The opening race of the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship season in Qatar saw Porsche dominate with its 963 prototype. The German manufacturer scored the first pole position and win for an LMDh car in WEC history, recorded the fastest lap by some margin and left the others literally in its dust.
Australian driver Matt Campbell, recently part of the winning Porsche crews at the Daytona 24 Hours and Bathurst 12 Hour, recorded the fastest lap time in the 10-hour race of 1m39.748s. His No. 5 Porsche was the only car to break the 1m40s barrier, and went nearly a second quicker than the sister Penske-run car, which won the race and recorded a best lap of 1m40.592s. Porsche filled the top three positions, and the eyes immediately turned towards the WEC’s new balance of performance system which takes some details of the process behind closed doors. However, there were a few mitigating circumstances to this early-season result, which have to be explained before getting into the BoP.
The first was that the track particularly suited the 963 and its aero performance window. The smooth surface, with low-degradation tarmac, played into the Porsche’s hands. The minimum race weight of the car, at 1048kg per the BoP table, was higher than the Peugeot 9X8 at 1030kg and the Cadillac V-Series.R at 1032kg. But it was still lighter than the Ferrari 499P (1075kg) and Toyota GR010 Hybrid (1089kg). On a track that was particularly sensitive to the weight of the car, Porsche had an a...