Four 991 RSRS to battle Le Mans

Huge factory effort for 2018 race despite withdrawal of LMP1 team

Porsche Motorsport has announced a comprehensive GT programme for the 2018 season, the highlight of which will be a four-fold factory effort in the GTE-PRO class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June. In response to its LMP1 team withdrawing from the WEC, Weissach says that its two 911 RSR cars from the Us-based IMSA Weathertech Championship will cameo in France alongside two cars from its regular WEC GT team.

No less than twelve Porsche works drivers will thus be spread among the four factory

RSRS, with a third of those – Earl Bamber,

Timo Bernhard, Nick Tandy and Romain Dumas – having previously won the prestigious race outright. Meanwhile, in the GTE-AM class, a number of teams will do battle in the 2017-spec, mid-engined RSR, after Porsche announced it had already sold seven examples to customer teams (the car was only piloted by factory squads in its debut campaign last year). One of the customer teams thought to have purchased an RSR is the British-based Gulf Racing team, home of Total 911 columnist Ben Barker.

Porsche is keen to offer a firm commitment to worldwide GT3 racing following its switch to electric-only Formula E from 2019 and, aside from its WEC and IMSA factory efforts, will offer three factory drivers to local privateer teams in each round of the Intercontinental GT3 Challenge. This means Dirk Werner, Romain Dumas and Frédéric Mackowiecki will be able to compete for the driver’s title in the 2018 season.

There has been no official changes announced to Porsche’s works driver lineup for 2018, though former LMP1 driver Brendon Hartley has confirmed he has signed for Formula One team Torro Rosso and will commit to a full season in the sport for 2018. The New Zealander has nevertheless been named as a works driver at Porsche.