Antonio Felix da Costa of the #38 JOTA Porsche 963 has reflected upon the missed potential for a stronger 6 Hours of Monza, regarding their reliability woes.
The #38 JOTA were one of four teams who led the fourth round of the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship after just one-and-a-half hours.
Da Costa started the Porsche from ninth position overall and seized the opportunity to overtake the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Sebastien Buemi and the #51 Ferrari 499P of Antonio Giovinazzi after their contact at Turn 1.
From sixth place, Da Costa showed competitive pace relative to the Hypercar front-runners, but was forced to make an unscheduled pitstop due to electronic reliability troubles.
The Portuguese driver said: “We started the race on a strong note with clever strategic decisions, and even held the lead for a while.
“But then, we encountered software problems and had to make an extra stop to change the steering wheel and reboot everything.
“That cost us a lap and an additional drive-through penalty because the speed limiter wasn’t working properly.”
At roughly the halfway point, Da Costa pitted for an emergency service stop and was unable to change the wheel during a safety car period, as you can only take five seconds of fuel when under safety car.
Upon leaving the pitlane, the #38 Porsche 963 stopped at the first chicane before performing a power cycle to continue driving.
After the safety car period had ended, they pitted again for a full-service stop where they were able to change the steering wheel.
He consolidated: “Still, we took the opportunity to turn a lot of laps and get to know the Porsche 963 and the race tyres a bit better.”
Combined with the efforts of his teammates Yifei Ye and Will Stevens, they finished in ninth place, two laps down on the winning #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid.
They remain optimistic for the 6 Hours of Fuji on 10 September, since stepping up from the prior Oreca 07-Gibson LMP2 package only two races ago at Spa-Francorchamps, finishing in sixth position.
