Motorsport News March 14, 2016 No. 17/16 Dear Journalist: Early each week, Porsche Cars North America will provide a weekend summary or pre- race event notes package, covering the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, Pirelli World Challenge (PWC), the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) or other areas of interest from the world of Porsche Motorsport. Please utilize this resource as needed, and do not hesitate to contact us for additional information. - Porsche Cars North America Motorsports Public Relations Team Porsche Motorsports Event Notes. Monday, March 14, 2016 Dateline. Sebring, Florida Circuit. Sebring International Raceway Track Length/Turns. 3.74-miles/12-turns Event. 64th Annual Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Fueled by Fresh from Florida, WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Classes. GT Le Mans (GTLM Porsche 911 RSR), GT Daytona (GTD Porsche 911 GT3 R) Round. GTLM. Two of Ten, GTD. Two of Ten Next Round. Grand Prix of Long Beach, WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, April 15-16 Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge Event. Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, Sebring International Raceway Dateline. Sebring, Florida Public Relations Department 1 of 15 Public Relations Department Motorsport Communications Product Communications Dave Engelman David Burkhalter Phone +1.770.290.3617 Phone +1.770.290.3511 [email protected] [email protected] Motorsport News March 14, 2016 No. 17/16 Date. Friday, March 18 Race Duration. Two Hours, 30-minutes Class. Grand Sport (GS) (Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport) Round. Two of Ten Next Round. Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, April 29-30 Upcoming Porsche Events Pirelli World Challenge Event. Grand Prix of Long Beach Dateline. Long Beach, California Date. Saturday - Sunday, April 16-17 Race Duration. One, 1-Hour Race Classes. GT, GTA (Porsche 911 GT3 R), GT Cup (Porsche 911 GT3 Cup) Round. Five of 22 Porsche Profile. Event Story Lines New Porsche 911 GT3 R Captures Twin Wins While the endurance world was prepping for the legendary 12 Hours of Sebring, the premier sprint-race sports car series in the country, Pirelli World Challenge, was readying for the one-hour Rounds Three and Four of 2016 on the temporary street course in St. Petersburg, Florida. Michael Lewis (Laguna Beach, California) started off the weekend winning his first GT class pole position in the No. 41 EFFORT Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R while Sloan Urry (Park City, Utah) took the GT Cup pole position in the TruSpeed Autosport Porsche 911 GT3 Cup. Lewis never relinquished the top spot Public Relations Department 2 of 15 Public Relations Department Motorsport Communications Product Communications Dave Engelman David Burkhalter Phone +1.770.290.3617 Phone +1.770.290.3511 [email protected] [email protected] Motorsport News March 14, 2016 No. 17/16 on his way to victory in Race One. His best lap in the race placed him pole position for Sunday’s 60-minute sprint. The young Californian again led wire-to-wire taking the checkered flag for both races of the weekend. The one-make GT Cup class was again a battle between the sports up-and-coming young lions and the veterans. Like Lewis, Urry led both races from start-to-finish to make a statement on his championship intentions in the all-Porsche 911 GT3 Cup class. Porsche performance continued off the track as well. Factory driver Patrick Long (Manhattan Beach, California) had won the season-opening pole position and first race at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) on March 5 before being hit at the start of Race 2 the following day. Long’s No. 31 EFFORT Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R was turned hard into the wall sustaining substantial damage. The team began repairs immediately working closely with Porsche Motorsport North America (PMNA) representatives. Once a significant amount of progress was made on repairs, the rear-engine racer traveled to Alex Job Racing’s shop in Tavares, Florida to complete the work before making the final leg of its journey to St. Petersburg. Long’s ride arrived shortly after GT class qualifying. America’s only Porsche works driver took the start for Saturday’s race from the back of the field finishing seventh in Race One and starting that same spot in Race Two on Sunday. Long ran as high as third but finished fourth to keep himself within striking distance of his teammate in the championship chase. Michael Lewis, Driver, No. 41 EFFORT Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R “Two for the EFFORT Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R. Flag-to-flag victories for the EFFORT Racing Porsche. Stefan Pfeiffer [team engineer], Patrick Long and everyone helped me so much in practice and qualifying to sit on pole. From the first initial green flag, I never looked back. The team has been working every night with little sleep. This car was hooked up on those restarts. It was pretty much a restart game the whole race. I was just head down, trying to get to turn one first. After that, our car was on rails and we could beat everybody on lap time. Big thank you to the team for working the long hours. That’s two for two.” Patrick Long, Driver, No. 31 EFFORT Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R “The goal was just to pull my weight for the long days that these guys put into rebuilding this car. I’m really proud of the whole group. Congratulations to Michael. It’s great to see him progress as a driver and a person. He kicked butt and I’m really happy about that. The second race was a tough to not have many green flag laps. It really made it a race Public Relations Department 3 of 15 Public Relations Department Motorsport Communications Product Communications Dave Engelman David Burkhalter Phone +1.770.290.3617 Phone +1.770.290.3511 [email protected] [email protected] Motorsport News March 14, 2016 No. 17/16 of restarts. I got some good timing on the initial restart and Johnny O’Connell ran me clean. I had good pace and was able to make up a few spots. For as few laps as we completed, it was pretty adventurous. I’m glad to have recovered some points after what has been a forgetful and yet memorable week altogether.” Erin Gahagan, Team Manager, EFFORT Racing “Sunday at COTA we put an extra driver in the truck to get to Alex Job’s shop by Monday night to unload Tuesday. Three guys stayed there and three guys came to the track. They worked all day Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and they showed up back here Friday by lunchtime with the car. It still needed work after that. We were able to get a hardship lap at 5:00pm, which is always difficult on a street circuit with such a tight event schedule. We wanted to do a system check, and make sure that there were no leaks. All six of our guys worked nonstop to get the car ready for that lap. Four team members from Alex Job Racing, including Alex himself, helped us get our car back. We couldn’t have done it without them. Porsche’s help was huge. Anything that we could have possibly needed, other than a brand new car, they provided. We’re very excited for Michael, but we’re exhausted.” Porsche and Sebring Go-Hand-In-Hand Porsche history does not start at Sebring International Raceway; Porsche’s racing tradition pre-dates the great America endurance event by nearly five years. However, the two have long been synonymous. With a total of 70 class wins, 20 of which are overall titles, Porsche dwarfs the competition in both categories – next in line is Ferrari with 20 class wins and 12 overall trophies. In 2014, Team Seattle Alex Job Racing earned the most recent class win with Ian James (Great Britain), Mario Farnbacher (Germany) and Alex Riberas (Spain). That trio returns on March 19 with the new Porsche 911 GT3 R looking for back-to-back titles. 2014 Sebring GT Le Mans (GTLM) class winning team Porsche North America brings two factory cars to the class again in 2016. The No. 911 Porsche 911 RSR will see defending IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship title-winner Patrick Pilet (France) co-driving with 2015 overall 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Nick Tandy (Great Britain) and Frenchman Kevin Estre who is the newest member of the Porsche factory driver program. Earl Bamber, the New Zealander who joined Tandy to win Le Mans last season, France’s Frédéric Makowiecki and Michael Christensen (Denmark) will share the No. 912 Porsche North America 911 RSR. Public Relations Department 4 of 15 Public Relations Department Motorsport Communications Product Communications Dave Engelman David Burkhalter Phone +1.770.290.3617 Phone +1.770.290.3511 [email protected] [email protected] Motorsport News March 14, 2016 No. 17/16 Sebring Training Ground Used to Tune Porsche 911 GT3 R. In 1942, Hendricks Field was constructed just outside of Sebring, Florida to train pilots and crews for the US Army Air Force. Ten years later, the airfield was the site of the first 12 Hours of Sebring. Since that time, it has remained a hotbed of testing and training. As Porsche was looking the world-over for locations to test the new 911 GT3 R, Sebring International Raceway’s 3.74-mile circuit was immediately on the ‘test schedule’ because of characteristics found nowhere else. The racer based on the seventh- generation of the iconic rear-engine sports car and its new direct fuel injection flat-six engine, spent a week in Sebring taking all the legendary track could throw at it.