When Porsche announced that it was quitting LMP1 at the end of 2017, the first question was obvious: what’s going to happen to the World Endurance Championship now? The second was, when are we likely to see the German manufacturer shooting for outright honours at the Le Mans 24 Hours once more? The answer to those questions turned out to be inextricably linked.
The WEC has survived, despite limping on without Porsche and any other serious manufacturer opposition for Toyota through the dying days of P1 and into the Hypercar era. But now, as the championship enters a new age with multiple car makers duking it out at the front of the field, Porsche is there among them with a successor to its line of Le Mans winners, from the 917 through the 956/962 and on to the 919.
Few were predicting that it would be back so soon when Porsche announced the decision in July 2017 to axe the 919 Hybrid P1 programme after just four years of racing for the twin-hybrid rocketship. The pessimistic prognosis for a marque that went on to complete a hat-trick of hat-tricks in 2015-17 – the WEC drivers’ and manufacturers’ titles as well the Le Mans crown – was based on Porsche’s previous hiatus from the top of the tree in sportscar racing. It stretched all the way from its 16th victory in 1998 to the race debut of the original version of the 919 in 2014. That was an absence that no
