Presented by professional racing driver Jörg Bergmeister, the 911 RSR GTE then challenged the hill climb at Goodwood with the hill by Le Mans winner Gianmaria Bruni behind the wheel. Developed to defend the FIA World Endurance Championship title of the preceding model, the newcomer has undergone modifications in pretty much every area.
“We never rest on our laurels,” said Pascal Zurlinden, director of GT Factory Motorsport. “95 percent of the car is new,” he stated, and the remaining percentage is represented by the headlights, braking system, clutch, driver’s seat, and a few parts of the suspension system.
Scheduled to premiere on the racing circuit of Silverstone in September 2019, the 911 RSR GTE will contest no fewer than eight rounds in the 2019 to 2020 season of the WEC. The final race – and most mediatized of them all – is the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the Circuit de la Sarthe. The best finish for the Porsche GT Team 911 RSR GTE at the 2019 edition of the endurance race is 21st, one position behind the AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo.
The engine is one area that Weissach focused on for this refresh, displacing 4,194 cubic centimeters and producing 515 horsepower.
The largest-ever boxer engine fitted to an ex-works 911 racing car promises a wider distribution of the torque band, thus ensuring better driveability than the 4.0-liter aggregate of the preceding model. The rear axle receives the suck-squeeze-bang-blow with the help of a sequential transmission, lighter but more rigid than before.
On the matter of aerodynamics, the 911 RSR GTE spent a lot of time in the wind tunnel for further optimizations. Porsche claims the redesigned front, sides, and rear end translate to more downforce. Even the cockpit has been reworked, including the roll cage and collision warning system.
Customer teams who want to race the new 911 RSR GTE will have to wait until the 2020 to 2021 season, an understandable decision given the fine-tuning that Porsche has to perform on the car in the 2019 to 2020 season of the World Endurance Championship.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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