Proton Competition celebrated its best performance and result of the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship campaign to-date in Brazil earlier this month, as Neel Jani, Nicolás Varrone and Nico Pino steered the customer #99 Porsche 963 Hypercar to a top ten finish.
Former FIA WEC LMGTE Am class champion Varrone served signal of intent in FP3 by lapping seventh-quickest behind the wheel of the German prototype, prior to securing a season-best 12th on the grid in qualifying, missing out on advancing to the Hyperpole shootout by a scant 0.067s.
In the Rolex 6 Hours of São Paulo the following day, Pino produced a composed and confident opening stint to keep the Proton Porsche firmly in the hunt for points, before 2016 world champion Jani drew upon all of his skill and experience during the middle phase of the race to solidify the squad’s position, climbing as high as sixth in the process.
In the final stages, Varrone then took to the cockpit and again showed what he is capable of as he delivered an assured drive. In a tense battle with the pair of factory Ferraris around the Autódromo José Carlos Pace, the 24-year-old Argentine ace kept his cool, pulling off a decisive overtake in the closing hour to secure tenth place at the end of a trouble and error-free run.
The result represented Proton Competition’s first points finish in the series in over a year, with Varrone posting the race’s tenth-best lap time for good measure – faster than recent 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Robert Kubica and defending world champions Kévin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor – as Jani backed that up with the 14th-quickest effort amongst the 47 high-calibre Hypercar drivers.
“It was a great result for us and I think we can be really proud of our performance,” commented Buenos Aires native Varrone. “It was an excellent race and, although it was difficult with the tyres, we were really happy with the finish.”
“We’ve learnt a lot over the last few races and made good progress,” added team-mate Pino. “We now have a better understanding about how we need to set up the Porsche 963, and while we can still improve one or two details, we are even more optimistic about the future.”
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