2 Austrians racing in the same car at Le Mans

2 Austrians will share the car with Dane, Michael Christensen, at the 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 18th-19th.

Philipp Eng will be joining Christensen and Richard Lietz, who are the full season drivers in the Dempsey Proton Racing number 77 in FIA WEC.

It’s purely for the 24 Hours classic that they will run 3 drivers, and otherwise just stick to the 2 normal drivers.

Eng has a lot of experience with Porsche cars. In 2015 he won both Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland and Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup, furthermore he has also participated in 24 Hours races at Nürburgring and Dubai. At Nürburgring he took a class win in 2015 as well.

Dempsey Proton Racing #77, Michael Christensen, Richard Lietz. Photo: JJ Media
Dempsey Proton Racing #77, Michael Christensen, Richard Lietz.
Photo: JJ Media

Christensen has raced against Eng before in Formula BMW Europe, which was a support series to Formula 1. Since then Eng competed in Formula 2, before he went for closed cars in 2011.

Dempsey Proton Racing #77 has had a tough season so far. At the opening race at Silverstone they finished 6th and last in class, and at Spa Francorchamps they finished 4th and last. The lap times are about 2 seconds of the newer Ferrari F488 and Ford GT cars, so they hope for a Balance Of Performance change before that race, since it has been two weekends in a row where they have been off the pace.

Dempsey Proton Racing #77, Michael Christensen, Richard Lietz. Photo: JJ Media
Dempsey Proton Racing #77, Michael Christensen, Richard Lietz.
Photo: JJ Media

Porsche has announced a brand new GTE car in 2017. They have only shown pictures of the front of the car, and all rumours are pointing towards a big change at the rear compared to a normal Porsche. A classic 911 has rear mounted engine, whereas that gives problems about weight destribution and rear aero on the car. Therefore it’s better to have a mid or mid-rear engine. A Porsche Cayman has that kind of construction and has already raced at Nürburgring during VLN and the N24 races.

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