The Australian Formula 1 pilot Mark Webber has signed a contract with Porsche that extends over several years. From the 2014 season he will compete in Porsche’s new LMP1 sports prototype at the Le Mans 24 Hours and in the sports car World Endurance Championship WEC. The 36-year-old Australian has already raced at Le Mans twice. In 1998 he finished runner-up in the FIA GT Championship at the wheel of a sports prototype. Over the course of his Formula 1 career from 2002 until today, Webber has achieved 36 podium places, nine race victories and has started from pole position eleven times.
“It’s an honour for me to join Porsche at its return to the top category in Le Mans and in the sports car World Endurance Championship and be part of the team. Porsche has written racing history as a manufacturer and stands for outstanding technology and performance at the highest level,” says Mark Webber. “I’m very much looking forward to this new challenge after my time in Formula 1. Porsche will undoubtedly set itself very high goals. I can hardly wait to pilot one of the fastest sports cars in the world.”
“I’m very pleased to have secured Mark Webber for our LMP1 project as one of the best and most successful Formula 1 pilots of our time,” says Wolfgang Hatz, Board Member for Research and Development at Porsche AG. “Mark is without doubt one of the world’s best race drivers, he has experience at the Le Mans 24 hour race and on top of that he’s been a Porsche enthusiast for many years.”
“I learned to appreciate Mark’s qualities when we were both involved in Formula 1,” says Fritz Enzinger, Head of LMP1. “He is one of the best pilots I could imagine for our team. I’m absolutely delighted that we have such an experienced and fast regular driver onboard from 2014.”
Competing in the new LMP1 car alongside Mark Webber are the two long-standing Porsche works drivers Timo Bernhard (Germany) and Romain Dumas (France) as well as the ex-Formula 1 test driver Neel Jani (Switzerland). Bernhard and Dumas already joined forces in 2010 to bring home overall victory from the Le Mans 24 hour race. In the years 2007 and 2008, they secured the American Le Mans Series title at the wheel of the RS Spyder LMP2 sports prototype. Neel Jani has contested the LMP1 class since 2010.
SHARE • EXPLORE • SUPPORT
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
The Porsche 991 RSR came good today, winning the GTE-Pro class at the 2013 Le Mans 24-Hours.
The victory came at Aston’s expense, when the number 97 car was held up by a pit lane red light in the final safety car period. 2013 had twelve safety cars: most safety car periods ever.
Aston and Porsche had been neck-and-neck up to that point, and Dumbreck, Turner and Stefan Mucke drove their hearts out, so to be robbed of their chance by something so petty was horrible. But, that’s racing.
Aston’s loss was Porsche’s gain and the Manthey/Porsche AG 991 RSRs took first and second in GTE-Pro. When the safety cars pulled in and Aston’s bad luck was fully revealed, 97 stood no chance of catching the Porsches. The pace settled into a groove to the flag, with only Sebastian Buemi’s move to unlap his P2 Toyota worth mentioning in the last fifteen minutes.
This result bodes well for 2014 and Porsche’s return to LMP. It was good work to run reliably and keep the 911 out of trouble but, were it not for that safety car break, things might not have worked out so well for Stuttgart.
Nevertheless, a win is a win and we should be delighted that the racing 911 is right back on form. On to the next one!
SHARE • EXPLORE • SUPPORT
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
My good friend Richard is selling his Porsche 944 Turbo S Silver Rose. Manufactured in 1988, only seventy Silver Rose models came to the UK, and some specialists estimate that just a third of those still exist. This car has a huge spec, so difficult to get it all across in a simple classified ad.
“The Silver Rose brings all the best bits of the previous year’s 944 Turbo Cup cars together, making a finely balanced package,” says Richard. “There’s a unique Silver Rose exterior colour, and unique Burgundy Plaid interior trim with 8-way power seats. The cars have no sunroof, but do have A/C. Although my car’s A/C is currently removed, the wiring is all there and my specialist estimates six hours to replace.
“Front brakes are from the 928 S4: 300 x 32mm discs with bigger 4-piston Brembo calipers and ABS. Wheels are the lighter, wider forged alloy wheels: 7/9 x 16” sizes in the Club Sport design (not to be confused with the much heavier, later D90 design).
“The drivetrain has a bigger k26/8 turbo (also adopted on all later 250hp cars), LSD with 40% lockup, M030 suspension option, consisting of Koni adjustable shocks front and rear, with ride height adjusting threaded collars on the front struts, stiffer springs and torsion bars, larger hollow rear anti-roll bar, harder durometer suspension bushings throughout, larger 26.8mm hollow anti-roll at the front.
“It’s got chassis stiffening brackets in the front frame rails, factory rolled front and rear fender edges to accommodate larger wheels, the 5-speed manual transmission (case code designation: AOR) with a higher friction clutch disc setup, and an external transmission cooler.
“I bought my Silver Rose from one of the mechanics at JAZ Porsche in Wembley and it has been looked after by JAZ during my approx 2 years of ownership. As a Porsche mechanic’s car, it benefitted from engine, suspension and brake rebuilds. The spec includes a rebuilt k26/8 turbo, new Lindsey Racing dual-port wastegate, stage 2 intercooler and 3-inch exhaust, Bailey dump valve, new Siemens 55lb injectors, fuel pressure regulator and pressure gauge, Greddy electronic boost controller, head studs, head gasket etc.
“Maintenance on the car in my ownership has included recovering the driver’s seat bolsters, and I now have nearly three metres of the Burgundy plaid material that will come with the car. I was lucky to find this, as people are now asking silly money for it. I have enough to just about retrim the whole car if it’s needed in the future.
“It’s had two scheduled services completed at JAZ Porsche, with the most recent service this week. I’ve also had a rolling road ECU remap by Wayne Schofield: Wayne knows these cars inside out, having spent days mapping them for racing in the late 1980s. The remap concentrated on drivability with the best torque curve, and resulted in over 300hp and 327lb/ft of torque (dyno graph available).
“It’s had the timing belts changed, an exhaust side engine mount replaced by JAZ in September 2012 and follow up inspection/adjustment in January 2013. I fitted a new front windscreen in 2012. It has new Bridgestone N-spec SO2s (245/225): less than 1,000 miles on the fronts and 3,000 miles on the rears.
“Body-wise, Nottingham Coachcraft in Caterham stripped, repaired and repainted the driver’s sill, all wheel arches and the rear of the driver’s front wing. It’s had new quarter window seals, new driver’s wiper control arm, new driver’s electric window motor, new temp sensor and other similar sundries. The wheels have been refurbished in Porsche Meteor Grey.
“I have a few spares like another intercooler, crossover pipe, D90 and CS wheels and two complete fog/side light units which can come with the car by negotiation. MOT and tax run to the end of August 2013. It’s HPI clear with eight previous owners. The car comes with limited service history as it was a mechanic’s car, but you can verify its bona fides with JAZ Porsche.
“There is a Momo steering wheel in the car, but the original wheel comes with it, as do the original amber indicators. The car also has the OE 10-speaker stereo with an Alpine DVD/CD/touch screen head unit with ipod connection and there is Bluetooth for phones.”
I do love a good for sale ad, and this is a nice one to share. Richard’s got it up for £11,500, which sounds like all the money, but “regular” 944 Turbos have been known to sell for more and this is a very collectible Silver Rose model. The tuning is well thought out, so this is going to be a very capable car on road or track and a pretty good investment. I’ve definitely talked myself into this one – where’s that Barclaycard?!
SHARE • EXPLORE • SUPPORT
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
Chris Harris videos continue to evolve and entertain. His latest production (apparently filmed on his own) is this one below on the new Porsche 991 GT3: a world exclusive drive of a development car, somewhere in the hills of southern Europe.
Talking to GT3 owners, some are still cross at the technical upsets: PDK-only, electric power steering and a non-Mezger engine. But many more like this fastest, revviest, most-button Porsche, and covet new-spec trinkets like the centre-lock matt silver wheels and that racecar front airdam.
What most are not liking is the financial pain to take to get it. As a good friend and GT3 owner said the other night: “I paid £70k for my first GT3, £80 for my second one and the latest is getting on for £100,000. Porsche are quoting £30k plus my low-mile Gen 2 GT3 RS to get into a new one, rising to £40k when I add some spec.”
The problem is not the lack of forty grand. It’s the airiness of Stuttgart thinking and pricing, the value (and trust) lost in what is still a satisfying machine to drive and the emerging sense that Porsche will keep jacking up the price, every time there’s a new model. You can’t pin all those price hikes on inflation.
Over on Apple’s product treadmill, owners are increasingly fed up with the latest dangling shiny bit mocking their spend on the last upgrade. An iPhone 5 upgrade costs a small fortune, only to find Apple shoving a must-have ‘S’ upgrade out six months later, costing contract holders similar daft sums to upgrade.
Apple has tackled upgrade apathy with some brains, retaining the camera and overall operating system from 4S to 5, so the upgrade was just to have a bigger phone and slightly faster processor. For people who use their iPhone mainly as camera and web device, a change made little sense, so the faithful can wait for the 5S and a step up in camera technology, and let the fashionistas take the 5 to iron out all the bugs.
In contrast, Porsche’s move from 997 to 991 GT3 threw out all the old stuff and went straight to GT3 5S: a big change in spec with a whacking hike in price. Before today, looking at this car on paper begged the question, “is all this new tech really that great?” Masterful demonstration of the tech at work dismisses any notion that this isn’t an improvement.
The facts and the feedback make this a no-brainer. The video rips the numbers to perfection and Harris is Porsche’s best salesman. There is no reason to avoid this car when he shows you what it can do.
With no access to the car and none of this talent behind the wheel, I must talk philosophy. As Harris puts it, a car with this ability, in this shape and making this noise should be the last bastion of a manual gearbox. But with the GT3 now so well engineered, the downside to a manual would be cockpit confusion when really pressing on: the driver becomes a log jam in the flow of speed from chassis to tarmac, and that is not what GT3 is all about.
Will Porsche build a GT3 5S-S with a manual transmission? Not in the short term. We’re now talking about Porsche past – manual transmission as ultimate go-faster bit is history. As Porsche sees things, if you want a manual box, you’re hankering for old technology in an older car, so just buy an old car.
SHARE • EXPLORE • SUPPORT
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
Towards the end of the 997, Porsche unveiled a spate of special edition 911s, which raised the spam filters against limited production models. Stuttgart’s just unveiled another special, but this one’s better than expected.
The limited edition runout 997 Carrera GTS was probably the best water-cooled Porsche I’ve driven to date, including all the quick stuff. It suited my love of cross-country thrashing much better. I’ve enjoyed my drives in 991, but can’t escape the list price for what’s now a volume unit, and don’t like how busy the car is inside. The latest model might be different.
Unveiled this week, the 50th Anniversary car looks good at first glance. It uses the wider 4wd bodyshell, so is essentially a C2S with rinky-dink special bits including:
Specially-tuned PASM
Sports Exhaust
Special 20-inch wheels, inspired by Fuchs (glad no Fuchs here)
Chrome front air inlets, engine grille and rear light panel strips
Dynamic Lights with bi-xenon and cornering
3D logo on engine cover, tacho, sill trims & headrest embroidery
Cupholder plaque with edition number
High gloss exterior trim and Sport Design mirrors
Retro instrument dials
Tribute material on 14-way sports seats (optional 18-way)
Swish stiching on interior leather
Porsche Exclusive gear shift
Despite this comprehensive and cohesive spec, I predict some classic angst. Air-coolers with short memories will screech at the cupholders, but the 3.2 Carrera and 964 both had Jubilee specials with fluffy carpets and painty bits. This is no different.
Sure, it’s miles away from the first 911s, but there’s finally a hint of some personality, so I like it. I like the paint, I like the wheels, and I like the bling-y engine grille with the recessed brake light: wait for the aftermarket to rip that off. I like the trim, I like the clocks and I like the mirrors.
Did I say I liked the paint? I can see a slew of hot rods painted in the Geyser Grey Metallic shown here: like a modern Sahara Beige. Graphite Grey and Black Monochrome are your only other options.
What are the downsides? Ninety-two grand is rather a big one, big like that vast centre console, but no doubt some of you have put your deposits down. I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who’s got one coming: there’s a feature here for sure.
SHARE • EXPLORE • SUPPORT
Ferdinand blogs my freelance adventure with Porsche at the centre. To support the blog or engage with me in other ways, you can:
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
