The Porsche 963 will receive various reliability updates for the 2024 season. After several IMSA successes, the LMDh car from Weissach finally achieved its long-awaited breakthrough in the Endurance World Championship (WEC) with third place in Fuji. Nevertheless, Porsche Penske Motorsport will not be satisfied with the way the season has gone so far.
Above all, the nightmare hours on Saturday evening at the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2023 left a trauma that they now want to remedy with updates. However, the LMDh regulations set strict limits on the possibilities.
While the LMH regulations allow up to five “Evo-Jokers”, only certain components may be newly homologated on prototypes under certain circumstances according to the LMDh regulations. Based on the experience with eight vehicles in the current season – four in factory hands and four in customer hands – Porsche now wants to rework the car within this framework.
Urs Kuratle, head of factory motorsport LMDh at Porsche, tells “Sportscar365”: “What can we do? We can homologate new things within the regulations we have. Outside this window we can improve the software and the set-up.”
“We need to understand our car and our package much better in order to catch up. But we are not yet where we want to be. We are on the right track, but there is still a long way to go. We know what we want “We want to use the window. We have these options and of course we will use them.”
The components have already been tested in a test in Spa-Francorchamps. WRT also tested there with the BMW M Hybrid V8 and the RMG team with the new BMW M4 GT3 Evo. Lamborghini was also supposed to take part in the test drives, but had to cancel after Mirko Bortolotti’s serious accident in Le Castellet.
No visible updates
Kuratle admits that drivability is one of the biggest problems. It’s difficult enough to get this problem under control. Additionally, there are still problems with the hybrid system – the worst LMDh disease since the program began in early 2022.
“Reliability is the most important thing we are working on. There are reliability problems with the MGU. We are working on that together with the hybrid partners. But we also have problems with the car, as we saw at Le Mans and in some other races. In these We have to catch up with the competition in these areas.”
“It’s not about performance, it’s about reliability. This is exactly the window in which you can homologate. We have to work on that,” says Kurtle, who speaks of “significant” updates in terms of reliability.
Visually there will be no changes: “It’s not something that the fans or the people at the track see. We don’t do any big things on the aerodynamics. They’re mechanical things. Reliability is key.”
“We’re not planning a big body update or anything like that, because the car is homologated within the aerodynamic window and it has to stay there. Those aren’t our weak points either. We have things like the power steering and reliability problems like that.” The updates are welcome for the big battle with ten manufacturers at Le Mans 2024.