Porsche prepared to keep using team orders to win WEC LMP1 title
Porsche will continue to invoke team orders if necessary in its bid to take a hat-trick of World Endurance Championship drivers' titles
LMP1 team principal Andreas Seidl has revealed that there will be no change in the policy that resulted in Porsche switching the positions of its two 919 Hybrids at the front of the field in the final stages of the Nurburgring round in July.
"It is fully clear, also with the drivers, that we will always do what is best for Porsche," he said.
"It is a team sport and regardless of the positions there will always be a finish that is the optimum for the championship - we will keep doing that.
"Our task is clear: we want to win the two championships that are on the table [the drivers' and the manufacturers' titles]."
At the Nurgurgring the #1 Porsche driven by Andre Lotterer, Neel Jani and Nick Tandy was given more fuel during a late splash-and-dash fuel stop than the sister car of championship leaders Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber.
The resulting victory for Le Mans 24 Hours winners Bernhard, Hartley and Bamber allowed them to extend their championship leader over Toyota drivers Sebastian Buemi, Anthony Davidson and Kazuki Nakajima to 30 points.
Lotterer, Jani and Tandy lost any realistic chance of winning the championship when they non-scored at the double-points Le Mans WEC round and now trail their team-mates by 52 points.
Seidl insisted that the situation at the Nurburgring was not as clear cut as it looked over the course of a race in which the performance of the two Porsches was affected by spent rubber collecting on the rear wing.
He explained that Bamber had been told to back off in the penultimate hour after the challenge of the Toyotas faded, while Tandy was told to keep pushing because he was facing a sanction after making contact with a GTE car.
Seidl said he had no complaints about the public dissatisfaction displayed by the drivers of the #1 car in the post-race press conference.
"Drivers are upset because they are racers and sportsman," he said.
"It would not be authentic to go there and be happy."
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