Porsche has announced that it is extending its Le Mans prototype programme until the end of the 2018 season. With its ground-breaking  concept - a downsized turbo engine and powerful energy recovery systems, combined with an extreme lightweight design - the 919 Hybrid racing car serves as a research laboratory for future sports car technology.

Matthias Muller, Chairman of the Executive Board of Porsche AG, said, "Motorsport is an important part of Porsche's brand identity, but not an end in itself. Racing has got to help the technology of future road-going sports cars. It was the revolutionary efficiency regulations that convinced us to return to top-level motorsport for the 2014 season. That we have managed to take the crown jewels of endurance racing in only our second year, with a one-two result in Le Mans in 2015 with our highly innovative and complex 919, is an outstanding testimony to the people in the Weissach research and development centre. The competition bears fruits and we see further potential for future synergy between the racing and road car programmes. This is why we have extended the programme."

For class one Le Mans prototypes (LMP1) entered by manufacturers, the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) regulations stipulate hybrid systems and limit the amount of energy (fuel and electricity) available per lap.

Wolfgang Hatz, Member of the Executive Board, Research and Development, underlined this, "Porsche sets benchmarks in the WEC. The 2.0-litre V4-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine with a performance of over 500bhp is the most efficient combustion engine we have built so far. Our energy recovery systems are the most powerful ones on the entire grid. Up until now no other manufacturer is able to provide eight megajoules of electric power for the distance of one lap in Le Mans. It is easy to detect that the challenge provided by the sport pushes our engineers to extreme performance."