No. 284 Porsche steals show, finishes fourth at Mid-Ohio

The No. 284 Porsche team most recently earned a top-five result in the 4 Hours of Phillip Island in November, which was also the team’s first of the season. This weekend, they followed up with the next in the fourth championship round.

In Qualifying, the team struggled much like in the previous free practice sessions: The car was missing about .6 seconds in comparison to the leaders and so Manuel Mayer ended up tenth on the starting grid.

“Obviously, we’d have loved a better position to go into the race. This place is super difficult to pass at. If you can pass, then only really in turn one, two and on the straight before turn four, maybe.”, Mayer said after Qualifying.

“But it’s a four-hour race. So we’ve got some time to make up ground, if we play this smart. I think there are some teams up there who are quick on a single lap, but in race trim things should be a bit more level.”

A field of 52 cars total went on their journey as the green flag went in the air. With the experience of a true veteran, Mayer kept his safe distance early on and put his focus on just holding tenth position.

Things intensified by lap nine, when the LMP2 field worked its way through lapped traffic for the first time. When a GT PRO car caved under the mental pressure in turn two and made a mistake, Mayer used the opportunity to go past and take over P9.

On lap 33 the first full-course caution period halted the race and Mayer slipped up to sixth position, before the team decided to use the yellow flag to come in for the first pit stop.

The strategy was simple: Shorten the pit stop as much as possible to gain track position. And thus the team decided to change no tires and take fuel only.

Mayer accelerated and exited the pit stall with smoking tires. But at the pit road exit, a traffic jam built quickly directly ahead, as several cars waited for pit exit to be opened by race control.

Mayer, in an unfortunate sequence of events, was unable to react in time and made contact with the rear of the No. 19 LMP2 prototype of Stellan Lindeberg, which resulted in front end damage on the Fischer Motorsport Porsche.

The incident was going to have further consequences beyond that later on, when race control would eventually issue a drive-through penalty against Mayer.

“That was my mistake. I should have known the pit exit was still closed at the time. I couldn’t see anything and when the LMP2 suddenly stopped, I wasn’t able to react in time.”, Mayer said of the incident later.

On the restart on lap 40 the No. 284 Porsche was in seventh position, but because of a crash in the GT AM field another caution period followed just two laps later.

A lengthy 34 laps later, race control eventually issued a drive-through penalty against the No. 284 Porsche team and Mayer, who served the penalty on the same lap and lost one lap in the process.

On lap 83 Mayer returned to the pit box, this time for the next scheduled pit stop under green flag and the team completed its obligatory driver change. The clock showed two hours remaining on the race, so it was up to Pascal Theis now to take on the second half of the race.

The Frankfurt, Germany native went back onto the track as quickly as possible but for the time being the strategy dropped the team far back to P11.

But thanks to accurate calculations and efficient driving, the plan worked out as the other teams started to complete their pit stops. On lap 107 Theis found himself running in fourth position in the GT PRO class.

“At that point we realized, we may have a shot at a good finish here today. We really focused on strategy from the start. The drive-through penalty hurt us sure, but it didn’t really make too much of a difference in the end. We were lucky that way.”, Theis added.

Lap by lap, Theis moved closed to P3 and by the time the 26-year-old returned to pit lane for the final pit stop of the race on lap 127, the margin had shrunk from originally twenty seconds down to just six.

Again, the team decided to take no tires and so Theis was able to maintain track position, even after the other teams completed their round of pit stops.

Roughly 45 minutes before the end, the third and final caution period stopped the race. The timing was perfect as it allowed Theis to take advantage of the wave-by rule and get one lap back.

Thanks to this, at the restart the No. 284 Porsche was now scored in third place. But the car was running on older tires and thus lost one position to Graham Sanders in the No. 30 BMW of Geodesic Racing.

Still, Theis gave it his all and he tried to fight back. But at the end, it was a strong fourth-place finish in GT PRO as Theis took the checkered flag at Mid-Ohio.

“To come back from that penalty and to finish fourth; I am really proud of that. Pascal was awesome again today. Everybody on the team has done a fantastic job. This was great teamwork.”

Fischer Motorsport now travels to Florida for the annual iRacing 24 Hours of Daytona, where the team will attempt to defend its win from 2020 (split 13). The next round of the IVRA Endurance Series takes place on February 20th at Virginia International Raceway.