Vettel emerged as a late contender to drive Porsche Penske Motorsport’s third 963 LMDh at La Sarthe following a profitable check at Aragon in March by which he accomplished round 600km.
The German producer delayed the announcement relating to its full Le Mans line-up, initially scheduled for the top of March, because it evaluated Vettel for one of many two remaining seats in its three-car manufacturing facility programme.
However after lengthy deliberation, it handed up the chance to signal Vettel, as a substitute retaining Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy to companion the previously-nominated Mathieu Jaminet within the #4 entry that will likely be operated by PPM’s IMSA SportsCar Championship squad.
However whereas Vettel will not get an opportunity to make his Le Mans debut in 2024, Porsche is maintaining the door open for the 36-year-old to symbolize the marque within the French endurance traditional within the coming years.
“For an OEM like Porsche, for an organization like Porsche, it has to stay a subject, that goes with out saying,” Porsche LMDh director Urs Kuratle informed Autosport’s sister title Motorsport-Whole.com.
“And for Sebastian, too. I feel he is up for it – he mentioned so himself after the check.
“That will likely be a subject, however when and in what kind it’ll come collectively stays to be seen. Nothing has been finalised in the intervening time.
Porsche had beforehand been coy about Vettel’s possibilities of racing its extra LMDh automobile for the blue riband spherical of the World Endurance Championship, solely saying that no choice has been made at that time.
Sebastian Vettel, Porsche 963
Photograph by: Porsche Motorsport
Requested forward of this weekend’s Spa spherical as to why Vettel wasn’t signed by the crew, Kuratle mentioned: “The scenario didn’t come up. There is no such thing as a perpetrator on this query. I feel that is truly the case, it did not occur. That did not occur.”
In the course of the LMP1 period of the WEC, Porsche signed one other German driver Nico Hulkenberg for its third automobile at Le Mans whereas he was nonetheless lively in F1 with Power India.
Hulkenberg went on to take a memorable win for Porsche in 2016 within the 919 Hybrid he shared with Tandy and Earl Bamber, the primary for the Stuttgart-based marque since its return to the WEC the earlier yr and seventeenth total.
Nevertheless, modern-day LMDh automobiles that compete within the Hypercar class are a lot slower than their LMP1 predecessors, whose efficiency was not very removed from the grand prix automobiles of that point.
Kuratle defined that it is a lot more durable for F1 drivers to adapt to the WEC in 2024 than it was a couple of decade in the past, with LMDh and LMH automobiles of right this moment weighing over 1000kg.
“The most important distinction in the intervening time might be the load,” he mentioned.”
“The automobiles are each very complicated, they’re simply totally different when it comes to design. I feel the most important distinction, you retain listening to, is that.
“One massive distinction is that the pure car weight is one other one. An enormous distinction can also be that we drive at evening, that now we have totally different massive velocity variations from all courses that you just encounter on the monitor.
“That is in all probability the case. These are the most important variations.
“I simply do not assume it was the entire thing earlier than. Meaning he [Vettel] wants some [more] time to get used to it in [than in] the previous.”