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...
Kremer Porsche 935 K3 – chassis #930 890 0021 The Porsche 935 was the Stuttgart manufacturer’s answer to the FIA’s Group 5 class regulations, making it eligible for the World Championship of Makes. The first Porsche car in this so-called ‘Silhouette’ series, was introduced for the start of the 1976...
Le Mans 24 Hours, 12-13 June 2010 On the 2010 Le Mans starting grid before the race was the (foreground) #76 IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche 911 GT3 RSR driven by the familiar trio of Raymond Narac/Patrick Pilet/Patrick Long. The #76 car qualified in sixth place in class and 41st overall...
All lined up and ready for the group shot on 3 June 2017 on the occasion of the 24 Heures Du Mans Test weekend. The #2 Porsche 919 Hybrid will be driven by Timo Bernhard, Earl Bamber and Brendon Hartley Held on the weekend of 3-4 June 2017, the test...
Le Mans 24 Hours, 19/20 September 2020: The #57 Team Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR GTE Am driven by Jeroen Bleekemolen, Felipe Fraga and Ben Keating waits on the starting grid ahead of the race The Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO) revealed just yesterday, Tuesday 9 March 2021, the 62-strong entry...
The No. 8 Toyota (closest to the camera) leads the Hypercar class across the start line
Le Mans 24 Hours, Saturday 11 June 2022: The pre-race grid is packed with enthusiastic race goers Race day dawned with a blanket of morning mist covering the area. It was a crisp morning as I departed my accommodation to the east of Le Mans at around 07h15, and making...
Proven through competition Engineering, design, innovation; while the list is long for what describes the Porsche name, it can be distilled into one word; racing. Even before the days of cars that would bare his name, Dr. Ferdinand Porsche believed competition was the ultimate test for proving excellence in design...
The Porsche 917-001 will be shown in the Porsche Museum for the first time in its original condition My 2019 European Expedition had been organised for some months, which was to take in the WEC Spa-Francorchamps 6 Hours (1-4 May) followed by almost a week in Stuttgart (5-10 May). It...
Le Mans 24 Hours, 31 May-1 June 1986: Start of the race – Porsches dominate the lead group In Part 1, Stories from Le Mans – with a Porsche flavour, our intrepid scribbler who hails from that beautiful part of South Africa, the Western Cape, shares with us some hilarious...
Le Mans 24 Hours, 19/20 September 2020: The pre-race grid was a busy place despite the presence of the Covid-19 pandemic – note the empty grandstand The 2020 motor racing season will undoubtedly go down in history as the most unusual and disrupted year on record. Only twice has the...
This large poster announced the 50th anniversary of the first victory by the Porsche 917 at the 1970 Le Mans 24 Hour race It all started back in early March of 2020. I had a trip planned to visit the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, to conduct another extensive photo shoot...
I couldn’t quite pinpoint why, during the research and writing of this profile, that I kept hearing the Lennon/McCartney hit “Come Together” somewhere in the back of my head. I have often used the metaphor of how some of the most interesting motor racing tales are based on an almost...
Total 6 Hours of Spa‐Francorchamps, 4 May 2019: The #56 Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR being prepped in the pit garage ahead of practice on 2 May Project 1 burst onto the World Endurance Championship (WEC) scene at the start of the 2018 Super Season. We covered their arrival on...
© Hurley – From The Beginning (cover) There are just a handful of racing drivers that can list the number and quality of achievements that Hurley Haywood can. True, there might be more than a handful in total, but within each discipline of the sport, there are just a few...
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...
Porsche – The Golden Years: Leonardo Acerbi © Virtual Motorpix/Glen Smale It is always a pleasure when a top-quality book lands on my desk, so when Porsche – The Golden Years arrived at the Porsche Road & Race offices, I was especially pleased. We had the pleasure of reviewing Ferrari...
Porsche Sport 2017 – Gruppe C Motorsport Verlag If you follow Porsche motorsport around the world, then Porsche Sport 2017 is not a book you want to be without. In fact, if you read this book from cover-to-cover, you would be one of the most knowledgeable people around concerning the...
Porsche Sport 2018 – © Gruppe C Motorsport Verlag For those who follow Porsche motorsport closely, the 26th edition of the well-known annual, Porsche Sport 2018, is definitely a book you want on your bookshelf. I have sung the praises of these publications before today, and for good reason, but...
Porsche Sport 2019 – © Gruppe C Motorsport Verlag The 27th publishing of this superb edition of Porsche Sport 2019 by Gruppe C Verlag, opens with this paragraph, “The year 2019 marked exactly half a century since a new competition sports car from Porsche was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show....
Brian Redman – Daring Drivers, Deadly Tracks © EVRO Publishing Brian Redman is about as down-to-earth as they come, which for a top-flite racing driver, is not an attribute common to all who ply their trade in this field. I have had the pleasure of interviewing Brian on twelve occasions...
Le Mans 24 Hours, 14-15 June 1969: On the final lap, the No. 64 Porsche 908 LH of Hans Herrmann/Gérard Larrousse swapped places with the No. 6 Ford GT40 of Jacky Ickx/Jackie Oliver as many as five times. The two cars were so evenly matched that what the Ford lacked...
Richard Wiley at Le Mans 24H, 2019 PORSCHE ROAD & RACE is proud to announce that contributor Richard Wiley was recently honoured by the South African Guild of Motoring Journalists. Following his passion for writing on all things motoring and motorsport related over several decades, the honour of Fellow of...
Lined up in the pit lane before the 1994 Le Mans 24-Hours, is from the left: #36 962 Dauer Le Mans GT driven by Mauri Baldi, Yannick Dalmas and Hurley Haywood; centre is the street-legal 962 Dauer with rather appropriate Boeblingen region (Weissach) registration plate ‘P 962’; on the right...
DBR 9 – The Definitive History by Christoph Mäder and Thomas Gruber © T.A.G. Motor Books GmbH At Porsche Road & Race, we receive many books for review, and these include books on all manner of high performance roadgoing sports cars and motorsport. So, when the Aston Martin book, DBR...
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...
The Kremer Brothers, Erwin and Manfred, have been in the racecar preparation and construction business for nearly 40 years. Their names are virtually synonymous with Porsche racing machines, and they have won races and championships in GT, sports, prototype, IMSA, Group C, Porsche Cup and many other series over that...
Ferrari 333 SP – A Pictorial History 1993-2003: by Terry O’Neil © Dalton Watson Fine Books I first caught sight of the Ferrari 333 SP at Kyalami in Johannesburg, South Africa, in December 1998. It was hot, as Johannesburg is at that time of the year, but the track action...
Ben Baker in a relaxed mood ahead of the WEC Silverstone 6 Hours, 16 August 2018 PORSCHE ROAD & RACE has been out looking for some of the Porsche drivers and finding out what they have been up to during the Coronavirus lock-down that has affected most countries around the...
Le Mans 24 Hour, 15-16 June 2019: Jörg Bergmeister at scrutineering in the Place de la République, Le Mans city centre, 10 June 2019 PORSCHE ROAD & RACE caught up with the amiable Jörg Bergmeister, to ask him how he has been dealing with the Coronavirus lock-down. With all major...
Le Mans 24 Hour, 17-18 June 2017: Patrick Long being interviewed at Scrutineering on 11 June 2017. He drove the #93 Proton Competition Porsche 911 RSR California may seem like the ideal place on earth to live, with its legendary beaches, surf and laid back lifestyle, but they too are...
1970 Gulf Racing Porsche 917 K (chassis #917-024) If you would like to own a piece of motor racing history, no, make that a very significant piece of racing history, then pay attention. Porsche 917 K (chassis #917-024), once owned by the master of the 917 himself, Jo Siffert, was...
Highlights 962-010’: the very last works chassis to be used by the factory team Driven to 2nd place at Le Mans by Derek Bell, Hans Stuck and Klaus Ludwig Impeccable ownership history since sale by Porsche in 1989 Amazing time capsule condition, untouched since her last race Background Few cars...
A rare and iconic ex-Le Mans Porsche 550A Spyder will come under the hammer at Bonhams’ Scottsdale sale on 19 January 2018 in Phoenix, Arizona. Chassis #550A-0145 is the second-to-last 550A built and is a veteran of four world championship races while being campaigned as a works entry by Porsche...
Background The original 917 was developed by Porsche beginning in 1968 in anticipation of changes to FIA homologation rules allowing low-production prototypes to contest the 5.0-liter class of World Sports Car Championship competition. The flat-12-powered 917 claimed back-to-back victories at Le Mans while helping Porsche claim the 1970 and 1971...
The undisputed King The Porsche 917, conceived in the late 1960s, emerged from Porsche’s strategic intent to conquer the World Sportscar Championship, particularly the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This ambition materialized through exploiting a loophole in the homologation requirements, allowing the creation of a vehicle with unprecedented speed and...
Gérard Larrousse (2017) Former Porsche works driver, Gérard Larrousse, celebrates his 80th birthday on Saturday 23 May 2020. Gérard Gilles Marie Armand Larrousse was born in 1940 in Lyon, where his father ran a textile factory. “I was fascinated by motorbikes and sports cars from a young age but my...
1961 Porsche 718 W-RS Spyder ‘Grossmutter’ (chassis #047) photographed at the Porsche Museum, May 2019 The word unique is a much-overused word today, as it is applied, it seems, to just about anything that is produced in small numbers, or even just to enhance a claim about something unusual. In...
Porsche mourns the death of Hans Mezger – this photo was taken in 2007 It was with great sadness that the motoring and motorsport world learned last week of the passing of Hans Mezger, Porsche engineer extraordinaire. He died at the age of 90 years, having grown up and lived...
The homologation of the Porsche 935 exactly 50 years ago marks the moment when an idea became a fully-fledged racing machine. In 2026, the sports car manufacturer celebrates “75 Years of Porsche Motorsport,” reflecting on a vehicle that went on to dominate the World Manufacturers’ Championship and national and international...
Mark Webber being interviewed at the Geneva Motor Show 2014, on the occasion of the world debut of the Porsche 919 Hybrid Porsche’s return to the top category of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) was announced by Wolfgang Hatz, Porsche AG Board of Management Member for Research and Development, on...
Porsche Junior driver, Julien Andlauer, has made his mark in the Porsche Carrera Cup France series where he drives the #555 Martinet By Alméras. © Alexis Goure (2017) Writer Lucian Sonea sat down at the Le Mans Test day for an interview with Porsche Junior Julien Andlauer. The response from...
Starting his career in the early ’60s behind the wheel of a Mini, John Fitzpatrick quickly worked his way to the top echelons of the endurance racing world. From winning the British Saloon Car Championship, Fitzpatrick went on to factory rides with Ford and BMW, as well as notching up...
Porsches have scored a record 16 overall victories at Le Mans, 14 similar triumphs in the Rolex 24 at Daytona and eight 12-hour wins at Sebring, and upon all of them can be found the fingerprints of Norbert Singer. A 30-year-old graduate engineer with a Masters in Mechanical Engineer, Aviation...
Porsche 911 991.1 GT3 RS
Jean Behra following his accident at Caracas 3 November 1957 Staring out of period black and white photographs, Jean Behra’s handsome, but battered face tells its own story: a combative soul who seemed to thrive only when living on the ragged edge and for whom an exploit was either going...
American racer Jim Busby started his racing career, like most California k3ids, in hot rods and drag racing. However, in the coming years he would make the rare transition to road racing and would go on to become a two-time winner at Le Mans. Casey Annis recently spoke with him...
Autograph card signed by Jürgen Barth (ca. 1980) More books have been written about Porsche than any other car company so the publication in English of another tome is hardly headline news until you realise that the author, exceptionally, is a Porsche insider, but not just any insider. Jürgen Barth...
1981 Porsche Kremer 935 K4 – chassis #K4-01 In the mid-1970s, Porsche developed the 911 for racing, and in the process, it created the all-conquering 935. In 1978, Norbert Singer was responsible for building the ultimate factory 935, the Moby Dick 935/78, and although this race car had a very...
At the start of the 24 Hours of Le Mans
Le Mans 24 Hours, 15-16 June 2019: Race start, Saturday Endurance racing should be a test of sustained strength and stamina over a prolonged period of time. It is not a sprint, because that is a test of a race car’s high speed capability over a short distance, such as...
Ford Chicane during practice on 12 June 2019 on 12/06/2019 at the Le Mans 24H 2019 Before we arrived in Le Mans for the start of the 2019 week of activities, we knew that the weather was going to be very changeable. Unfortunately we got to our administrative registration too...
Pitlane exit Le Mans The more things change, the more they stay the same…someone famous once said. Perhaps the same can be said for the 2019 starting grid for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which will kick off tomorrow, Saturday 15 June, at 15h00. With the titles decided in...
Le Mans 24 Hours, 15-16 June 2019: The #93 factory Porsche 911 RSR driven by Nick Tandy, Earl Bamber and Patrick Pilet speeds past the pit lane exit in the early evening during Q2 on Thursday 13 June As the weekend of the original 2020 Le Mans 24 Hours approaches,...
Official group shot of the cars showing the full starting grid at Le Mans 24H
Le Mans race control tower and main grand stands ahead of Qualifying Practice on Wednesday – under heavy skies! Without doubt, this race is recognised as the most important, the most charged and the one that everyone who is anybody in endurance racing wants to drive in or watch from...
Officially licensed with the ACO, the organisers of the annual Le Mans 24 Hours race, this lavishly illustrated book is the seventh title in this decade-by-decade series. The series covers what has become the most important and celebrated endurance race on the international motorsport calendar, from its very beginning to...
Le Mans: The Official History 1960–69 by Quentin Spurring © Virtual Motorpix/Glen Smale This edition of Quentin Spurring’s fabulous series covering the Le Mans 24 Hours decade-by-decade, concerns the 1960s. Many will agree that the decade, 1960 to 1969, saw some of the most innovative race cars, and with relatively...
Le Mans: The Official History Of The World’s Greatest Motor Race 1980–89 This edition, spanning 1980-1989, covers one of the most exciting post war periods in motorsport. The 1960s and 1970s were of course both decades that were every bit as exciting, but the 1980s perhaps represents the final decade...
Le Mans 24 Hour, 16-17 June 2012: The #55 JWA-Avila Porsche 997 GT3 RSR driven by Paul Daniels, Joël Camathias and Markus Palttala gets the full attention of the team in the pits. This car would finish 33rd overall and eighth in the GTE Am class This feature, the second...
Le Mans 24 Hours, 18-19 June 2016: Frédéric Makowiecki, Jörg Bergmeister and Earl Bamber posted a DNF having completed 140 laps due to a suspension problem in the #92 Porsche 911 RSR This feature, the third in our four-part mini-series, picks up where we left off last time (Part 2:...
ADAC 24 Hours of Nürburgring, 22-23 June 2019: The #12 Manthey Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R (17) driven by Matteo Cairoli, Lars Kern, Otto Klohs and Dennis Olsen finished 4th overall This feature, the fourth in our mini-series, picks up where we left off last time (Part 3: 2013-2016) and...
A busy grid before the start of the Le Mans 24H race on 15 June 2019 – many thousands of fans and hangers-on pack the grid After the music had died down, and the last of the revellers had left the party that had just a few hours earlier welcomed...
Mr. Le Mans: Tom Kristensen by Tom Kristensen with Dan Philipsen © Glen Smale The interesting thing about racing is that nothing is certain. You can prepare yourself and the car perfectly, but then another car hits you or pulls out in front of you, and there is little if...
There has been much chatter on the Internet and on various social media platforms recently as to what would happen to the WEC in 2018. Well, to some extent, the wait is over as the FIA/ACO issued a press release last Friday at the Mexican round of the championship in...
Photography by Matty White Media. A supremely promising early phase of the World Endurance Championship in 2024 shone favorably on Porsche, where their Factory Hypercars were performing well. Customer Hypercars in the hands of Jota and Proton were dominating, and the GT3 entries run by Manthey were the toast of...
As we wave goodbye to 2018 and usher in a brand-new year, we look back on the top ten favourites that we were privileged to publish in the last twelve months. We have decided to bring you our top 10 from 2018 (in chronological order) to show you, our valued...
WEC Spa-Francorchamps 6 Hours, 5 May 2018: Pascal Zurlinden chats to a journalist during the ‘Meet the Team’ media session The evening before the opening round of the WEC season at Spa, Porsche Road & Race had the opportunity of chatting to Pascal Zurlinden, Director GT Factory Motorsports, about the 2018 Porsche...