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Mark Weber’s New Car

Topics: Mark Weber

Mark Weber’s New Car

Geoff Maxted
DriveWrite
October 27, 2013

After more than a decade, Porsche is returning to the LMP1 class of the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2014. And to the toughest race of all, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

A unique and successful history links Porsche with Le Mans. 2014 will see Porsche making a return to the top category of the Le Mans race with two LMP1 prototypes - 16 years after its last overall victory in 1998 with the Porsche 911 GT1. For Porsche, the coming year will mark the start of a long-term commitment to the WEC - no wonder they recruited Aussie Mark. In addition to the 24-hour endurance race, Porsche will also participate in seven 6-hour races with the LMP1 prototype.

The new set of rules that apply to the WEC for 2014 require works teams to use the latest hybrid drive technology. The aim of the new rules for the upcoming season is a significant reduction in fuel consumption among the racing cars taking part. The new Porsche LMP1 therefore needs to boast optimum fuel efficiency while delivering maximum performance. With this in mind, the race engineers are actually facing the same challenge as their colleagues who work on development of series production vehicles. Racing cars and road-going production vehicles are being jointly developed at the Porsche Development Centre in Weissach, with both sets of engineers regularly comparing notes.

Porsche have a successful history in the world's most challenging long-distance races so to follow the preparations of the LMP1 team ahead of its appearance at the WEC and the 24 Hours of Le Mans race, visit www.porsche.com/mission2014. A host of exciting images, films, background information and even a multimedia journey through Porsche's motor sports history await visitors on the homepage.