Porsche: New WEC GTE car won't have Aston, BMW repeat BoP problems

Porsche revealed its all-new 911 RSR-19 at the start of the month ahead of the car's race debut in the 2019/20 WEC season opener at Silverstone in September.

Last season, both the then-new Aston Martin Vantage GTE and the BMW M8 GTE were uncompetitive before a series of BoP adjustments helped turn both cars into victory contenders.

Porsche's director of GT factory motorsports Pascal Zurlinden is adamant that the situation is not comparable to that of Aston Martin and BMW and that the RSR-19 should be on the pace from the off.

"At the end, the FIA always has the option to correct the BoP if the new car is not at the right position in the first races," said Zurlinden.

"But the work between the manufacturer is getting more and more transparent, so we're quite confident we'll be in the right position.

"We gave them as much data as we could, we did a lot of mileage, so I hope the system works. If all the steps in the BoP process have been done correctly, I think this time the new car will be right at the level [of the others] from the beginning."

Kevin Estre, who took the 2018/19 drivers' GTE championship alongside Michael Christensen, said he was convinced that Porsche could fight for wins from the outset.

"This is a new car, but it's not a huge change," said Estre. "It's the same base chassis, it's a bit of a different engine but it's not like we went from an [normally-aspirated] engine to a turbo engine.

"We definitely don't want to be two seconds off the pace in the first race. And on this point, I feel we are quite well prepared because we did a lot of testing and it's not a huge step from the old car."

Estre added that the final stretch of his title-winning 2018/19 campaign was strenuous as the development of the new Porsche was taking place between races.

"We did the first rollout on April 2018, and then we had one year of testing, not as intense at the beginning, but from February this year to now it was intense," said Estre.

"We were still racing the other car, so we had to go back and forth. The steering wheel is different, different tyres, a different way of driving - still a Porsche, but it's a little different.

"It was a bit of a challenge last year to jump from testing to driving in a race with a different car."

Asked to specify where the 911 RSR-19 is superior to its predecessor, Estre continued: "It's small details everywhere. It's very good on the brakes and very stable all through the corner.

"If you are fighting against oversteer, it's for the whole corner, while with the '17 car it was more oversteer switching to understeer, fighting against two things in one corner."