Felipe Nasr is optimistic that Porsche Penske Motorsport have gotten a better understanding of Michelin’s new-for-this-year Pilot Sport Endurance GTP tire entering this weekend’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.
The 33-year-old Brazilian, who co-drives the #7 Porsche 963 with Julien Andlauer and Laurin Heinrich, heads into IMSA’s once-around-the-clock endurance round at Sebring International Raceway fresh off a third consecutive victory in the Rolex 24 At Daytona. He also took part in a recent test at Sebring’s 17-turn, 3.74-mile airfield circuit, which provided the latest opportunity to learn and make tweaks based around the new tire in combination with the team’s latest aero developments.
“We had to make some adjustments to our reference setup that we had as we raced last year,” said Nasr, the defending overall winner at Sebring.
“It’s all in a good way, but I would say just gave the car a better window in terms of balancing out the medium to low-speed corners a little bit better. It’s always one thing when you test and it’s one thing for the race week and the track gripping up. And the transition from day to night, that’s always a bit of an unknown.”
#7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Felipe Nasr, Julien Andlauer, Laurin Heinrich
Photo by: James Gilbert / Getty Images
Another element with the new tire is adapting to the different medium and soft compounds, the former set to be used exclusively in Sebring’s 12-hour race.
“We are still learning about the new tire, especially in those conditions, especially the warm conditions, I would say Daytona was mostly transitioning from not so high temps to medium temperature,” Nasr said.
“So, I feel like it’s all in a good window. I think we learned a lot in that test. I won’t say we’re fully happy with the car, but we definitely have the race weekend there to learn and like I said, that track changes a lot, especially the grip level that builds up over the weekend. I feel like we’re in a good baseline to start and take it from there.”
Quicker temperature buildup has been a point of emphasis with the new tire. Considering this year’s season-opening race at Daytona had warmer temperatures than normal, that could play a benefit entering Sebring, which is notoriously warmer but this year is moderately hovering around the same ambient temperatures.
“I’ve been seeing the warm-up has been better everywhere since we got this new Michelin tire, which is a big benefit and something we drivers also have to adjust to,” Nasr said.
“Although it’s better, we also need to get used to it. What I mean is you need to make the most of the tire, even though they’re still cold and that’s what I see all the time in GTP. That’s where drivers make a difference. It’s extracting the tire. The out laps are still pretty significant in terms of gaining a position or not. There are all those things to practice on race weekends.
“But it’s still a pretty good positive with the tire. I also felt the durability of the tire was quite good. Looking back at Daytona, but like I said, Sebring is a completely different running through the day. It’s much longer than to Daytona characteristics in the way you stress the tire, the way you load the tire is so different. In that point, I think we’re still learning, but I felt like we had a good baseline.”
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