MPS were overjoyed to be crowned World Champions after they and the Project 1 team in which they had been competing with brought home their Porsche RSR in the final race of the FIA World Endurance Championship 2018-2019 SuperSeason.
The monumental result of being crowned World Champions was made even more impressive when you consider the circumstances in which MPS and the team achieved this result.
The Super Season was created in order to switch up the start and end points of the WEC calendar – effectively resulting in the championship competing over a year and a half rather than the traditional year long season.
Practically this meant that the team had to race twice at the notoriously difficult Spa Francorchamps circuit as well competing twice at the gruelling 24 hours of Le Mans – the World Famous day long race awarding the most significant portion of the Championship’s points.
Furthermore, this was the first time that the German team had competed in any sort of Endurance Race, let alone at World Championship level – the Bremen outfit having previously only competed in Porsche one make sprint races with the comparably low tech Porsche Cup Cars.
For the Super Season, MPS provided Data, Systems and Performance Engineering services to the team.
MPS’ vast experience with the Cosworth Electronics control systems utilised in the Porsche GTE spec machine meant that the team could get up and running easily and without issue with the complex electronics systems in their million euro race car, drastically improving their learning curve and shortening their development time.
Having scored a number of podium finishes prior, including the win in Japan, the Project 1 driver line up of Egidio Perfetti, Patrick Lindsey and Porsche ace Jorg Bergmeister entered the final race of the season, the second Super Season visit to the Le Mans 24 Hours, in strong points contention.
With a vast amount of setup data having already been collected earlier in the season, MPS and the engineering team at Project 1 implemented a great mechanical setup on the Weissach born GTE machine.
This strong car setup in combination with a methodical and data driven driver development process implemented by MPS and their Porsche RSR specific Pi Toolbox Data Analysis workbook saw the trio consistently running competitively against their competition throughout the entire final event.
Superb team work and a consistent performance from both team and drivers resulted in them going one better than the trip to Le Mans in the previous year and the car came home without issue after 24 hours of hard Endurance racing.
The team finished 2nd on the road but post race penalties applied to some of their competitors resulted in the yellow and black liveried car being crowned Race Winners for the Pro AM class of the GTE Championship.
In doing so this crowned the drivers as WEC Super Season Drivers Champions and also the hard working and deserving WEC Rookies, Project 1, as Teams Champions also – a Team and result that MPS are incredibly proud to be involved with.
Le Mans: 24 Hours of Le Mans 2018 on June, 12, 2018, (Photo by Juergen Tap)
Porsche 911 RSR, Porsche GT Team (91), Gianmaria Bruni (I), Richard Lietz (A), Frederic Makowiecki (F),
Porsche GT Team (92), Michael Christensen (DK), Kevin Estre (F) Laurens Vanthoor (B)
Porsche GT Team (93), Earl Bamber (NZ), Patrick Pilet (F), Nick Tandy (GB)
Porsche GT Team (94), Timo Bernhard (D), Romain Dumas (F), Sven Mller (D)
Team Project 1 (56), Jrg Bergmeister (D), Patrick Lindsey (USA), Egidio Perfetti (N)
Proton Competition (99), Patrick Long (USA), Timothy Pappas (USA), Spencer Pumpelly (USA)
Dempsey Proton Racing (77), Julien Andlauer (F), Matt Campbell (AUS), Christian Ried (D)
Dempsey Proton Racing (88), Matteo Cairoli (I), Khaled Al Qubaisi (UAE), Giorgio Roda (I)
Gulf Racing (86), Ben Barker (GB), Alex Davison (AUS), Michael Wainwright (GB)
Ebimotors (80), Christina Nielsen (DK), Fabio Babini (I), Erik Maris (F)
Project 1, Porsche 911 RSR GTE, Paul Ricard Circuit