Porsche wants to participate again in the WEC, but also in the American IMSA championship. That is why it is working on a hypercar that will take over from Porsche’s successful LMP1 car.
Porsche was very successful in the WEC last decade with its LMP1 car, the 919 Hybrid (photo 4). With that, it won the title in 2015, 2016 and 2017. After this Porsche lost the endurance championship and Toyota was the only LMP1 participant king in that class. Porsche now announces that it wants to go for it again. Under the new regulations, the LMP1 classification will lapse and it will be 680 hp hybrid hypercars that will from now on lead the field. Porsche management has given the green light to the development of such an ‘LMDh’ car for the 2023 WEC season and the IMSA championship. The brand also already shares the first design sketches of the race car. The brand does not yet have detailed information.
Peugeot and Toyota also previously showed that they have hybrid hypercars for the WEC in their nursery areas. These are cars for the LMH class (Le Mans Hypercar). Although they deliver the same power and also draw their power from a combination of a combustion engine and a Motor Generator Unit, they are slightly different. These are cars developed from the ground up. The LMDh class (Le Mans Daytona h) that Porsche is preparing for uses chassis from Dallara, Ligier, Multimatic and Oreca. Also, the MGU, the battery and the gearbox are not developed and built by external parties. So there is more standardization than with LMH. In addition, the LMDh class will also become the new top class of the IMSA championship, LMH is limited to the WEC.