Racecar Engineering – September 2019

10 http://www.racecar-engineering.com SEPTEMBER 2019

GTE – PORSCHE 911 RSR

P

orsche used the Goodwood Festival

of Speed in July to launch its new

Le Mans contender, a racecar which

sure does have a lot to live up to. Its

predecessor, launched just two years ago, has

won the world championship title in both GTE

Pro and Am this year and is on course to secure

the titles in the IMSA series in the US. It was also

victorious at Le Mans in 2018.

Little wonder then that some suggest it is

probably good enough to do another year, and

they may be right. But Porsche did not want to

stand still and in the 2019 version of the 911

RSR GTE it has developed a car that is ’95 per

cent’ new, according to director of GT Factory

Motorsport at Porsche, Pascal Zurlinden.

Fundamentally, though, it is still similar to

its predecessor, although the team has targeted

driveability and reliability as its development

focus. To this end it had already completed a

30-hour test and more than 6000km of track

running before it was launched. It made its

track debut at the WEC pre-season test in

Barcelona in July, and will race for the first

time at Silverstone for the opening race of the

2019/20 season at the beginning of September.

The US debut will be in Daytona in January.

The launch of the new Porsche comes at

an interesting time for the category, a time of

change and also uncertainty, which has led to

both McLaren and Lamborghini pulling the

plug on planned GTE programmes. Much of

this uncertainty is to do with the regulations,

particularly in the top class in the WEC. There

was actually a proposal to make the GTE cars

the top class, removing their restrictions based

around the BoP, but this has been rejected in

favour of the new hypercar concept. This has

also had a dramatic impact on the GTE class, as

hypercars is essentially now the top GT category,

as it based on road-going dream cars.

Class warfare

This has left the GTE category in something of

a quandary. Not only is it expensive, factory

racing, but it is now not even the top GT class,

and so questions at board level are sure to be

asked. BMW and Ford have both stopped their

GTE programmes in the world championship

(although they are continuing in the IMSA

series at least until the end of this year and

BMW has not signalled an intent to leave the

class). Aston Martin has announced that it will

support the new hypercar top class with its

Valkyrie, which calls into question the future

of its Vantage GTE programme, while Ferrari

continues to run its GTE programme through

its Corsa Clienti division, which is for customers,

and is not a full factory effort.

More positively, Corvette is expected to

launch its new contender before the end of the

year, and we expect to see it racing next season,

while Porsche has bitten the bullet and created

the car featured here in time for the 2019/

FIA WEC season. These are strange times for

the category that has proven to be the best in

manufacturer motorsport for many years, then,

and the threat to GTE comes not only from

above, with the hypercar, but also from below,

with GT3 regulations now becoming more

robust, as this enjoys manufacturer interest

at some of the biggest races in the world,

including the Spa 24 hours where almost half

the grid was full factory participation.

Transatlantic racer

So as things stand Porsche is the only marque

committed to the GTE category on both sides

of the Atlantic. It will run two cars in the WEC

and another two in IMSA, and has had to design

its 911s with versatility in mind, catering to the

Porsche has had to design its new 911 with versatility in mind,catering

to the many different surfaces on which these cars will need to race

The new 911 GTE car completed a 30-hour test at Paul Ricard in June, racking up 6000kms without any technical problems. It will make its race debut at Silverstone in September