The Porsche Team has taken to twitter to announce the final driver line ups for its two 919 Hybrid LMP1 cars to compete in the 2014 WEC season. As expected Mark Webber will be in car #20 along with Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley.
The #14 919 Hybrid will be driven by Romain Dumas, Marc Lieb and Neel Jani.
The official entry for the Le Mans 24 Hours 2014 brings confirmation of a minor change to the driver line ups for Toyota Racing.
In effect Nico Lapierre and Stephane Sarrazin have swapped seats. Which means Toyota’s final pairings for the 2014 WEC season will be Alex Wurz, Stéphane Sarrazin and Kazuki Nakajima in the #7 TS040 Hybrid, while Anthony Davidson, Nicolas Lapierre and Sébastien Buemi will race in the #8 car.
The 2014-spec TS040 Hybrid will be revealed at the first WEC test session on 28–29 March. The big news is the TS040 now had power being sent to all four wheels, with electric power at both axles, in conjunction with a V8 petrol engine at the rear.
At the ACO’s 2014 season launch last week Porsche officially confirmed its eagerly awaited return to top flight endurance racing in the LMP1 category.
Known simply as “Porsche Team”, two 919 Hybrids will be entered which will carry the numbers 14 and 20. The drivers assigned as the official entrants are former Le Mans winners Romain Dumas (#14) and Timo Bernhard (#20).
Porsche is yet to rubber stamp the driver lineups for each car, but earlier reports suggest Marc Lieb and Neel Jani will join Romain Dumas, leaving Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley to partner with Timo Bernhard.
Quietly buried in the press release below is confirmation from Porsche the 919 will be powered by a “small capacity” supercharged V4 engine at the rear and an electric motor driving the front wheels. These will be complemented by two energy recovery systems.
Defending its 2013 Le Mans victory in the GTE Pro class Porsche Team Manthey will return with a pair of 911 RSRs which have been revised for the 2014 season. The changes obviously worked too judging by Porsche’s recent class win at the 24 Hours of Daytona.
Like Formula 1 the 24 Hours of Le Mans is entering a new era thanks to a series of new regulations. The ACO has taken the opportunity to rebrand the race with a new logo and slight reordering of the official name to be called the Le Mans 24 Hours.
At the same event the official entries for the 2014 race (14–15 June) were announced. You can see more in the videos and text below.
Mark Webber is an exceptional man. It’s true, this video promoting the 2014 FIA WEC season says so. While his F1 mates are starting to get busy, Mark still has a couple of months to go before his new job gets real. We can’t wait!
While we’re firmly in Bathurst 12 Hour mode, put up your hand if you’d like to see LMP1 cars competing in a 12 Hours of Bathurst race?! Of course, that would be truly magnificent and the sight of Mark Webber lapping Mount Panorama in his Porsche 919 would surely attract a crowd to rival the V8 Supercars. Not to mention increased international coverage.
Alas any such suggestions of that becoming a reality are well in the distance and, for now, we’ll just have to make do with Porsche’s latest update showing us some behind the scenes action of their preparations for its return to LMP1 endurance racing.
Testing for Toyota’s successor to the TS030 Hybrid (pictured above) has begun with the new TS040 Hybrid taking to the Paul Ricard circuit in France earlier this week. Three days of testing were completed in all with Alexander Wurz and Anthony Davidson sharing the driving duties.
According to an unnamed Toyota Motorsport GmbH staffer, “It was the best roll-out we have had since we returned to endurance racing in 2012.”
The TS040 uses a normally aspirated V8 engine coupled to front and rear axle mounted energy recuperation systems. Further closed test sessions are scheduled at the Portimão and Aragon circuits before the TS040 makes its full debut ahead of the official WEC test session in March.
[Source: Autosport]
The Porsche 919 hybrid will use a 16 valve 2.0 litre turbocharged V4 engine, according to Autocar.
V4 engines have inherent balance issues so at first this may seem an odd choice for Porsche. However, a quick glance at the history books shows Porsche has raced at Le Mans with flat-four engines at Le Mans in the 1950s. The spec sheet on these engines described them as have a 180° vee, and perhaps that may be the direction Porsche is taking in 2014.
A 2.0 litre four cylinder engine should help Porsche achieve good fuel economy, which is vital in the new LMP1 regulations. A single conventional turbo will be placed between the two cylinder banks.
We’ve known for some time that Porsche is developing a four cylinder boxer for its road cars and you don’t need to stretch the imagination too far to see some marketing and research opportunities with this V4 race engine.
The regs also allow for a maximum of two energy recuperation systems and Porsche will send the power from both to the front wheels of the 919, while the V4 will power the rear wheels.
The two recuperation systems will be called KERS and ERS, with the former charging a lithium-ion battery via the front brakes and the ERS collecting energy from the turbo’s exhaust gasses.
A third 919 chassis is being built and is expected to have its track debut in the middle of next month when Porsche returns to Bahrain for more testing.
[Source: Autocar]
Mark Webber will race with German Timo Bernhard and Kiwi Brendon Hartley in 2014, according to Autosport.
It’s an interesting mix and certainly the pairing of Webber (182cm) and Hartley (184cm) makes sense as both men are relatively tall. Although, Bernhard (172cm) is quite a bit shorter and will require a seat insert you’d imagine.
That leaves Marc Lieb (182cm), Romain Dumas (174cm) and Neel Jani (172cm) to drive the other 919.
Porsche isn’t expected to officially confirm these lineups until the press conference to launch the 2014 WEC season and 24 Hours of Le Mans takes place.
Meanwhile, testing for the 919 hybrid has resumed. Webber, Bernhard and Dumas were in Bahrain last week putting a pair of cars through their paces. One of the cars is brand new, while the other is the 2013 car.
[Soure: Autosport]
UPDATE: Semi-official confirmation of this news from the GT Porsche twitter account can be seen after the break.
The beginning of 2014 is unfamiliar for Mark Webber in that he’s still got a few weeks left of being able to slam down a few Tim Tams before he needs to be at his racing weight. He explains that and more in Q&A interview on his official website:
Your new season with Porsche will start soon. In F1 the focus of your training was on the neck strength and being as light as possible, how does your training change for the sports car series?
MW: “This is my first season for probably five or six years when I haven’t needed to be on weight by February! Even though we will be doing some pre-season testing with Porsche, the preparation for F1 was different; I had to be on weight right from the start of pre-season testing and my weight control had to be extremely disciplined.
“But, don’t think for one moment I’m going to be overweight in sports cars! I’ll be back at my F1 weight for the start of the championship in April but the WEC season is much shorter with only eight races, so I don’t need to be in that tight weight window for as long as I was in F1. My training regime has changed a bit too; you do quite a lot of specific training for F1; for example, neck training to deal with the high G-forces whereas in sports cars because the lap times are a bit slower, I won’t quite have the load on the body that I used to. Of course, there are lots of things from my training in F1 which are completely adaptable in sports cars, i.e. heat control in hot environments as was the case at some races in Formula One so there are a lot of things I learnt in F1 which I will carry across.â€
Follow the source link for the full interview.
[Source: markwebber.com]
Porsche has updated its Mission 2014 microsite with bios for all six of its LMP1 factory drivers. This gives us one of the first chances to see Mark Webber in his new racing suit. And doesn’t he look smart. Mum and dad will be so proud!
Porsche factory driver Timo Bernhard takes a few minutes to give us a brief overview of the safety features for the LMP1 category and, of course, the his new car Porsche 919 hybrid.