Mini-Series Porsche GT Racing Part 3

Le Mans 24 Hours, 18-19 June 2016: Frédéric Makowiecki, Jörg Bergmeister and Earl Bamber posted a DNF having completed 140 laps due to a suspension problem in the #92 Porsche 911 RSR

This feature, the third in our four-part mini-series, picks up where we left off last time (Part 2: 2010-2012) and highlights the continued growth and success of the evergreen Porsche 911 on the UK and European motorsport scene between 2013 and 2016. Having benefitted from full media and photographer access at these races, PORSCHE ROAD & RACE was able to get trackside as well as in the pit lane and paddock. With this in mind, we dived into our archive and pulled out a selection that shows the action from a number of different angles and track positions, in an effort to bring you a diverse selection covering these four seasons.

Motorsport season 2013

WEC 6 Hours of Silverstone, 14 April 2013

The 2013 6 Hours of Silverstone was the opening round of the brand-new World Endurance Championship (WEC). The first evening of the week’s activities at Silverstone was taken up with a lavish cocktail party hosted by the WEC in The Wing, where the media mixed with the teams and drivers. It was a great start to a series which is still enjoying popularity eight years on, although this year, 2020, has all but been wiped out by the coronavirus outbreak.

The FIA/WEC used a new qualifying procedure in which two drivers in each team were required to set laps during the qualifying session. The grid would then be determined by averaging the total of the two best laps set by each of the drivers, but this procedure was discontinued as from the following race at Spa.

WEC 6 Hours of Silverstone, 14 April 2013: The #92 Porsche 911 RSR was driven by Marc Lieb, Richard Lietz and Romain Dumas to finish in 17th place overall and fourth in the GTE Pro class

WEC 6 Hours of Silverstone, 14 April 2013: The #91 Porsche 911 RSR was driven by Jörg Bergmeister, Patrick Pilet and Timo Bernhard to finish in 20th place overall and sixth in GTE Pro class

The April weather played its part during the Friday and Saturday practice and qualifying sessions as these were partly wet. Thursday’s activities were mostly of an administrative nature, with driver and team sign-on, which produced the odd flurry of concern as some drivers were inevitably late or delayed for whatever reason. But, being a new series, all the teams were eager to get track time by the time Friday came around, and so the free practice session was quite a frantic affair. While the race on Sunday was run in dry conditions, the threat of rain was never far away.

WEC 6 Hours of Silverstone, 14 April 2013: Christian Ried, Gianluca Roda and Paolo Ruberti drove the #88 Porsche 997 GT3-RSR to 24th place overall and fifth in the GTE Am class

In the GTE class, the media and spectator interest was clearly on the two new works Porsches, and although this was their debut race, both cars finished out of contention in fourth and sixth places. During the middle stages of the race, the #91 Porsche dropped back to sixth due to a suspension component failure, but the #92 car moved up through the field and ran in third place for a couple of hours. Apart from the suspension gremlin, the debut of the new 991-generation race car went off well and both cars performed very reliably which looked promising for the rest of the season.