Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe 2-door on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Race Recap: 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans defines 'endurance'

Commenting on the rush of events that rocked beginning and end of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Paul Truswell of Radio Le Mans said "the race is about the ability to endure, not just the ability of drivers to do what they do for a long time." The entire race machine, all the way down to the pit boards and radios, has to survive the stress and abuse of the entire day. This was the race to prove those words.
There were two Toyotas, two Porsches and three Audis, five of the seven led the race at some point, six of the seven ran in the top three. Toyota will be hugely disappointed that it didn't win when its car and drivers were so, so strong, but they gave Audi the kind of scare we haven't seen since the best of Peugeot's days, and Toyota did a better job of it even in the loss. Porsche blew away everyone's expectations, falling 3.5 hours short of a fairy tale ending that would have made Disney cry.
But Le Mans doesn't really do fairy tales. Well, not that fairy tale. Audi's Twitter handle during the event was #welcomechallenges. As usual, Le Mans answered for the entire field.

Porsche 919 Hybrid collides with 911 at Silverstone

Endurance racing is tough, in part because drivers must share the track with a whole variety of cars traveling at different speeds. That can be especially difficult for the front-running prototypes, which have to keep up the pace while overtaking slower cars. Just ask Brendon Hartley, whose spectacular crash in a Porsche 919 Hybrid while overtaking a 911 thankfully resulted in no injuries. The defending champion was scything his way through lapped back-traffic in the season opener this past weekend for the FIA World Endurance Championship when he apparently miscalculated a passing maneuver while exiting the corner. Hartley was reprimanded for the collision that took both cars out of the race but fortunately left both drivers unscathed. Worse yet was that he and his teammates were on track to win the race, and ended up watching the rest of the race from the pit lane. Instead an Audi R18 crossed the finish line first – but the race win was subsequently handed instead to another Porsche 919 during post-race scrutineering. Audi is appealing the decision, but Hartley and his co-pilots Timo Bernhard and Mark Webber will have some ground to make up if they hope to retain their crown this season. Related Video: News Source: bmwcrash1 via YouTube Motorsports Porsche Videos silverstone fia wec porsche 919 hybrid

First all-electric Porsche will use Le Mans 919 Hybrid tech

Porsche has been testing and teasing all-electric vehicles for years, like the trio of experimental Boxsters in 2010 and a Pajun EV in 2015. Then came the Mission E, a gorgeous electric concept unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show late last year. Unlike previous test programs, this one was intended for the real world. Porsche is getting ready to ramp up its EV development, and has stated that its first all-electric vehicle, based on the Mission E, will arrive by 2020. For now, the future production version of the Mission E looks a lot like the Le Mans Prototype Porsche 919 Hybrid. Well, under the hood, anyway. Parts of the 800-volt powertrain in the Mission E are being used in the Le Mans prototype because, "The 919 served as the trial vehicle for the voltage level of future hybrid systems," Porsche says. During testing with the race car, Porsche says it is learning a lot about EV tech, including keeping the battery and electric motor cool and "extreme high-voltage" connectors. This news is not as exciting as a flashy new concept, but this is just the sort of thing that automakers need to do in the big transition from fossil fuels to electric drive. Related Video: Hybrid technology in the LMP1 Porsche 919 Hybrid Atlanta, Georgia. This weekend, the Le Mans Prototype Porsche 919 Hybrid has its only 2016 appearance in Germany. At the six-hour race to be held on the Grand Prix circuit of the Nurburgring, the fourth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC), the series' leader fights to defend its title. At the same time its mission is to revolutionize the technology of future sports cars. With the 919 Hybrid, Porsche has developed a new field of technology at racing speed. For the "Mission E", a fully electric road-going concept sports car unveiled in 2015, the designers adopted the 800-Volt technology from the prototype racer. Porsche has exhausted all possibilities in designing the two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner – especially in terms of the drive concept. It consists of a two-liter, V4 turbocharged gasoline engine – the most efficient combustion motor that Porsche has built up to now– and two different energy recovery systems. During braking, a generator at the front-axle converts the car's kinetic energy into electrical energy. In the split exhaust system, one turbine drives the turbocharger while another converts surplus energy into electrical energy.