Photograph Courtesy Porsche
As announced today: “Porsche will cease its factory involvement with the 911 RSR in the GTLM class of the North American IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship (IWSC) at the end of 2020.”
The reason for the decision, the release states, is the current COVID-19 pandemic. The release continues that this current season will run as planned.
More from the release: “The support of customer teams in the GTD class of the IWSC, as well as the Michelin Pilot Challenge (GT4) and the GT3 Cup Challenge USA, will continue unchanged in cooperation with Porsche Motorsport North America and Porsche Cars North America.”
Scroll down to read the entire statement:
Stuttgart. Porsche will cease its factory involvement with the 911 RSR in the GTLM class of the North American IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship (IWSC) at the end of 2020. The current season will not be affected. With this step, Porsche Motorsport makes a significant contribution to overcoming the economic effects that the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the sports car manufacturer. As the reigning champions in the GTLM manufacturers, team and drivers classification, Porsche currently ranks second in the championship with its American partner squad Core Autosport after the season-opening 24 Hours of Daytona. After taking an essential break for health safety reasons, the IMSA championship plans to resume its racing activities on the first weekend in July. The restart will be held at Daytona. Porsche Motorsport would like to bid farewell to the series by defending its title. The support of customer teams in the GTD class of the IWSC, as well as the Michelin Pilot Challenge (GT4) and the GT3 Cup Challenge USA, will continue unchanged in cooperation with Porsche Motorsport North America and Porsche Cars North America.
“The decision to halt our factory involvement in the IMSA series was not an easy one for us,” emphasises Fritz Enzinger, Vice President Porsche Motorsport. “With a view to the current corporate situation in connection with the Coronavirus pandemic, it is only logical for Porsche Motorsport to make a contribution to coping with the economic fallout. We’ve openly discussed our exit with all involved. At this point, we’d like to convey our sincere thanks to Jim France and the colleagues at IMSA for their understanding. Porsche belongs in endurance racing. We will work hard to ensure that this is only a temporary Auf Wiedersehen.”
Pascal Zurlinden (Director Factory Motorsport): “For us sportspeople, such endings are always painful. For our operational team Core Autosport and everyone involved, I’m very sorry that we were unable to make this decision with more lead time. At the same time, I’d like to thank everyone affected by this for their professional handling of this situation.”
Steffen Höllwarth (Head of Operations IMSA Championship at Porsche Motorsport): “We hope that this season’s races will still be contested so that we don’t leave the IMSA stage soundlessly. Of course, such decisions impact the mood, but we’re all professionals and we’re now focusing on the remaining races of the current season.”
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GTE / GTLM has loosing competitors left and right recently. And with LMDh and LMH coming as the top tiers and GT3 getting ever faster the squeez on this catagory was inevitable. I see this as one step closer to the inevitable death knell. It's not all bad news though, people have been saying there are too many classes and series for a while. Covid and the economy may act as an accelerant, but I think this was inevitable in the long run.
In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :
This version of death. It would not be the first time edurance racing went through turmoil.
So it's going to be the early 2000s all over again with the factory Corvette team racing against todays version of Saleen S7 customers.
In reply to DirtyBird222 :
Could be, maybe the C8R gets the overall win next year because all of the LMHd and LMH cars break down. If the C8R makes it to LeMans in 2021 at all, tough times ahead..
That's too bad. If they do away with GTE/GTLM, would adapting the remaining car types to fit into GT3/GTD be a viable option? I'd hate to see the C8R disappear before it has a chance to show what it can do.
BenB (Forum Supporter) said:That's too bad. If they do away with GTE/GTLM, would adapting the remaining car types to fit into GT3/GTD be a viable option? I'd hate to see the C8R disappear before it has a chance to show what it can do.
BMW is still around and hasn't announced an exit plan. WEC still runs with 2 cars in LMP1. They aren't dead in the water yet.
In reply to DirtyBird222 :
BMW have withdrawn from GTE in the WEC. Corvette pulled out of LeMans for this year only. Ford is out of IMSA and WEC. Scuderia Corsa is only doing the 12 and 24 hour events etc. The category is currently imploding faster than LMP1 did a few years ago.
FYI LMP1 is not running with only two cars. It mayonly have two cars entered by a (road car) manufacturer, but there are six cars registered for the WEC LMP1 class and seven currently entered for LeMans.
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to DirtyBird222 :
BMW have withdrawn from GTE in the WEC. Corvette pulled out of LeMans for this year only. Ford is out of IMSA and WEC. Scuderia Corsa is only doing the 12 and 24 hour events etc. The category is currently imploding faster than LMP1 did a few years ago.
FYI LMP1 is not running with only two cars. It mayonly have two cars entered by a (road car) manufacturer, but there are six cars registered for the WEC LMP1 class and seven currently entered for LeMans.
Sportscar racing is dead. There I said it. Bring back the tube-framed Grand-Am DPs and the old Tube-Frame GT1 cars and call it a day.
Bring back tube-frame race cars in general. I like it.
No, don't bring back the tube frame DP's, they sucked and all but the last 'Corvette' looked like crap. they didn't provide a good spectacle and the GT3's were way too close to them on pace.
I don't think sports car racing is dead, I just think it's going through one of its cyclical collapse and re-birth cycles.
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