Porsche announces works team for United Sportscar Championship

Tue, 24 Sep 2013

Porsche is undoubtedly the most successful manufacturer in sportscar racing, and it's only upping its game. The German marque is launching its new LMP1 racer for Le Mans in pursuit of overall victory once again, and now that sportscar racing in North America is coming together under one banner in the United Sportscar Championship, Porsche has announced it is entering the fray with a works team here as well.

The new Porsche North America racing team will field two cars in the entire inaugural season of the Tudor United Sportscar Championship that's been formed out of the former Grand-Am and American Le Mans Series. The team will be based out of the Porsche Motorsport North America facility in Santa Ana, California, and will partner with three-time ALMS LMPC winners Core Autosport in getting a pair of the latest 911 RSR racecars to the front of the GT Le Mans class.

Drivers have yet to be announced, but are projected to be drawn out of Porsche's factory driver program, which includes such talents as Patrick Long, Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Neel Jani. Keep reading below for the official announcement.

Porsche to Field Two-Car Factory Team in 2014 Tudor United Sportscar Championship GT Le Mans Class
Porsche and CORE autosport to partner for North American-based program

Stuttgart/Atlanta. Porsche AG and Porsche Cars North America (PCNA) have announced the sports car marque will field a two-car factory team named PORSCHE NORTH AMERICA throughout next year's inaugural TUDOR United SportsCar Racing championship.

The effort will utilize the new Porsche 911 RSR, the same as the 2013 24 Hours of Le Mans LM GTE-Pro class-winning entries. The headquarters for the program will be at Porsche Motorsport North America (PMNA) in Santa Ana, Calif. CORE autosport will act as the competition partner for the program.

"North America is Porsche's single largest road car and motorsports market. Therefore, we have decided to focus a full factory program in the newly formed series, similar to our competing in the World Endurance Championship together with Manthey Racing," said Hartmut Kristen, head of Weissach, Germany based Porsche Motorsport. "Having finally a unified platform to compete on has made the decision so much easier to enter a GT based Porsche factory team for the first time in American sports car racing," he added.

It is planned that the driver lineup for the season will come from Porsche's factory driver stable for both works-entered cars. A driver announcement will be made at a later date.

The 2014 TUDOR United SportsCar Racing season opens with the Rolex 24 at Daytona on January 25-26.

By Noah Joseph