Porsche Focused on Le Mans
Depending on what side of the motorsports fence you sit, the news that Porsche has turned down any involvement in the highly competitive, extremely unpredictable, and ridiculously expensive Formula 1 circuit in favour of competing at Le Mans could be music to your ears or a painful realization of fact.
But in either case, it’s easily understood. Only linked to production car technologies by the most tenuous of links, such factory backing of F1 rarely bears results for a brand’s vehicle lineup, unlike the Le Mans series. Tracing a long line through history, Porsche has already produced homologation specials like the amazing 911 GT1 and immortalized 917 for the series, and each of those cars brought new technology to the table that’s still trickling down through the model lineup.
According to CEO Matthias Mueller, this makes the Le Mans series quite appealing to Porsche, and he has gone on record to say that there’s a stronger possibility that Porsche may return the historic French endurance race soon. But, that may create a certain conflict amongst executives in the brand’s ownership offices at Volkswagen, where offspring Audi already enjoy tremendous success in the Le Mans series. Addressing this, Mueller has stated that he wants all Volkswagen brands to come together to produce a comprehensive motorsports plan for the near future, which with brands like Bugatti, Lamborghini, Audi, and Porsche in attendance, would make for some very interesting conversation indeed.
