Porsche heads to Silverstone

The revolutionary WEC regulations, introduced for the 2014 season, demand powerful and innovative hybrid systems, which was the decisive factor in Porsche’s return. The second generation of the Porsche 919 Hybrid has become even more efficient and stronger. Intense development work on the three-part powertrain has allowed Porsche to enter the highest energy recovery class of eight megajoule for the very first time. No other race car turns over so much energy as the Porsche 919 Hybrid – that includes both Formula One cars and other car manufacturers’ Le Mans Prototypes. The art of engineering to bring out hybrid systems with an extreme turn over of energy is highly meaningful for electric road going cars such as the plug-in-hybrid models from Porsche.

Car manufacturers who compete with their class 1 Le Mans Prototypes (LMP1) for overall victories in the WEC are obliged to develop far reaching innovations for hybrid systems. Therefore engineers are given greater freedom than in any other top-class racing series. For the combustion engine, for example, many designs are possible – be it diesel or petrol, normally aspirated or turbo charged, a compact or a high voluminous machine. Alongside the combustion engine at least one energy recovery system is mandatory. More than one is possible. How these systems work and how the energy is stored is also free. But what is rigorously limited is the energy consumption per lap. This goes for fuel consumed as well as for electricity – and both depend on each other. The rule of thumb is: The more electric energy a car produces, the less fuel it may consume. This results in a highly complex cost-benefit calculation for engineers and ultimately creates know-how for Porsche’s future road going sports cars.

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.