Photo: JEP/SRO
HubAuto Racing is “starting from zero” in the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa after the team completed a near-complete car rebuild to tackle grip issues after qualifying, Laurens Vanthoor explained.
Vanthoor, Kevin Estre and Patrick Pilet qualified 44th aboard the No. 992 Porsche 911 GT3 R on Thursday as part of a difficult weekend for the Taiwanese squad that has seen it grapple with various issues.
The team’s troubles began when a temperature spike during Wednesday’s pre-event parade led the team to change the engine on the car out of precaution.
As Vanthoor explained, things went from “bad to worse” during qualifying, where the No. 992 Porsche fell nearly two seconds behind the No. 163 GRT Grasser Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 on average.
“We were never the quickest car or the quickest Porsche but we weren’t miles off neither,” Vanthoor said.
“But it simply got from bad to worse I’d say, until all of a sudden qualifying it was shocking how bad it was.
“44th, almost two seconds off the pace. At that time there was only warmup left so there was no time anymore to try and figure out what it was or to isolate the issue.
“So together with Porsche we just decided to rebuild the car from scratch, pretty much change out everything. That’s where we’re at.”
Vanthoor indicated that grip issues were predominantly to blame for the troubles.
“There were some things we found out now which improve the handling, but not just that,” he said.
“We were just lacking grip. We had no grip compared to other cars. The car didn’t drive perfectly at all, but not that bad that you would be two seconds off the pace.
“We just were not getting the grip from from the tire from the asphalt to the car that was our main issue.”
Vanthoor explained that “pretty much everything besides chassis and gearbox has been rebuilt or has been checked or opened,” with the work being carried out prior to Friday evening’s warmup session.
“Now the thing is, we start from zero,” he said.
“We now pretty much start with a car which we don’t know. The standard setup recommended by Porsche, fine-tuned a bit and that’s it.
“That’s how we’re going to roll out for the race. We’re hoping we’ll be alright but we don’t know.”
Vanthoor noted that HubAuto’s trials were worsened by the fact that it is a one-off entry from Asia, which puts the team at the disadvantage against the regular squads from Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup.
Notably, HubAuto is one of the only teams in the paddock operating out of a container, with most other squads working out of trucks.
He predicted that the opening hours of the race will determine in what shape the car will be and whether or not HubAuto will be able to have a competitive run.
“It’s definitely not the ideal way to go and win this race,” Vanthoor said.
“There’s always still hope that we roll out and the car will be in the window and we will come back.
“There will be crazy weather maybe or mixed weather which maybe will give us opportunities.
“That’s the ideal scenario but it might be that we roll out and we haven’t solved it. It’s also a realistic possibility.”
