- Porsche announced Wednesday that they will no longer field a full-time team in the FIA World Endurance
Championship after this season. The manufacturer will focus on Porsche Penske Motorsport in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship next year, along with factory involvement in Formula E.
The reasoning for leaving the WEC? The press release simply stated, "We very much regret that, due to the current circumstances, we will not be continuing our involvement in the WEC after this
season."
While that statement doesn't really answer the question, the likely reason may be finances. In recent months, Porsche's parent company, the Volkswagen Audi Group, has posted financial losses. The company has attempted to lay off a significant number of factory workers in Germany in order to save money, something that is very difficult to do due to the power of labor unions such as IG Metall.
Running in the WEC is said to be substantially more expensive than racing in WeatherTech, so the benefit isn't quite as high to Porsche. Meanwhile, Formula E is more applicable to Porsche's electric future.
Porsche's factory squad pulling out of full-time racing in the WEC will not mean that there won't be a
Porsche 963 in the WEC next year. There is the possibility of Proton Competition continuing with their customer 963. In addition, a second customer team could step up as well with a chassis freed up by this move. Finally, it is quite likely that the American wing of Porsche Penske Motorsport will earn an at-large bid to the 24 Hours of Le Mans by virtue of winning the WeatherTech GTP championship this weekend.
