After the 2:40-hour race on the 6.515-kilometre circuit close to Elkhart Lake in the US state of Wisconsin, Laurens Vanthoor (Belgium) and Gianmaria Bruni (Italy) were a mere six-tenths of a second off claiming victory. The pair also scored second at Porsche’s double victory at Lime Rock recently. Their team colleagues and the winners of the Lime Rock race, Patrick Pilet (France) and Dirk Werner (Germany), lost ground after a collision in the final phase and ultimately had to settle for eighth. The Porsche GT Team fields the 911 RSR which was developed from scratch specifically for this season on the basis of the high-performance 911 GT3 RS sports car.

At the wheel of the #912 Porsche 911 RSR, Gianmaria Bruni initially managed to advance from fourth to third place. In his slipstream, Patrick Pilet even overtook two competitors in the #911 racer. The two held on to these positions until the first round of pit stops. For Porsche, the race remained rather unspectacular – until the last hour. Laurens Vanthoor, Gianmaria Bruni’s teammate, made the most of the short pit stop to snatch the lead. However, when the race went green after a safety car phase, he veered too wide and had to let the Ford past. In a gripping finale, he pulled out all stops and tried everything to reclaim the lead, but was ultimately pipped at the flag. For Dirk Werner, who took over from Patrick Pilet, the restart was even more dramatic: After falling victim to an accident involving a Corvette, he ended up in the gravel and was robbed of a good result.

911 RSR, IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship, Elkhart Lake, USA, 2017, Porsche AG
The 911 RSR on the legendary Road America racetrack

In the GTD class, in which Porsche customer teams field the 500 hp 911 GT3 R, Porsche works driver Jörg Bergmeister (Germany) occupied second place. Two weeks ago at Lime Rock (USA), he celebrated his first win of the season with Patrick Lindsey (USA) driving for Park Place Motorsports.

911 RSR, IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship, Elkhart Lake, USA, 2017, Porsche AG
The new 911 RSR at Elkhart Lake/USA

 The highlight of the test phase was a 50-hour long-run at Sebring. Even before its first race, the 911 RSR proved to be reliable. The test on the bumpy Florida racetrack, famous for the extreme challenges it throws at man and machine, ran without any major problems. And when the new 911 RSR went racing, it immediately proved competitive. At the long distance classics of Daytona and Sebring, it impressed with strong performances. Until then, Porsche Motorsport had completed over 45,000 test kilometres on various racetracks – more than in the development of any other Porsche GT racer. 

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