One of the most successful chapters in Porsche's motorsport history comes to an end next Saturday: The ninth and final round of the 2017 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) will be the last race entry for the Porsche 919 Hybrid.
The powertrain concept was as innovative as it was brave, consisting of the most efficient combustion engine Porsche had ever built combined with two different energy recovery systems. Despite a difficult test period, 2014 saw the first positive results: Four pole positions and the first race win.
Since 2015 to date, the Porsche LMP Team has been phenomenally successful: Three consecutive Le Mans outright victories plus three successive manufacturers' world championship titles while Porsche 919 Hybrid drivers have won the drivers' world championship title on three occasions.
When Porsche entered the LMP1 category for the 2014 season, this happened in the footsteps of Ferry Porsche's philosophy, who established motorsport as the ultimate challenge and development cycle.
The 2014 LMP1 technical regulations presented a tremendous challenge: It required hybrid technology from manufacturers and at the same time, penalised a high amount of recovered energy by limiting the fuel consumption; on top of that it left huge individual freedom on how to deal with these complex requirements.
The Porsche engineers didn't focus on existing race cars but made full use of the chance to create a revolutionary race car from scratch.
The Porsche 919 Hybrid develops a system power of around 888bhp that comes from a compact 2.0-litre turbocharged V4 (nearly 493bhp) engine and two different energy recovery systems - brake energy from the front axle combined with exhaust energy. The combustion engine drives the rear axle while the electro motor boosts the front axle with an output of more than 394bhp.
