WEC Silverstone 6 Hour, 18 April 2014: Maiden outing for the #20 Porsche 919 Hybrid driven by Mark Webber/Timo Bernhard/Brendon Hartley. This is the car during the FP1 session Following a fifteen-year absence from the top tier of prototype racing on the world stage, Porsche officially returned to the LMP1...
WHEN the F.I.A. changed the regulations in the middle of last year governing sports prototype racing, it didn’t give a fair chance to the two long-distance races early in the year at Daytona and Sebring to obtain a very good entry. With the demise of the giants the Porsche team...
Works Porsche 956 – The Definitive History: by Serge Vanbockryck – © Porter Press International I met the author, Serge Vanbockryck, a good number of years back at the Le Mans 24 Hours, and since then I have known him to be the quiet, hardworking PR manager for the Chev...
Derek Bell initially made a name for himself, racing in open-wheeled cars including Formula 2 and Formula 1. However, it is long-distance sports car racing, particularly in Porsches, where Bell forged his legacy as a champion with five overall victories at Le Mans, three victories in the 24 Hours of...
Motor racing has always involved risk for the drivers, and sometimes for spectators too, as was seen to horrific effect The chaotic scene just after the #88 car of Huhn/Schwarz crashed at the Nürburgring in 1970. Photo: Porsche Werk in the disaster that occurred at the 1955 Le Mans 24...
Rallye Paris-Dakar 1984: Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2 4×4 (Type 953) – driven by (from L-R) #175 Jacky Ickx, #176 René Metge, #177 Roland Kussmaul For many years, the éminence grise of Porsche’s competition department, but now in retirement, Roland Kussmaul seems busier than ever. He left Porsche officially at the...
#5 Porsche 908/3 – Juan Fernandez/Francesco Torredemer/Eugenio Baturone – NRF The 1972 season broke, ushering in with it a new era of racing. The Porsche 917 had reigned supreme for two years, but the race authorities (read FIA) had had their fill of Porsche interpreting the rules their way, and...
Le Mans 24 Hours, 13-14 June 1970: A jubilant Hans Herrmann and Richard Attwood are given a ride on the back of a truck as they celebrate Porsche’s first victory in the French endurance race There are three Sports Car endurance races that have been run over the past sixty-plus...
Le Mans 24 Hour, 10/11 June 1978: The Porsche 935/78 ‘Moby Dick’ pulls away at the start of the race – this car was third fastest in qualifying Dick Barbour went to Le Mans as an entrant for the first time in 1978. He entered two Porsche 935s at the...
Porsche 935-78 Moby Dick (chassis 935/78.006 ), photographed at the Porsche Warehouse in May 2017 Group 5 rules offered manufacturers a great deal of freedom to modify their cars in the Silhouette class. At Porsche, Norbert Singer pushed the rules to the limit, and gave us the Porsche 935/78 Moby...
The ‘white, red and blue’ 956 LHs line up at Weissach ready for their onslaught at the Le Mans 24-Hour 1982 The decline of Group 6 and the growth of Group C saw the emergence of what is today widely regarded as the most entertaining and successful era in modern...
The 1977 #40 Martini Porsche 935/2.0 Baby (chassis #935 2 001) photographed at the Porsche Museum, Stuttgart, Germany in May 2017 Ernst Fuhrmann’s requirement to develop a significantly updated GT race car in 1977, would present a number of challenges for the Porsche race department. Just to make things interesting,...
Words by Kevin Ehrlich & Mary Fischer / Images by Amy Lerner, Dakar and Porsche During public health restrictions that shuttered workplaces, restaurants, museums and even outdoor recreation areas, many retreated behind closed doors. Some intensified their work-out regimes while many logged couch time binge-watching their favorite television series. Others...
With the dawning of the 1982 season, the introduction of the Group C era ushered in a new breed of closed race cars that conformed to an 800kg minimum weight requirement amongst a host of other dimensional and fuel consumption regulations. In many ways, Group C which rand for more...
Le Mans: The Official History 1970–79 by Quentin Spurring © Virtual Motorpix/Glen Smale This edition of Quentin Spurring’s fabulous series covers the 1970s in his well-known and valuable decade-by-decade history of the Le Mans 24 Hours endurance race. The decade from 1970 to 1979, certainly saw some of the most...
In 1977, Porsche’s “improvised” Type 936/77 took on the full-court press of four Renaults at Le Mans. Retirements and technical troubles suggested that winning was out of the question. But neither its drivers nor Porsche number 4 believed that. Against strong opposition from Alpine-Renault and Alfa Romeo, Porsche took the...