Proton Competition’s Harry Tincknell was in no doubt that the team’s IMSA GTP debut with the Porsche 963 on Sunday went better than a troublesome debut outing in the World Endurance Championship at Monza in July.
The Proton outfit became the latest customer team to inherit the 963 machine when they entered the WEC’s 6 Hours of Monza on 7-9 July.
However, the team’s debut with the prototype Porsche was marred by continuing technical difficulties, and despite leading momentarily, fell out of the running in the fifth hour at Monza due to a clutch failure.
That clutch issue meant British driver Tincknell had little time to get acquainted with the 963 in a race setting, but he was able to put that right at Road America on Sunday.
Running the same machine that failed to finish in Monza, the #59 Proton-Porsche 963 finished eighth overall, last of the GTP runners, approximately 1 minute and 47 seconds back from overall winners Matt Campbell and Felipe Nasr in the factory #7 Porsche Penske 963.
Despite finishing at the tail-end of the GTP class, Tincknell, a six-time IMSA race winner in the DPi class, was happy with the team’s IMSA debut with the new Porsche prototype.
“After only being able to turn very few laps in the race at our WEC event in Monza, things finally went better here,” he said.
“I learned more about the car today than on all the previous days combined.
“The basis of the Porsche 963 is extremely good – we’re only a little behind in terms of the setup because the time for making adjustments and gaining experience was too short.
“Now, we’ll analyse all the data and draw our conclusions.
“If we were to do another race tomorrow, we would be considerably faster – without a doubt.”
The #59 machine will remain competing in IMSA for the rest of the year, making its next appearance on 15-17 September at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Proton will then take order of another 963 prototype machine to continue in the WEC, with the next event being the 6 Hours of Fuji on 8-10 September.
