Carpokes Porsche Forum

IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Releases 2025 Schedule

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IMSA Photo

Autoweek:

"Rumor Mill in Hyperdrive After Ganassi Says It's Leaving Cadillac GTP Program"


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IMSA

Penske and Porsche most definitely have their sights set for an overall win and more at this year's Le Mans 24.

Autoweek:

"Headed into Le Mans on June 15-16, the WEC team of Penske has helped propel Porsche to a hefty 23-point lead in the manufacturer’s championship over Toyota after a season-opening victory. In the driver’s championship, The Penske drivers of the No. 06 Porsche—Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Andre Lotterer—have a 22-point lead over Porsche customer drivers Will Stevens and Callum Ilott of Team JOTA and a 46-point margin on the closest Toyota challengers in third place—Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries."

"Once again, Porsche Penske Motorsport has entered three 963s at Le Mans in pursuit of the manufacturer’s first victory since 2017 and a long sought first overall victory by Penske."


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Eurasia Sport Images//Getty Images

2024 Le Mans 24 Provisional Entry List:

Three Porsche 963 Hypercars from Penske plus two more from JOTA and a sixth 963 entered by Proton.

And in LMGT3, Manthey has two Porsche 911 GT3R entries.

Nürburgring 24 hour race is the best motorsport event I have ever attended. The 2024 race is tomorrow but quali is now done. I watched the live top quali a few minutes ago. Here is the link. Some great times here and of course 24.5km is a long lap- you can seen some of the elevation changes here too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny3aGeC5Fdg

As a live event it does not re-scroll to the beginning when it is over, so just scroll it back to the left.

It's always a treat to view in-car footage from Nürburgring.

The 24 there must be quite the race - lots of competitors too. 125 entries or thereabouts, correct?

I believe 130.
I was there in 2010 and hooked up with Hans Stuck who was driving for Audi that race and asked the team if I could come it, had the full run of the pits and could walk outside to the cars during the race ( keeping out of the way)...A simply amazing race and place. Going there again in September;

A few shots from that experience:

There was the then new 997.2RS entered by Porsche and completely stock apart from racing regulatory stuff like roll cage. Walter Röhrl was meant to drive it but he hurt his back. However the team went on and the car finished 13th overall which was a great performance agains the full race cars; The team included some journalists like Chris Harris:

Wandering around the pits I could see the car coming in at dawn for driver change : :

Lots of celebration after..including Andreas Preuninger:


However the big thing for Porsche was the first ever hybrid they had entered. They nearly won, but from the lead try late in the race they had a gearbox failure;

Hans-Joachim Stuck had been a three time Le Mans 24 winner for Porsche in the 956 days, but was only racing occasionally.
This would prove to be his last race I believe...his Audi R8 was hit during the night by a spinning VW and had a head injury. He is fine now.
Bowing to his co driver for a great quali lap!:) Sabine retired with clutch trouble: Porsche kindly held back the 7.2 RS after the race so I could take some pics of it with my own 7.2; you can see how much damage the N24 delivers:

Great pics! I know it had to have been a lot of fun being right there in the middle of it all.

blueline wrote: Fri May 31, 2024 1:57 pm Great pics! I know it had to have been a lot of fun being right there in the middle of it all.

One of the greatest motor racing experiences I have ever had. Seeing the cars coming in at dawn was amazing. There was a video feed in the hospitality tent to follow the race; of course the pits do not make for race viewing, but the intensity f the effort is just stunning.

Later on in the week had Sabine drive me in my RS, she had an identical road car. Sad to see her name on the first curve now.

I would do this again in a flash.