Le Mans winning Porsche 919 Hybrid tests at the Nürburgring

Porsche 919 Hybrid, Porsche Team: Romain Dumas, Marc Lieb

A two-day test at the Nürburgring was a taster of the fourth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) to be held on August 30. The Porsche Team was running a Porsche 919 Hybrid on Monday and Tuesday, sharing the 5.137 kilometre circuit with an impressive field of 19 other WEC cars. It was the prototype’s first time on track since its glorious overall win at the 24 hours of Le Mans on June 14. The works drivers at the wheel of the test car were Timo Bernhard (Germany)/Brendon Hartley (New Zealand) on Monday and Romain Dumas (France)/Marc Lieb (Germany) on Tuesday. Together the four drivers covered 1,275 kilometres.

Team Principal Andreas Seidl said: “It was a good test for us. We have been running a few new items and preparing for the six-hour race at the end of August. Because the Nürburgring is new on the WEC calendar, we had no data from before. For the drivers it was an important experience too to be here with the 919. We have been working on the car’s set-up and the hybrid management for this particular track. Also running in the wet on Monday was a useful exercise for everyone. We are very much looking forward to the first WEC race in Germany. It is home soil for the fastest WEC cars and Porsche has very close ties with the Nürburgring. This is historically from great sports car successes for the brand, as well as due to current test and development work for road going cars.”

After three out of eight World Championship rounds, Porsche is leading the manufacturers’ championship with 140 points ahead of Audi (124) and Toyota (71).