Asia’s underdogs take on the might of the GT factories

Asked about his ambitions for the privateer HubAuto Racing Porsche squad that has made the brave step of taking on the GTE Pro factory teams at Le Mans this year, team principal and owner Morris Chen doesn’t mince his words. “To be one of the greatest GT sports teams in the world,” Chen replies. “Certainly, the greatest Asian GT sports team.”

With three manufacturers – Porsche, Ferrari and Chevrolet – each fielding two cars, there will be stiff competition for a team primarily staffed by a Taiwanese, Malaysian and Australian crew that has only one previous Le Mans start, in the Am class with a Ferrari.

Headed up by Aussie team director Philip Di Fazio, who rose to prominence engineering Heikki Kovalainen and Will Power in their British Formula 3 days with Fortec, HubAuto’s greatest success to date has come in GT3 competition. In 2019, it won the California 8 Hours round of SRO’s Intercontinental GT Challenge at Laguna