Porsche is being repaired for WEC races!

Giving up is something you don’t get at Manthey-Porsche. Not even after Alexander Malykhin’s brutal accident during WEC qualifying on Friday in Spa-Francorchamps. The Belarus native lost control of the #92 Porsche 911 GT3 R in the infamous Eau Rouge/Raidillon passage and hit the tire wall on the right side at high speed. Malykhin was on his first push lap, and the tires were probably not quite in the optimal window yet.

“For a road car, one would speak of a total economic loss,” says Nicolas Raeder, managing director of Manthey Racing GmbH, when describing the extent of the crash Motorsport-Magazin.com. Despite the big moment of shock, the most important news first: Malykhin is “doing well given the circumstances,” explains Patrick Arkenau, Head of Racing at Manthey Racing GmbH. “He has been cleared by the doctors to take part in the race.”

Manthey emergency plan: spare parts donor comes from Meuspath

Of course, the 36-year-old bronze driver and his teammates Joel Sturm and Klaus Bachler (“The impact was brutal”) need the appropriate support for the third race of the season (race starts on Saturday at 1:00 p.m., live from 5:00 p.m.). Sport1 on free TV). Unsurprisingly, the Porsche used so far is no longer usable in this form; the damage after the rear impact was too severe.

While qualifying was still underway, the Manthey operations team rang the bell at the track in Meuspath, around 115 kilometers away, to initiate the “emergency plan” for such cases, as Raeder describes it. Arkenau explains: “We solved it in a very structured and coordinated way, so that someone in Meuspath drove off straight away with a spare part donor. While the hypercar qualifying was still going on, everything was already underway.”

This is how the Manthey Porsche is repaired after the spa accident

The proximity between the traditional Belgian circuit near the border and the local team factory in the Eifel could probably be described as a blessing in disguise. The teams in the Endurance World Championship do not have replacement cars like those used in previous motorsport heydays, the so-called ‘T-Cars’. Raeder: “It’s not the case that there is a completely wrapped, second WEC car that can simply be replaced. It is the basic chassis of another car.”

The ambitious Manthey team is in for a long night, because the ‘#92 Porsche 2.0’ is being built from the few usable parts of the original car, spare parts on the track and other parts from the approaching spare parts donor in order to be ready for use again the next day . “We won’t be finished at eight o’clock today,” Raeder smiles slightly during our conversation in the evening.

Porsche should drive “100 percent as it did before the accident”

The Manthey team’s aim is clear: despite the extensive repair work, the Porsche should perform just as well on race Saturday as it did before the qualifying accident. The bar is set high, after all Malykhin had maneuvered the car into first place on the timesheets in the third free practice session on Friday morning and was counting on good chances for the remainder of the race.

Arkenau is self-confident and equally aware of the capabilities of the long-standing Porsche factory team: “The aim and motivation is that the car drives tomorrow 100 percent the way it drove today. The cars are now very easy to adjust, that’s something different Number than 10 or 15 years ago.” Raeder says: “That’s our claim, but it’s not completely self-evident.”

Manthey-Porsche leads the WEC championship table

Before the From Manthey’s point of view, Porsche can hopefully build it overnight and compete in the 6-hour race. There is still one regulatory hurdle waiting: the car has to go through the complete scrutineering, i.e. technical inspection, before the start of the race. This involves checking whether the 911 is safe and complies with all aspects of the regulations. This process usually happens at the start of a race weekend.