The new hypercar class of the World Endurance Championship is shaping up to be a fitting successor to the iconic GT Championship which ran from the mid-1990s through to 2009.
GT racing series once included the likes of the McLaren F1 GTR, Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR, Maserati MC12 GT1, Porsche 911 GT1 and others. The new hypercar class will include cars from Aston Martin, Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus and Toyota.
Hopefully, some other manufacturers will sign up – Koenigsegg, for one, has already said it’s interested. This rendering has us crossing our fingers that Porsche will also decide to compete.
Also Read: SCG Says Its Le Mans Hypercar Will Be A Combination Of The 003 And 004
The following rendering from Rain Prisk imagines a 992-generation 911 racer inspired by the original 911 GT1.
Compared to the road-going 911, the example pictured has been lowered and lengthened. It is also sitting on a set of bespoke aftermarket wheels and sports aggressive canards on the front bumper, a subtle roof scoop, a towering rear wing, and a large shark fin stretching off the roof and connecting to the wing.
As much as we’d love to see Porsche compete in the new hypercar series, it’s highly unlikely. To meet regulations, those companies competing must produce a minimum of 20 road-going units of their racing machines over a two-year period and as Porsche doesn’t currently have a hypercar in its range, it would have to design one from scratch.
The true obstacle, though, is that Weissach has decided to move away from endurance racing and concentrate its works efforts on Formula E instead. And while it may reconsider in the future (after all, it still makes a good deal of money supplying ICE-powered racers to privateers), it won’t happen very soon. Unless they choose to electrify their brand new 911 RSR GTE sometime in the near future – but that’s just wishful thinking on our part…
