A STORY OF SUCCESS

Porsche is the only manufacturer to have contested the 24 Hours of Le Mans every year since 1951. Sixty-nine years without a break is a remarkable achievement, and one rewarded by no fewer than nineteen overall wins and more than a hundred class victories. This unrivalled success in one of the world’s most challenging races has made Le Mans as much a part of Porsche as the world-famous three-digit nomenclature, nine-one-one.

The first 24-hour event at Le Mans took place in 1923. Grand Prix racing was the dominant motorsport force in Europe, leading to the introduction of a different type of test for man and machine: the focus wasn’t on a manufacturer’s ability to produce the fastest car, but its ability to build the most reliable, achieved through the deployment of innovative engineering. The development of ground-breaking fuel efficiency technologies was also a key aspect of what competition organisers had in mind — endurance racing demands cars to spend as little time as possible being attended to in the pit lane, whether through necessary repairs or refuelling.

Adding to the challenge of demanding a car that could quite literally go the distance, the Le Mans track layout was designed to encourage extraordinarily high speed. The Mulsanne straight, for example, has gone down in history as being one of Europe’s fastest and longest stretches of racing asphalt, a feature requiring competing manufacturers to think carefully about aerodynamics and overall vehicle stability. Furthermore, because much of the Le Mans circuit incorporates public roads, these stretches of the track lack the smooth surface finish of a closed circuit. This means chassis components are subjected to huge strain, emphasising the