Legendary German sports car maker Porsche will head into the 2014 global motor sport season with the most extensive programme in its history. In addition to the new factory LMP1 project, Porsche Motorsport will be sending two GT ‘works’ teams to compete on race tracks around the world.
The Porsche AG Team Manthey will once again field two Porsche 911 RSR race cars in the Sports Car World Endurance Championship (WEC), and also at Le Mans. At the same time, Porsche North America will also contest the new Tudor United Sportscar Championship with CORE autosport as the race team, the new season kicking off with the revered Daytona 24 Hours race in Florida on 25 January.
The driver squad at Porsche Motorsport has also grown to record size, and that too with some very skilled talent. For the upcoming season, Porsche has signed on 20 drivers including four Porsche juniors and a scholarship candidate chosen from the global Porsche Carrera Cup race series. All current Porsche factory drivers have received a contract for the 2014 season. “We’ve never had such a large driver line-up in the history of the company,” said Wolfgang Hatz, Board Member for Research and Development at Porsche AG. The Porsche 919 Hybrid will also be driven by 9-time GP winner Mark Webber of Australia.
Also, the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup will continue to run as part of the Formula 1 weekends. The successful partnership, which began back in 1993, has now been extended for another three years, up to and including the 2016 season.
If you are a fan of motorsport and a Porsche enthusiast, you can follow all these races from the company’s website.
Interesting Fact: Porsche can claim more than 28,000 race victories in almost every motor sports series worldwide, and while many of these successes have been achieved with immensely powerful specialist race cars like the evocative 917 and 956, the iconic 911 sports coupe is the bedrock on which the peerless racing reputation of the Stuttgart marque has been built.