This weekend, Silverstone will be the venue for the first of seven six-hour races in the eight round championship for which the 24 hours of Le Mans is the highlight.
Porsche Club GB will have a presence at the event and 250 members have booked free-of-charge infield passes for the event.
In the lead up to the second season since Porsche’s return to top-level motorsport, 30,863 kilometres of testing have been covered with the significantly further developed 919 Hybrid.
The Porsche 919 Hybrid’s two-litre V4-cylinder turbo charged petrol engine is the most compact and efficient combustion engine Porsche has built so far, it is downsizing technology of paramount quality. This engine powers the rear axle with over 500 hp.
When the driver recalls the stored energy from the battery, an extra good 400 hp drives the front axle. This way the Porsche 919 Hybrid temporarily turns into a four-wheel drive car with around 1,000 hp system performance.
The drivers have now one year of experience with the concept under their belts. Timo Bernhard (Germany), Brendon Hartley (New Zealand) and Mark Webber (Australia) continue to race together and will share car number 17.
The sister number 18 car is driven by Romain Dumas (France), Neel Jani (Switzerland) and Marc Lieb (Germany), who also became a ‘bullet proof’ team and drove together in 2014.
Facts and figures:
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The fastest qualifying laps by the Porsche 919 Hybrid back in 2014 were done by Romain Dumas and Neel Jani with an average lap time of 1:43.087 minutes. This was good enough for third on the grid. The sister car, with Timo Bernhard and Mark Webber sharing qualifying duties, qualified sixth with an average lap time of 1:43.226 minutes.