Le Mans-Winning 919 Hybrid Driven On Public Roads To Its Retirement At The Porsche Museum

The mighty 919 Hybrid has officially retired after one final drive on public roads, starting from Porsche’s R&D center in Weissach to the company’s museum in Zuffenhausen.

The two Le Mans prototypes were driven for 15.5 miles (25km) on public roads by Mark Webber and Marc Lieb with the escort of authorities.

Webber was at the wheel of the 919 Evo, the ultimate development of the 919 which broke the absolute track record at the Nurburgring, as well as the F1’s qualifying record at Spa-Francorchamps.

“It was kind of crazy but fun to handle the beast in public traffic in Germany”, said Webber. “It’s typical of Porsche to try to manage something cool like this. The 919 and the years in the FIA World Endurance Championship mean a lot to me. It was an honour to bring the 919 Evo home now.”

Marc Lieb drove the 919 Hybrid that was in FIA WEC spec. “Every day I take parts of this route from my house in Ludwigsburg to get to work in the Weissach office”, said Lieb. “Being in my Cayenne, from now on I will always remember how it looked from the 919’s much lower seat position.”

The 919 gave Porsche six world championship titles in total between 2015 and 2017. In race spec, the prototype produced around 900hp from its hybrid powertrain that combined a turbocharged 2.0-liter V4 engine with two different energy recovery systems and an electric motor. The hybrid system’s 800-Volt technology will reach Porsche’s production cars in 2019.