Porsche announces LMP1 car for 2014

Porsche must be tired of seeing Audi winning at Le Mans. The company, which has not had an overall win at Le Mans since 1998, released a statement today stating they will return to Le Mans in 2014 with an LMP1-class car. 

Like always Porsche would not enter, if they did not intend to win. “Motorsport was always an essential part of the Porsche brand. So for us it was only a matter of time before we returned as a factory to the top league of racing. Porsche’s successes in Le Mans are unrivaled. We want to follow up on this with the 17th outright victory,” said President of the Executive Board at Porsche Matthais Müller. 

Hartmut Kristen, Head of Porsche Motorsport, did reveal that the new car could be a hybrid. “After the conclusion of our works-supported sports prototype programme in the American Le Mans Series we have kept up with the latest technological advances. Now we will begin with detailed research in order to evaluate the various concept alternatives for our new car. These obviously depend on how the regulations for the year 2014 look in detail. In principle, these regulations are interesting for us because the integration of our hybrid technology in the vehicle concept is one possible option,” he said. 

The idea of a hybrid-powered Porsche prototype makes sense given its recent development of the GT3 Hybrid. 

Porsche did give any other hints about the specifications of the new car, nor did they provide any pictures of it. 

Automobile Club de l'Ouest, the organization that determines specifications for race cars at Le Mans, have not yet decided on specific rules for the 2014 season. In 2010, it did make a statement about how it would like to see the rules change for 2014. The ACO would like to see a set quantity of energy be given to each car. Teams would then be limited to that amount of fuel for the race. It would also like to see the introduction of new powerplants and smaller, lighter cars. These rules have not been made official, but may signal what we could see from the new Porsche.