Porsche eyes electric racing
NO MORE LMP1: BUT THE ICONIC MANUFACTURER WILL MAINTAIN FOCUS ON GT3 RACES
Formula E venues are street courses in major cities to bring racing to the fans.
From 2019, a Porsche factory team will compete in Formula E. As a result, the company will end its involvement in the LMP1 class of the World Endurance Championship at the end of this year.
Porsche will maintain its focus on international GT3 racing.
The company will concentrate on using the 911 RSR in the GT3 class of the World Endurance Championship, the highlight of which is the 24 Hours of Le Mans, plus the American IMSA SportsCar Championship and other classic long-distance races.
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 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 inhouse technology developments makes Formula E attractive to us,” says Michael Steiner 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 this year.
After three victories in a row at Le Mans plus World Championship titles in 2015 and 2016, Porsche will leave the LMP1 class behind.
Nevertheless, this year the works team from Weissach wants to defend the two World Championship titles one more time. The season ends on November 18 in Bahrain.
Porsche will keep the successful LMP1 team fully intact, includtwo ing the factory drivers.
Alongside ventures in other racing series and the intensive preparation for Formula E, Porsche is examining other fields of application and development.
Formula E is the world’s first purely electric racing series and was launched in 2014.
The International Automobile Federation, which is also responsible for Formula 1, has organised the series to make a statement in favour of electromobility and to get more young people excited about motorsport.
The race venues are specially designed street courses in the heart of major cities, meaning the sport comes to the spectators, and not the other way around.
The growing freedom for in-house technology developments makes Formula E attractive to us.
Michael Steiner of the Executive Board for Research and Development at Porsche AG