to the competition because we’re running the same concept, with the same ideas and the same engine capacity. It’s just been developed. It’s an evolution.
“Audi and Toyota have come with new systems, so it’s going to be really interesting to see where we are, in the first two races especially. We should be a little bit ahead reliability wise.”
Lieb was of course a part of the 2016-spec 919’s development programme during the offseason, which see seemed overall very positive about.
“Of course we’ve had some issues during testing,” said Lieb. “But that’s normal, overall we’re really satisfied with the reliability. We’re looking forward to the season. We know where our weaknesses are.
“To be honest, I haven’t done as much milage in the car this year as in years past. The first test in Abu Dhabi was quite short for me, we had an issue with the monocoque. But then the second test was better, we did a lot of miles.”
Reliability could be key, as this year isn’t due to see a jump in performance matching 2015’s astonishing showcase by the factory teams at each round. The new regulations which restrict the fuel-flow of the P1 cars among other things have left engineers needing to find the performance in in other areas.
“Because the ACO and FIA have tried to slow down the cars quite a bit, so we have a lot less fuel per lap, which makes it a lot more difficult to achieve the same lap times. But the steps we’ve taken performance wise are quite big, I don’t expect us to be much slower than last year to be honest.
“It’s too early to tell whether Audi and Toyota’s new cars are going to vault them above us. I haven’t studied the TS050 yet, but I can say when looking at the Audi, it is quite aggressive on the aero side!”
