How Porsche privateers proved their worth in an elongated WEC Spa 6 Hours

Porsche made it two out of three in the World Endurance Championship this year at Spa last Saturday, but the significance of the victory was the identity of the winning car. It wasn’t one of the factory Porsche Penske Motorsport entries but a customer 963 LMDh fielded by the British Jota squad. Will Stevens and Callum Ilott needed a significant slice of luck to pull off the win, though they did it on a day that the privateers, the Proton Competition car included, had the edge over the factory.

Stevens and Ilott, driving as a duo courtesy of regular team-mate Norman Nato’s presence at the Berlin Formula E round, came out on top over the final 100 minutes after a not uncontroversial restart — that’s the decision to get going again rather than the start itself — following a protracted stoppage for barrier repairs. Ilott had the edge over Kevin Estre in the best of the PPM cars shared with Laurens Vanthoor and Andre Lotterer. It was a two-car race to the end: everyone else was out of it, including the two Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercars that had sat on the grid in positions one and two before the action got going again after nearly two hours. This was another one that got away from the Italian manufacturer, and this time through no fault of its own.