Motorsport

Final shakedown for Porsche: the Prologue of the WEC Super Season

Porsche 911 RSR (92), Porsche GT Team: Michael Christensen, Kevin Estre

GT Preview – World Endurance Championship WEC, Prologue in Le Castellet/France

On April 6, Porsche heads into the new season of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) with the two-day Prologue on the Circuit Paul Ricard. On the racetrack in the south of France, which opened in 1970, the Porsche GT Team will simulate an entire race weekend with the two 911 RSR in order to tackle the 15-month Super Season perfectly prepared. Porsche’s factory driver Gianmaria Bruni celebrates his comeback to the world’s most important race series for sports cars.

The Prologue

Teams and drivers come face-to-face for the first time this year in Le Castellet, France, close to the port city of Marseille. On the 5.861-kilometre Circuit Paul Ricard, teams will run through the procedures of the WEC race weekends. The Porsche GT Team has opted not to participate in the first ever 30-hour nonstop test, which runs through the night, as the squad has collected extensive data and experience with the Porsche 911 RSR in 2017. A total of 35 vehicles take part in the Prologue tests.

Porsche 911 RSR, Porsche GT Team (912): Laurens Vanthoor, Gianmaria Bruni
Porsche 911 RSR, Porsche GT Team (912): Laurens Vanthoor, Gianmaria Bruni (2017)

The Super Season

The 15-month-long Super Season serves as a transition to a new FIA WEC format. This means that competitors will contest the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the challenging Spa-Francorchamps race twice. The calendar also includes Silverstone, Fuji, Shanghai and Sebring. With Porsche, Ferrari, Ford, BMW and Aston Martin, five manufacturers compete for victories and points in the drivers’ and manufacturer’s classifications of the GTE-Pro class. From 2019, the season begins after the 24 Hours of Le Mans and concludes a year later with the long distance classic in the Sarthe region.

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