APRIL 18, 2005

Porsche getting serious about ALMS

Porsche has announced a deal with Penske Motorsports to run a new prototype sports car in the American Le Mans Series. Porsche Cars North America and Porsche Motorsport North America have commissioned parent company Porsche AG to design and build a car to compete in the LMP2 class in ALMS. It will be first purpose-built Porsche racing car since the Porsche 911 GT1 in 1998. The cars will be fielded by Penske Racing, which has links with Porsche going back to the early 1970s when the team ran the famous 917s. It is expected that the news cars will be ready in time for the last two races of the ALMS season: the Petit Le Mans race at Road Atlanta on October 1 and the series finale at Laguna Seca on October 16.

It remains to be seen who will drive the cars but Porsche Motorsport currently has seven drivers under contract including American Patrick Long (23). The others are Germans Timo Bernhard (24), Marc Lieb (24) and Sascha Maassen (35), Monegasque Lucas Luhr (25) and Frenchmen Emmanuel Collard (34) and Romain Dumas (27).