For any Motorsport Fan, driving your way to standing on the podium at the infamous Le Mans circuit in front of the hundreds of thousands strong 24 Hours of Le Mans Race Day Fans has got to be a dream and MPS were delighted when they were able to help long term customer and friend, Nick Jones, achieve it during the 2021 Porsche Motorsport support race at the world famous La Sarthe circuit.
The event, ran partly by the French arm of the Porsche Motorsport club, was a support race to the main 24 Hours event and saw Porsche Customer Racing vehicles eligible to compete against one another for glory in front of the huge crowds that were assembling on race day, ahead of the start of the infamous 24 hour long contest.
With only 1 driver to be entered per car, the car’s owner and amateur racer Nick Jones was Team Parker Racing’s sole entrant for the special event.
With Nick having no previous experience of the Le Mans track, MPS’ Ben Newman was able to calm some of Jonesy’s pre-event nerves as he used his experience and stored video from his past work, competing there in the main race for World Endurance Championship glory, to introduce Nick to the 4 minute long track ahead of his first practice session.
This previous data and experience proved vital as the all important practice sessions were routinely interrupted by yellow flags and slow zones due to the large grid of over-excited participants falling victim to the gruelling part-public highway / part-dedicated race track’s challenges.
Competing against unrestricted Porsche Cup Cars, the MPS Race Engineered GT3R machinery boasted an advantage in the corners, with its higher levels of downforce, but struggled in comparison along the infamously long straights of the French circuit.
To counter this, MPS’ performance engineering tactics saw Ben and the TPR team steadily reduce downforce levels as the event went on and with it ‘Jonesy’s’ confidence growing, in favour of reduced aerodynamic drag and higher top speeds on the Mulsanne straights.
This constant evolution and progress culminated in a fantastic performance from Jonesy come race day, combining hard racing and level headed avoidance of incidents created by over enthusiastic amateur and professional competition alike to bring the 991.2 GT3R machinery home across the line in a podium position at his first ever race on the Circuit de la Sarthe.
A result made even sweater as it took place just a matter of hours before the start of the main 24 hours race with the grandstands already filling with capacity crowds.