STUTTGART, Germany — Porsche will be leaving the World Endurance Championship at the end of this season as it prepares to transition to competition in Formula E beginning in 2019.
Porsche will maintain its focus on international GT racing, and will also concentrate its motorsport strategy on using the 911 RSR in the GT class of the FIA World Endurance Championship, the highlight of which is the 24 Hours of Le Mans, as well as the American IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and other long-distance classics.
This realignment of motorsport is derived from the direction set out for the company in Porsche Strategy 2025, which will see Porsche develop a combination of pure GT vehicles and fully electric sports cars, such as the first fully battery-powered Mission E road car.
“Entering Formula E and achieving success in this category are the logical outcomes of our Mission E. The growing freedom for in-house technology developments makes Formula E attractive to us,” said Michael Steiner, Member of the Executive Board for Research and Development at Porsche AG. “Porsche is working with alternative, innovative drive concepts. For us, Formula E is the ultimate competitive environment for driving forward the development of high-performance vehicles in areas such as environmental friendliness, efficiency and sustainability.”
Porsche has already taken the first steps towards developing its own Formula E racing car.
At the same time, Porsche is increasing its commitment in the GT class.
“A diversity of manufacturers and the quality of both WEC and IMSA have led us to strengthen our commitment and concentrate our energies on using the 911 RSR”, says Steiner. “We want to be number one. To do that, we must invest accordingly.”.
After four highly successful years, three victories in a row at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and World Championship titles in both the team and driver classification in 2015 and 2016, Porsche will leave the LMP1 class behind after finishing this season.
“Building up the Le Mans team from scratch was a huge challenge,” said Fritz Enzinger, vice president of the LMP1 program. “Over the years, we have developed an incredibly successful and professional team. This will be our basis going forward. I am certain that we will maintain our high level in Formula E. Confidence is high, and we are excited to get started.”
Oliver Blume (Chairman of the Executive Board of Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG), Alejandro Agag (Founder & CEO of Formula E), Michael Steiner (Member of the Executive Board, Research and Development)
Formula E is the world’s first purely electric racing series and was launched on Sept. 13, 2014.
“I’m delighted to welcome Porsche to the FIA Formula E Championship,” said Alejandro Agag, founder & CEO of Formula E. “If somebody told me when we started this project five years ago, that we’d be announcing a partnership with a brand like Porsche, I wouldn’t have believed it. To have a name like Porsche in Formula E, with all it represents in terms of racing and heritage — and in terms of sport cars — is an inflexion point in our quest to change the public perception about electric cars. The electric revolution continues, and Formula E remains the championship for that revolution.”
Porsche’s move to Formula E comes one week after Mercedes announced it would field a Formula E operation. BMW, Renault and Jaguar are among the manufacturers already participating in Formula E.
Source : speedsport.com
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