Risi: Porsche has edge over Ferrari

Risi Competizione, the reigning GT2 champion squad at Le Mans, believes the Porsche teams hold a significant advantage over the Ferraris heading in to this year's race

Kevin Turner Jun 11, 2009, 4:45 PM

Team technical director Rick Mayer is sure that the five 911 GT3 RSRs will be lot faster down the straights, handing the German cars a pace advantage over the 10 Ferrari 430s, two of which are run by Risi.

"I think the Porsches will be one to two seconds a lap faster," he said. "If the [Team Felbermayr Proton] Richard Lietz/Marc Lieb/Wolf Henzler car doesn't have any mistakes or errors and we don't make any, they will beat us. But we will run as quickly and as comfortably as we can."

Ex-Formula 1 driver Mika Salo, who won GT2 last year with Gianmaria Bruni and Jaime Melo, is more confident that he, Melo and Pierre Kaffer will be competitive in the lead Risi car, but does expect a strong Porsche challenge.

"We haven't had any dry running yet, but we think they might have a little pace advantage," he said before qualifying. "I think we can do it and we have confidence from winning so many long distance races over the last 12 months. We know how to do it."