PPM claimed victory in both the opening rounds of the IMSA SportsCar Championship at Daytona’s Rolex 24 and the World Endurance Championship in Qatar with its LMDh 963 prototype.
But Diuguid warned that its streak could end this Saturday, with the second round of IMSA’s so-called ‘36 Hours of Florida’ on the former airbase that’s renowned as a car breaker.
“Looking at the first two races of 2024, I think it’s one decision or choice by a driver and then we don’t finish where we did,” said Diuguid. “It was a tight race in Daytona and in Qatar we had some light drama with on-contact with another car, and I think if either of those situations goes a different way then we have different outcomes.
“As a group we have to be excited when things come together and we succeed, like in Daytona and Qatar, but we’ve got to keep pushing because it’s one mistake away from the wheels falling off – for the lack of a better description! – so we’ve got to keep focused and looking forward.
“Look what happened at Sebring last year: Dane [Cameron] got run into under yellow and the back of the car got torn off, and Nick [Tandy] had the fire extinguisher go off. So that all happened even before we got to leading the race with 30 minutes to go [before the big crash that took both cars out].”
Porsche’s Balance of Performance numbers have been changed by IMSA ahead of this weekend, the 963 being trimmed of 2kg to 1049kg, but it’s been stung by a 11kW (14bhp) power reduction.
“The car is performing very well at the moment, the team has got on top of a lot of things,” said Tandy. “We’re hopeful and done our homework, but there have been some changes in the BoP, so we’ll see. We go there in high spirits and with high hopes because we know how well prepared we are.”
When asked by Motorsport.com to compare the challenges between Daytona and Sebring, Tandy added: “Obviously they are very different racetracks. What’s required out of the cars differs a lot, the biggest difference being Daytona’s [track surface] flat as well as being fast.
“At Sebring, the speed of the car and how it works is dictated by riding the bumps. We’ve been to Sebring testing this year, along with some of the other teams, and we’ve obviously made progress from being there last year.
“It’s very difficult to tell from those tests how we compare to the others, we really won’t know until the race starts – that classic cliché! – and last year we struggled more in the day than we did in the evening.”
Cameron, who was on the Daytona-winning crew that included Felipe Nasr, Matt Campbell and Josef Newgarden, added: “As Nick said, we had a pretty good Sebring test and will arrive with a good benchmark, certainly good progress from the year before when it was difficult, but we still found ourselves in a good position at the end.
“Hopefully we can maintain our trajectory for the program at the moment.
“I think with what we’ve learned, and how we’ve honed in on how the car wants to operate, I feel like we’re in with a pretty decent chance. But everyone else is pushing and developing as well.”
