2012 Porsche Panamera Turbo S Awd on 2040-cars

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Mark Webber hospitalized as Porsche takes first WEC victory, Toyota wins championship [UPDATE]

It was a mixed bag for the Porsche team at the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo this weekend – the last race of its first season in the FIA World Endurance Championship. On the one hand, the German team took its first win since launching its LMP1 effort at the start of this season. On the other, its star driver suffered a massive crash that left him in the hospital. The crash occurred with less than half an hour to go when Mark Webber, who was running sixth in the #20 Porsche 919 Hybrid, lost control at Turn 14 at the Interlagos circuit – the same spot where he crashed his Jaguar F1 car during the 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix – and crashed tail-first into the barrier. Both Webber and Matteo Cressoni (driver of the #90 Ferrari 458 Italia with which Webber collided) were evacuated to the trackside medical center and were then taken to the nearby Hospital Bandeirantes. Both were reportedly conscious throughout but are undergoing further testing, described as being in "satisfactory" condition by the FIA medical official on the scene. The occurrence of the crash so close to the end of the race, and the time it took to clear the wreckage, meant there was not enough time for a restart, so the race was completed under the safety car. But when the field did cross the finish line, it was the #14 Porsche 919 Hybrid driven by Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Mark Lieb that took the checkered flag – marking the first time that Porsche has won an endurance prototype race since 1989. Of course, that solitary victory was not enough for Porsche to take the title, which went to the Toyota TS 040 driven by former F1 drivers Sebastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson, who finished the race in second place ahead of the Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro driven by the retiring Tom Kristensen and his co-pilots Lucas di Grassi and Loic Duval. Top honors for the season in LMP2 went to Sergey Zlobin for SMP Racing in the Oreca-Nissan, while Ferrari took the GT title. UPDATE: Mark Webber released the following statement on his condition: "I'm quite sore this morning, am pretty bruised and have got a stinking headache. I've got no recollection of the accident or how it happened. The team is looking into the details to find out more.

Porsche acquires Kyalami race track at auction

With more victories under its belt than any other manufacturer, you could say, in a figurative sense at least, that Porsche owns countless numbers of race tracks around the world. But here we're not talking about figuratively owning a track - we're talking about literally buying one. And Porsche has just bought Kyalami.
Kylamai, for those unfamiliar, is a grand prix circuit near Johannesburg in South Africa. Between 1967 and 1985, and again in '92 and '93, it was home to the South African Grand Prix, and has since hosted a variety of local and lower-level international races, but apparently fell on hard times. As a result, the track's owners - listed as Universal Property Professionals - put it up for auction. Bidders had to deposit four million Rand (about $380k) to participate, but after just 50 seconds, the auction was over.
The winning bid was placed - via telephone from the local press launch for the Macan - by Porsche South Africa CEO Toby Venter, who bid a reported 205 million rand (about $19.5 million) to take over the complex. The German automaker's South African division reportedly intends to keep the track open for racing, but could also be expected to use the facility for testing, customer track days and such moving forward.

Porsche Cayenne shows a bit more face, plug-in spotted

Porsche was first rumored to be working on a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) version of the Cayenne over a year ago. However, we had never seen it, until now. The new model was caught almost completely undisguised while testing. In another stroke of luck, we got a glimpse of the upcoming facelift for Porsche's SUV (pictured above) as well.
According to the spy shooter, it was windy during the cars' cold weather testing. The cover blew off of the facelifted Cayenne, and there was enough time to snap these pictures before it could be hidden again. The changes are all quite minor but jive with what we saw the last time it was spied. The rear still wears some cladding but is expected to be hiding lights similar to the Macan.
The second gallery shows off the upcoming Cayenne PHEV. It looks nearly identical to the standard model, except for the extra panel on the driver's side of the car that hides the electric port. One image even shows the car plugged in. The new version is expected to use the same supercharged 3.0-liter V6 and 9.4-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack with a combined 416 horsepower and 435 pound-feet of torque from the Panamera S E-Hybrid. We enjoyed the system when we tested it last year. It's rumored to debut on the SUV sometime this year.