Le Mans / WEC – 4 cylinders and battery for Porsche

Ça y est, à l’issue d’une séance d’essais menée au Portugal, à Portimao, Porsche en a terminé avec les essais 2013 de sa LM P1. Une voiture qui, selon nos sources (see Ah n°1939, currently on newsstands and available here in digital version), could be called “919 R Hybrid”. After having kept the technical details of its future weapon secret, the Stüttgart firm revealed a little more this evening. The car will be equipped with a four-cylinder gasoline engine with direct injection coupled to two energy recovery systems. The recovered energy will be stored in a battery (in accordance with what we revealed to you in preview at the beginning of September, see Ah n°1925). An electric motor which will be connected to the front axle.

“Between the first run of this new car in June and now we have made significant progress, underlines Fritz Enzinger, head of the firm's LM P1 project. Each kilometer traveled was important, providing us with new data allowing us to move the development forward. The entire team worked very hard and I would like to sincerely thank them for that. Our efforts will continue to be like this in 2014. Until the season opens in mid-April at Silverstone, there is a lot to do. »

Since June, the team has run its latest creation at Magny-Cours (France), Monza (Italy), Paul-Ricard (France) as well as the Eurospeedway at Lausitz (Germany) before finishing at the 'Portimao Algarve Autodrome. In Portugal, the emphasis was placed on suspensions and tire tests. “We always knew it was not going to be easy to return to the highest level of theEndurance after 16 years of absence, recognizes Wolfgang Hatz, head of Research and Development. Therefore, the efforts put into the development of the new LM P1 have been immense. On this point, our Weissach engineers, the drivers, and the entire team were very efficient. »

The next tests of the Porsche LM P1 are now scheduled for January. By then, perhaps Marc Lieb and Brendon Hartley will have been confirmed alongside Mark Webber, Romain Dumas, Timo Bernhard and Neel Jani.