Meet the series: do you know what “shakedown” is?
Every Wednesday of racing weeks is shakedown day for Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge. But do you know what is it?
Shakedown, in English, is a period of testing or a trial journey undergone by the car before being declared ready to race. Shakedown, therefore, is the term used to define the tests on track, aiming to verify the conditions and settings of the car right after its mechanical repairs or installation of new components. At Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Brasil, a series formed by a single team responsible to maintain and equalize all the cars on the grid, this is a task of fundamental importance.
The process
Right after returning from the race, each and every car of the series surpasses a minucious process of repair at our headquarters. After revising every part of the car (like suspension, transmission, engine and alignment), there is the last piece of the process: the shakedown.
The shakedown is only done during the week right before the next race, thus using the same track that the drivers will race just three days later. In this process engineers, mechanics and consultant drivers from the series take active part. Nowadays, Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Brasil has Max Wilson, Nonô Figueiredo, Beto Gresse and Vinicius Quadros, among others, as the drivers who take the cars to the track and return the engineers valuable information about performance and endurance.
In posse of this information, engineers and consultant drivers decide together if the car is ready and balanced or if it should return to boxes to any other adjustment.
Why doing the shakedown?
Second to Enzo Morrone, chief engineer at Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge, “the shakedown is important to guarantee the leveling of performance of all the cars, as well as being sure that drivers will receive their equipment on perfect conditions”.
To a team responsible for delivering all the cars of the grid in identical conditions of performance and balance, the shakedown is a fundamental part of the process. Therefore, after a complete Wednesday of testing, all the cars of Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Brasil are completely ready to be taken to the limit by the drivers for the whole weekend. And the most important: with the guarantee that all the cars will deliver a strictly identical performance and provide equal disputes from the beginning to the end of the races.
