{"id":29437,"date":"2022-07-02T09:01:31","date_gmt":"2022-07-02T13:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/?p=29437"},"modified":"2022-07-02T09:01:31","modified_gmt":"2022-07-02T13:01:31","slug":"porsche-motorsport-team-penske-seek-daytona-le-mans-glory-with-porsche-963","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/porsche-motorsport-team-penske-seek-daytona-le-mans-glory-with-porsche-963","title":{"rendered":"Porsche Motorsport, Team Penske seek Daytona\/Le Mans glory with Porsche 963"},"content":{"rendered":"

The race for world sports car racing domination revved up in the last month as manufacturers Cadillac, BMW\u00a0and Acura unveiled concepts of their first hybrid race cars. But the Porsche program \u2014 run by Bloomfield Hills\u2019 legendary Team Penske \u2014 seems to be well ahead of everybody.<\/p>\n

Porsche Motorsport and Team Penske unveiled their 680-horsepower, 963 prototype race cars at Goodwood Festival of Speed this month in full racing livery with eight drivers and already 4,900 miles of testing to their credit.<\/p>\n

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It puts 85-year-old Roger \u201cThe Captain\u201d Penske in the driver\u2019s seat as he seeks to add the twin jewels of sports car racing \u2014 the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 24 Hours of Le Mans \u2014 to his already illustrious trophy case. Penske will field two factory cars for 2023 while Porsche also announced a private entry run by Minnesota JDC-Miller through its customer racing program. JDC-Miller has run Cadillac IMSA prototypes for the last four years.<\/p>\n

The 963 marks a return to glory for Porsche, which dominated prototype podiums in the 1970s to 1990s \u2014 establishing its reputation as one of the world\u2019s great performance brands.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the past few months, Porsche Motorsport and Team Penske have grown into an efficient and committed squad \u2014 the Porsche Penske Motorsport Team,\u201d said Porsche Motorsport LMDh chief Urs Kuratle. \u201cWe\u2019ll have powerful driver crews in the factory cars. The Porsche 963 should be homologated this autumn. Until then, we want to make further progress with test drives and gain additional insights.\u201d<\/p>\n

LMDh stands for Le Mans Daytona Hybrid and will replace the current DPi class next year in North America\u2019s IMSA series, where it will also be known as the GTP class. Cadillac and Acura compete in\u00a0DPi, with Cadillac winning at the Detroit Grand Prix in June.<\/p>\n

The new LMDh category has been endorsed by both IMSA and the international World Endurance Series, rekindling a global war of performance brands not seen for decades. The first-ever hybrid-powered prototype series \u2014 the world\u2019s fastest sports car class \u2014 offers an opportunity to prove brand superiority in electrification at a time when manufacturers are introducing battery-powered production cars.<\/p>\n

In addition to Porsche, Cadillac, BMW, Ferrari, Toyota, Peugeot and Acura,\u00a0Lamborghini and Alpine are expected to join in LMDh racing come 2024.<\/p>\n

While manufacturer cars and teams have been solidifying this summer, Porsche Penske Motorsport has been noticeably aggressive in getting its horses on track. The team\u2019s concept car was unveiled in May with a top-drawer driver lineup already putting test miles on the test mule.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a typically efficient Penske operation. They got started well ahead of anyone else,\u201d said veteran Hagerty racing correspondent Stephen Cole Smith in an interview. \u201cIf I were to put money on a team to win Daytona next January, I\u2019d put my money on Penske.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sleek\u00a0white, red and black machine took a run up the hill climb at Goodwood, trailing its signature, whispery exhaust note from a twin-turbo V-8.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re on a very good path but there is still work to be done before the start of next season,\u201d said Thomas Laudenbach, Porsche Motorsport vice president. \u201cOur new Porsche 963 should continue the legacy of legendary models such as the 917, 935, 956, 962 and the 919. I\u2019m positive that we\u2019ll be well-positioned for wins in the thrilling competition between many manufacturers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to its IMSA series debut next January, Porsche Penske Motorsport has targeted a noncompetitive dress rehearsal at the final\u00a0WEC round in Bahrain this November.<\/p>\n

Hagerty\u2019s Cole Smith said Penske\u2019s test schedule has allowed it to share technical information with IMSA, WEC and other teams proving the nascent hybrid technology that will be shared across brands. Under class rules, each manufacturer will campaign its own unique engine, but to reduce costs and encourage close racing, the hybrid system developed by Bosch, Xtrac and Williams Engineering will be common technology.<\/p>\n

At the wheel of the twin 963 will be\u00a0France\u2019s\u00a0K\u00e9vin Estre, Michael Christensen of Denmark, Andr\u00e9 Lotterer from Germany, Belgium\u2019s\u00a0Laurens Vanthoor, Aussie Matt Campbell, Mathieu Jaminet of France, American Dane Cameron\u00a0and reigning IMSA champion Felipe Nasr of\u00a0 Brazil.<\/p>\n

Porsche Penske Motorsport has established two race bases: one in Mooresville, North Carolina, for the IMSA series\u00a0and one in Mannheim, Germany, for the WEC.<\/p>\n

The LMDh chassis has ben developed for Porsche\u00a0by Canadian manufacturer Multimatic, which also developed the Ford GT for the Dearborn brand\u2019s Le Mans win in the GT class in 2016. Mated to the spec hybrid components will be a 4.6-liter, twin-turbo V8 based on the engine in Porsche\u2019s million-dollar 918 Spyder hypercar.<\/p>\n

Porsche and Team Penske last teamed up from 2005 to 2008 with the RS Spyder prototype that scored multiple victories. The design of the new Porsche 963 echoes that of the iconic 956 and 962 racers of the 1980s and early 1990s.<\/p>\n

Other suppliers of significance to the global program are tire manufacturer Michelin, Mobil1 oil, and software specialist Ansys. Sponsors include luxury watchmaker TAG Heuer, Hugo Boss clothing\u00a0and Puma.<\/p>\n

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The race for world sports car racing domination revved up in the last month as manufacturers Cadillac, BMW\u00a0and Acura unveiled concepts of their first hybrid race cars. But the Porsche program \u2014 run by Bloomfield Hills\u2019 legendary Team Penske \u2014 seems to be well ahead of everybody. Porsche Motorsport and Team Penske unveiled their 680-horsepower, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29437"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29438,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29437\/revisions\/29438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrypayne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}