Engineering:Porsche 963

Short description: Sports prototype racing car

Porsche 963

The No. 6 963 racing at the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans
Category	LMDh
Constructor	Porsche (Multimatic)
Designer(s)	Grant Larson (Director of Special Projects, Style Porsche) Stéphane Lenglin (Exterior Designer) Christian Eifrig (Technical Project Manager) Stefan Moser (Head Engineer, Powertrain)
Predecessor	Porsche 919 Hybrid (LMP1) Porsche RS Spyder (LMP2)
Technical specifications
Chassis	LMP2-based carbon-fibre monocoque with aluminium honeycomb core
Suspension (front)	Double wishbones, pushrods with power steering
Suspension (rear)	Double wishbones, pushrods
Length	5,100 mm (200.8 in)
Width	2,000 mm (78.7 in)
Height	1,060 mm (41.7 in)
Wheelbase	3,148 mm (123.9 in)
Engine	Porsche 9RD 4,593 cc (280.3 cu in) 90° V8 twin-turbocharged, 32-valve, DOHC mid-engine, longitudinally-mounted
Electric motor	Rear-mounted 50 kW (68 PS; 67 hp) spec MGU supplied by Bosch
Transmission	Xtrac P1359 7-speed sequential manual
Power	500 kW (680 PS; 671 hp)
Weight	1,030 kg (2,270.8 lb)
Fuel	TotalEnergies (WEC) VP Racing Fuels (IMSA)
Lubricants	Mobil 1
Brakes	AP Racing carbon 380/365mm with AP Monobloc 6-piston calipers
Tyres	Michelin slicks with BBS one-piece forged alloys, 29/71-18 front and 34/71-18 rear
Competition history
Competition	FIA World Endurance Championship, IMSA SportsCar Championship
Notable entrants	Porsche Penske Motorsports JOTA JDC–Miller MotorSports Proton Competition
Notable drivers	Kévin Estre André Lotterer Michael Christensen Dane Cameron Felipe Nasr Matt Campbell Mathieu Jaminet Laurens Vanthoor Nick Tandy Frederic Makowiecki Josef Newgarden Yifei Ye António Félix da Costa Will Stevens Mike Rockenfeller Tijmen van der Helm Jenson Button Gianmaria Bruni Harry Tincknell Neel Jani
Debut	2023 24 Hours of Daytona
First win	2023 Grand Prix of Long Beach
Last win	2024 24 Hours of Daytona
Last event	2024 24 Hours of Daytona
Races Wins Podiums Poles F.Laps 17 4 9 2 0
Teams' Championships	1 (2023 FIA WEC (FIA World Cup for Hypercar Teams))

The Porsche 963 (Type 9R0) is an LMDh sports prototype racing car designed by Porsche and built by Multimatic, to compete in the Hypercar and GTP (Grand Touring Prototype) classes in the FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA SportsCar Championship, respectively. The 963 name draws inspiration from the Porsche 956 and Porsche 962 that raced in the 1980s, which also competed in American and European racing series. The car was revealed at the 2022 Goodwood Festival of Speed, with a traditional red, white, and black livery.

The official race debut of the 963 was at the 2023 24 Hours of Daytona, the season-opening round of the 2023 IMSA SportsCar Championship. The car was originally slated for a non-competitive dress rehearsal at the 2022 8 Hours of Bahrain, however, Porsche decided later that they would not race at Bahrain in favour of more private testing time. Porsche later announced that the first customer 963s would not be delivered until April 2023 due to delays caused by supply chain disruptions, forcing customer teams to miss the opening races of the IMSA SportsCar Championship and WEC, something that the teams understood when engaging in talks with Porsche to take delivery.

Background

Porsche last competed in the FIA World Endurance Championship's top class, LMP1, back in 2017 with the Porsche 919 Hybrid, and in the IMSA SportsCar Championship with the Porsche RS Spyder in the LMP2 class, with the 919 taking outright championship victory in its final year of competition, and the RS Spyder taking outright championship victory in the American Le Mans Series and class championship victory in the European Le Mans Series. Following the withdrawal of Porsche's factory LMP1 and LMP2 teams from the World Endurance Championship and American Le Mans Series, Porsche maintained a presence in the lower classes with continued factory support for the 911 RSR in the American Le Mans Series' GT2 (later GTLM) class, and in the World Endurance Championship's GTE class. The Automobile Club de l'Ouest, the organiser of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, issued a statement regarding the matter, saying that the club "regrets this precipitous departure, as it does the abruptness of the decision from one of endurance racing’s most successful and lauded manufacturers".

As part of the LMDh regulations, interested parties can choose four constructors to partner with to construct the chassis upon to which design the car, those four constructors being Oreca, Ligier, Multimatic and Dallara. Head of Porsche Motorsport Pascal Zurlinden announced in March 2020 that Porsche would be evaluating an entry into LMDh, saying "Porsche is seriously looking into it, but there is no decision yet". This was followed up with an announcement in December that year that development of a LMDh project would commence, with Porsche being the first manufacturer to commit to the LMDh class.

A multi-year partnership with Team Penske to run the factory team under the banner of Porsche Penske Motorsport was announced in May 2021. The announcement marked the commencement of third major collaboration with between Porsche and Team Penske, continuing a decades old relationship that began with the Porsche 917/30 in Can-Am and blossomed again with the Porsche RS Spyder in LMP2 class of the ALMS. The collaboration would be aiming to debut with two entries each in the top classes of the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship and 2023 IMSA SportsCar Championship.

Vice President of Porsche Motorsport Fritz Enzinger commented that "Porsche and Penske shared a proven track record of success" and that "In the long list of victories to date, however, the name Le Mans has been missing. I hope that we will finally be able to chalk up this success as of 2023 with Porsche Penske Motorsport. This would then mark Porsche's 20th overall victory at the Sarthe - a dream come true."

In the same month, Multimatic was revealed to be the constructor that would supply the chassis for which Porsche would design bodywork, with Enzinger saying that "Multimatic is the most obvious and logical solution for us", and that "We have known this highly respected company and its team of experienced professionals for many years and are absolutely convinced of the quality of their work".

Testing commenced at the beginning of 2022, with the first tests being at Porsche's test track at Weissach, where the car's engine choice was also revealed, that being a twin-turbocharged V8, which is a development of the engine found in the Porsche 918 which in turn was developed from the 3,397 cc (207.3 cu in) V8 found in the Porsche RS Spyder, paired with the standardised hybrid parts provided by Williams Advanced Engineering, Bosch and Xtrac. This was followed by an extensive testing program at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya and the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, where the car covered over 6,000 km (3,728 mi).

Porsche also announced in May 2022 that four 963s would be allocated to customers for 2023, at the cost of $2.9 million, with full factory support. JDC–Miller Motorsports and JOTA Sport both announced on the 25th of June that they would take delivery, with JDC MotorSport campaigning the 963 in the IMSA SportsCar Championship and JOTA fielding the car in the FIA World Endurance Championship. In November 2022, Proton Competition was revealed as operator of the remaining 2 customer entries, fielding a single entry in the 2023 editions of both WEC and IMSA.

• 

  Launch of the 963 at the 2022 Goodwood Festival of Speed
• 

  Debut at the Roar Before the Rolex 24
• 

  Rear of the 963
• 

  On track at Daytona International Speedway
• 

  Car in Daytona night

Racing history

The No. 5 963 at the 2023 Sahlen's Six Hours of The Glen

Due to supply-chain constraints, Team Penske (the official factory-backed Porsche team) was the only team who could field the 963 at its debut at the 2023 24 Hours of Daytona. Customer teams JDC-Miller MotorSports and Proton Competition instead opted to run a Duqueine D-08 and Oreca 07, respectively.

The 963 made its first appearance in the practice sessions of the 2023 24 Hours of Daytona alongside fellow GTP debutants, the BMW M Hybrid V8, the Acura ARX-06, and the Cadillac V-LMDh. The 963 was often right behind the ARX-06s of Meyer Shank Racing and Wayne Taylor Racing, with the former leading all five practice sessions, bar the last one. A technical problem limited the mileage of the No. 6 963 to just nine laps in second practice, however, still managed to clock a time faster than the No. 31 Cadillac. Nick Tandy set the fastest time in a damp fifth free practice that saw intermittent rain, albeit that none of the ARX-06s left their garages during the session. Tom Blomqvist took pole in what was a chaotic qualifying session: John Farano crashed at turn 7 in his Oreca 07, red flagging the session, and later another red flag was brought out for Tandy, who crashed his 963. Given just a single flying lap after the session resumed after Tandy's accident, Blomqvist took pole with a 1:34.031, 0.083 s faster than Felipe Nasr in the No. 7 963. Blomqvist carried his pace into the race, leading the first 62 and last 97 laps. Both Porsches were beset by reliability issues, with significant time spent in the garages: No. 7 was the first to come in, losing 35 laps to replace a faulty battery, and Tandy – in No. 6 – had been running in contention for overall victory in the morning until a gearbox failure ended his race.

The Porsche 963 took its first victory in IMSA competition on the Streets of Long Beach with Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy driving. In the season's fourth round, the Motul Course de Monterey, Matt Campbell took the car's first pole position while Tandy's No. 6 started second and van der Helm's No. 5 JDC–Miller Motorsports car qualified ninth. The No. 6 car recovered to second after a slow start. Campbell hit the No. 94 Andretti Autosport Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3, losing time as he served a drive-through penalty. A crash at turn 10 after Nasr relieved Campbell relegated the No. 7 car to ninth. Tijmen van der Helm and Mike Rockenfeller finished seventh in JDC–Miller Motorsports first race with the car. At Watkins Glen, Tandy and Jaminet started from pole position after qualifying was cancelled. Porsche Penske Motorsport's No. 6 car battled for the win. Through a better pit-stop strategy, the No. 6 Porsche overtook the No. 31 Cadillac and the No. 60 Acura and rejoined in second with 40 minutes remaining. Jaminet overtook Connor De Phillippi in the final minutes before the race ended behind the safety car. The No. 7 car was in contention until Nasr sustained an issue with the hybrid system and spent 2 hours replacing the battery, gearbox and rear axle. It later emerged onto the track and finished 52nd overall. Later, the No. 6 Porsche was disqualified for illegal skid block wear.

In 2024, the Porsche 963 took its first major endurance race victory with a win in the 24 Hours of Daytona, with Porsche Penske Motorsport winning with drivers Dane Cameron, Matt Campbell, Felipe Nasr, and Josef Newgarden.

Racing results

Complete IMSA SportsCar Championship results

(key) Races in bold indicates pole position. Races in italics indicates fastest lap.

Complete IMSA SportsCar Championship results

Year	Entrant	Class	Drivers	No.	Rds.	Rounds									Pts.	Pos.
						1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
2023	Porsche Penske Motorsport	GTP	Mathieu Jaminet Nick Tandy Dane Cameron Laurens Vanthoor	6	All All 1–2 9	DAY 8	SEB 3	LBH 1	LAG 2	WGL 9	MOS 5	ELK 7	IMS 1	PET 10	2691	4th
			Matt Campbell Felipe Nasr Michael Christensen Josef Newgarden	7	All All 1–2 9	DAY 7	SEB 5	LBH 3	LAG 9	WGL 7	MOS 6	ELK 1	IMS 2	PET 4	2691	5th
	JDC-Miller MotorSports		Mike Rockenfeller Tijmen van der Helm Jenson Button	5	4–9 4–9 9	DAY	SEB	LBH	LAG 7	WGL 4	MOS 4	ELK 5	IMS 8	PET 5	1660	9th
	Proton Competition		Gianmaria Bruni Harry Tincknell Neel Jani	59	7–9 7–9 9	DAY	SEB	LBH	LAG	WGL	MOS	ELK 8	IMS 9	PET 3	814	15th
2024	Proton Competition	GTP	Gianmaria Bruni Romain Dumas Neel Jani Alessio Picariello	5	1 1 1 1	DAY 5	SEB	LBH	LGA	DET	WGL	ELK	IMS	ATL	281	5th*
	Porsche Penske Motorsport		Mathieu Jaminet Nick Tandy Kévin Estre Laurens Vanthoor	6	All All 1 1	DAY 4	SEB	LBH	LGA	DET	WGL	ELK	IMS	ATL	304	4th*
			Dane Cameron Felipe Nasr Matt Campbell Josef Newgarden	7	All All 1 1	DAY 1	SEB	LBH	LGA	DET	WGL	ELK	IMS	ATL	380	1st*
	JDC-Miller MotorSports		Richard Westbrook Tijmen van der Helm Philip Hanson Ben Keating	85	All All 1-2, 6, 8-9 1	DAY 6	SEB	LBH	LGA	DET	WGL	ELK	IMS	ATL	272	6th*

* Season still in progress.

Complete World Endurance Championship results

(key) Races in bold indicates pole position. Races in italics indicates fastest lap.

Complete FIA World Endurance Championship results

Year	Entrant	Class	Drivers	No.	Rds.	Rounds							Pts.	Pos.
						1	2	3	4	5	6	7
2023	Porsche Penske Motorsport	Hypercar	Dane Cameron Michael Christensen Frédéric Makowiecki	5	All All All	SEB 5	POR 10	SPA 4	LMN 9	MZA 4	FUJ 12	BHR 7	99	3rd
			Kévin Estre André Lotterer Laurens Vanthoor	6	All All All	SEB 6	POR 3	SPA Ret	LMN 11	MZA 7	FUJ 3	BHR 5
			Mathieu Jaminet Felipe Nasr Nick Tandy	75	4 4 4	SEB	POR	SPA	LMN Ret	MZA	FUJ	BHR
	Hertz Team Jota		António Félix da Costa Will Stevens Yifei Ye	38	3–7 3–7 3–7	SEB	POR	SPA 6	LMN 13	MZA 9	FUJ 6	BHR 4
	Proton Competition		Gianmaria Bruni Harry Tincknell Neel Jani	99	5–7 5–7 5–7	SEB	POR	SPA	LMN	MZA Ret	FUJ 9	BHR 10