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The road to 2015 Le Mans 24 Hours - LMP1 Class, 919 Hybrid

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The road to the 2015 Le Mans 24 hour starts today.

Le Mans 2015 Race is from 13-14 June 2015.

Porsche have announced a third 919 Hybrid entry for 2015 Le Mans 24 Hour Endurance Race.

A 3rd 919 Hybrid for the class leading LMP1 class, clears the way for all those potential F1 driver (Button or Alonso or even both!) rumours to hyper drive! The additional entry also could result in the likes of Nick Tandy stepping up from GT racing into the top seat.

Added the 911 RSR in the GTE Pro class, Porsche will be very well represented at the legendary race in 2015, with at least 10 teams running Porsche cars if 2014 is anything to go by.

Press release said:
Porsche enters third 919 Hybrid in 2015 Le Mans

Porsche AG is pleased to announce the entry of a third Porsche 919 Hybrid for the 24-hour race in Le Mans (France) on June 13/14 in 2015. As a dress rehearsal for the event, the car will be entered in the six-hour race in Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium) on May 2.

There is no final decision yet about the driver line-up for this third car. For the two Porsche 919 Hybrids taking part in the entire championship, the current works drivers Timo Bernhard (Germany), Romain Dumas (France), Brendon Hartley (New Zealand), Neel Jani (Switzerland), Marc Lieb (Germany) and Mark Webber (Australia) have been confirmed to continue for 2015.

Wolfgang Hatz, Member of the Board, Research and Development, Porsche AG, said: 'In 2014 we have been competitive immediately with the most complex and innovative race car Porsche has built so far. To date we have achieved five podium places, three pole positions and two record laps, in Shanghai and Bahrain.

These are outstanding results. But this programme doesn't just produce success on race tracks, but also on the engineering side. The target is the highest performance with maximised efficiency in ever growing dimensions. This is why we will take on the challenge with three Porsche 919 Hybrids in 2015."

For Matthias Müller, Chairman of the Board Porsche AG, this decision also expresses a strong commitment to the FIA World Endurance Championship: 'Our decision to compete with a Porsche works team in the WEC's LMP1 category proved to be the right one. This is what we feel at every race. The highly demanding motorsport programme contributes directly to the development of future sports cars for the road. For the development and testing of future hybrid systems, you can't ask for any harder test bench than the World Endurance Championship and especially the Le Mans 24-Hours.

The same goes for the newly established Porsche LMP1 crew. More than 230 people had to grow together quickly to form a strong team. The human factor is not only crucial for the men at the steering wheel, but for the entire project – and this reflects very much the Porsche philosophy."
 

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Nico Hulkenberg to drive 3rd Porsche 919 for 2015 Le Mans

Nico Hulkenberg will compete in the Le Mans 24 Hours for Porsche in 2015 alongside contesting the full Formula One season with Force India.

Nico Hulkenberg will compete in BOTH the 2015 F1 Championship and the the 2015 Le Mans 24 Hours for Porsche, the team has confirmed.

The 27-year-old German, who will also contest the six-hour World Endurance Championship race at Spa as preparation for his Le Mans bow, said the desire to compete in both disciplines had been too alluring to turn down.

"Porsche and Le Mans - this combination probably attracts every race driver," said Hulkenberg of the twice-round the clock race, which in 2015 takes place on June 13-14, the weekend in between the Canadian and Austrian Grands Prix.

"I've been a Porsche fan for a long time and have been watching their return to the LMP1 class closely. The desire grew to drive that car at Le Mans." Hulkenberg also thanked Force India for allowing him to race at Le Mans, adding: "I am very pleased the 2015 Formula One calendar allows for it and I'm grateful to my Sahara Force India Formula One Team's generosity to let me go for it. "Now it's up to me to work hard to satisfy both commitments."

Though it was common in the past, the last driver to compete in both Grand Prix racing and the Le Mans 24 Hours at the same time was Sebastien Bourdais, who raced for Toro Rosso and Peugeot in the respective disciplines in 2009.

Four drivers in history have won both the Formula One world championship and the Le Mans 24 Hours overall - Mike Hawthorn, Phil Hill, Jochen Rindt and Graham Hill.

Hulkenberg tested a hybrid Porsche 911 GT car while driving for Williams in 2010. Porsche return to the highest class of endurance racing this year with its 919 Hybrid. Ex-Red Bull racer Mark Webber is among its drivers.

Porsche's vice-president for LMP1 Fritz Enzinger said: 'We are very much looking forward to taking Nico on board. We've got complete faith in his driving skills and for sure he will fit well in our works team." 'The ability to integrate is of extreme importance in endurance racing. For a Formula One driver it is an unusual situation to accept that his own results are the sum of three drivers' performance."

Andre Lotterer, who substituted for Kamui Kobayashi at Caterhaam in the Belgian Grand Prix, is the most recent active F1 driver to have enter Le Mans. Before him the most recent regular drivers to do so were Sebastian Bourdais in 2009, while racing for Toro Rosso, and Franck Montagny in 2006, while racing for Super Aguri.
 

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Porsche has unveiled the 2015 919 Hybrid in Weissach, Germany.
The company was coy on details but said the model is more "significantly developed" than its predecessor. That's not much to go on but the company has previously said it's a "distinct evolution of the 2014 model" and has been "optimized in almost every detail."

Porsche also said the car will be better able to adapt to the different characteristics of the various race tracks in the 2015 World Endurance Championship.

In a statement, Porsche LMP1 Technical Director Alexander Hitzinger said, "The roll-out of a new race car is always a milestone, and anticipated with great excitement by everyone involved. It was our target to get the Porsche 919 Hybrid for the 2015 season on its wheels before Christmas, and now we have achieved this."

The first meaningful test with the new race car, which has been significantly developed compared to its 2014 predecessor, is scheduled to take place from January 18 to 22 in Abu Dhabi.

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Extensive testing with the second generation of Porsche's Le Mans prototype will begin on January 18, on Abu Dhabi's Yas Marina Circuit. As scheduled, this marks the start of the 2015 motorsport season for the Porsche Team. The new Porsche 919 Hybrid has already had its roll-out on the Weissach test track. As a next step, there will be several performance and endurance tests before the WEC season opener on April 12 in Silverstone, Great Britain.

The new Porsche 919 Hybrid is a comprehensive evolution of the successful car that made its debut in 2014. It will feature the same innovative drivetrain concept consisting of a 2-litre V4 turbocharged petrol engine, an electric motor powering the front wheels, and two energy recovery systems. The new generation car had its first roll-out on December 15, 2014.
 

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919 Hybrid: even stronger

At the Paul Ricard Circuit in France, Porsche presented the second generation of its Le Mans Prototype 919 Hybrid race car as a technical evolution in a three-colour concept.

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The Porsche team will use two of its extensively further developed technology platforms in all eight races of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC). The cars will be white and will also carry the "Porsche Intelligent Performance" motto on their bodywork. This also applies to the team's third 919 Hybrid, which will race at Spa-Francorchamps on May 2. However, for the high point of the season – the 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 13–14, 2015 – the team will send a white, a black and a red Porsche 919 Hybrid onto the circuit.

Wolfgang Hatz, board member for research and development at Porsche AG, stated the following at the presentation of the LMP1 prototypes in southern France: "The LMP1 programme at Porsche focuses on extensively networked cooperation between the engineers who work on our innovative drive system concept." The WEC regulations are designed to ensure that the most efficient car wins. The automotive industry in general must adopt exactly this approach to remain viable. Porsche already offers three plug-in hybrid production sports cars today. 'This sets us apart from the competition and we plan to grow even stronger in this segment," said Hatz.

"To this end, we need substantial expertise within the company. The tremendous pressure to perform in the top LMP1 category means our development specialists for production cars learn a lot in a very short time. On the other hand, young engineers receive top-quality training at turbo speed, and this knowledge can later be applied very effectively in series production. Learning from the race track for everyday roads is a tradition at Porsche. Therefore it makes perfect sense to create at least a partial link between our Le Mans prototypes and our motor racing history by means of the colours we use."

The colour concept

The starting number and colour of the red prototype are a tribute to the Porsche that captured the first of what are now a total of 16 overall victories for the brand in Le Mans in 1970. No other brand has claimed so many victories in what is believed to be the world's most demanding endurance race. The base colour of the Porsche 917 KH ("short-tail") in "Salzburg Design" that won the race 45 years ago on June 14, 1970 was also red. The winning drivers then were Hans Herrmann from Germany, who is now 87, and Richard Attwood from the UK, who is 74 today. In 2015, at the 83rd running of the classic race at Le Mans, the red prototype with starting number 17 will be driven by Timo Bernhard, 34 (Germany), Brendon Hartley, 25 (New Zealand) and Mark Webber, 38 (Australia).

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The black LMP1 with starting number 18 is a symbol of the close technical kinship between the Porsche 919 Hybrid racing car and the Porsche 918 Spyder super sports car, which is also equipped with a hybrid drive. It was also a black 918 that on September 4, 2013 set a new record for a street-legal production sports car by completing a lap of more than 20 kilometres on the North Loop of the Nürburgring in six minutes and 57 seconds. The record-setting driver here was Marc Lieb, 34, from Germany. Lieb will also drive the black 919 in Le Mans this year – together with Romain Dumas, 37, (France) and Neel Jani, 31 (Switzerland).

The team's third car – the white 919 Hybrid with starting number 19 – will be competing in Le Mans in the colour Porsche chose for its return to top-notch racing after a 16-year absence. White, which is a traditional colour for racing cars from Germany, will also be used with the two Porsche 911 RSR factory cars that will race in the GTE Pro Class. In Le Mans, the third 919 will be driven by Earl Bamber, 24 (New Zealand), F 1 driver Nico Hülkenberg, 27 (Germany) and Nick Tandy, 30 (UK).

The technique

Although the basic concept of the Class 1 Le Mans Prototype (LMP1) was retained in the second generation, virtually every component was refined. The ambitious goals for the next evolutionary stage were to make the vehicle more efficient, more rigid, easier to handle, lighter and yet more robust.

The 919 is equipped with a 2-litre V4 turbocharged petrol engine with an output of more than 500 hp, which powers the rear axle, and an electric motor with over 400 hp that drives the front wheels and gets its electricity from two energy-recovery systems. A liquid-cooled lithium-ion battery temporarily stores converted braking energy from the front axle as well as converted exhaust-gas energy. The reworked drive system is more powerful and more efficient than before. The Porsche 919 Hybrid was homologated for the top energy-recovery category (8 megajoules for one lap in Le Mans) for the first time in 2015.

The vehicle's lower weight and improved overall rigidity, as well as optimisations made to the suspension and aerodynamics, improved the handling of the endurance racing car. Despite the significant weight reductions, the engineers were still able to make certain key components more robust.

The Porsche Team

The racing team led by Fritz Enzinger (AUT), Vice President LMP1, is based at the Porsche research and development centre in Weissach, and has more than 230 employees. Well over a hundred of them are engineers who work for Technical Director Alexander Hitzinger (DEU). Team Director Andreas Seidl (DEU) handles all operational issues. "Everyone in the team is looking forward excitedly to our second season," said Enzinger. "We drove the new Porsche 919 Hybrid over a total of 26,675 lonely test kilometres at four different race tracks. Now, we're very much looking forward to meeting the entire FIA WEC field during the prologue here at Paul Ricard."

The WEC 2015

Following the so-called Prologue – the test that will be conducted with the entire WEC field on March 27 and 28 at the Paul Ricard Circuit (FRA) – the 2015 WEC will kick off on April 12 in Silverstone (GBR). All WEC races, with the exception of Le Mans, will have a duration of six hours. The championship will move to Spa (BEL) on May 2 and Le Mans (FRA) on June 13–14. The race at the Nürburgring (DEU) on August 30 is a new addition to the WEC, which will then leave Europe and head to Austin, Texas (USA) for a race on September 19. The next two races will be held in Fuji (JPN) on October 11 and Shanghai (CHN) on November 1. The finale will take place in Bahrain on November 21.
 

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