Porsche pushes for the 2024 World Endurance Championship title
Porsche missed out on a Le Mans win this year but is closing on the 2024 WEC title
A memorable year for Porsche Penske, which is loosening Toyota’s WEC stranglehold
Porsche AG
World Endurance Championship glory or victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours? If it’s a case of either/or to define platinum-grade success in a season of sports car racing, there’s still surely only one answer. Yet despite failing to land its record-extending 20th Le Mans win back in June – a miss only rubbed in by Ferrari basking in the limelight for a second consecutive year – Porsche’s form in the WEC and beyond looks set to seal 2024 as a gold-standard season for endurance racing’s greatest marque.
Ahead of the Bahrain 8 Hours WEC season finale on November 2, Porsche looks on course to land a drivers’ and manufacturers’ world title double. Victory at the Fuji 6 Hours in September has left André Lotterer, Kévin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor with one hand on the drivers’ trophy. The trio, who also won the season opener in Qatar, hold a commanding 35-point lead over nearest rivals and Ferrari’s Le Mans winners Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen, with Toyota’s Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries two further back. Only 39 points are left to be won in Bahrain.
Jota’s Porsche 963, driven by Callum Illot and Will Stevens, was the winner at Spa
Meanwhile in the manufacturers’ standings, Porsche is 10 points ahead of reigning champions Toyota, with Ferrari 27 off the top spot. It gets better for Weissach: a fair wind in Bahrain will land Porsche a clean sweep. At Fuji its customer team Jota, which scored a landmark win at the Spa 6 Hours back in May, sealed the WEC World Cup for independent teams with a fifth-place finish for Will Stevens, Callum Ilott and Norman Nato. Meanwhile, Manthey PureRxcing tied up the new GT3 LM class for the 911 GT3 R with a round to spare.
The WEC glory is also primed to be mirrored on the other side of the Atlantic, where the parallel Penske-run 963s are battling for honours in the IMSA SportsCar series. Dane Cameron and Felipe Nasr head team-mates Nick Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet by just 14 points after a rain-affected Indianapolis 6 Hours, with just Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta to come in October. The two crews have four wins between them this season, including Porsche’s 19th overall victory at the Daytona 24 Hours – its first since 2003.
WEC leaders, from left: Lotterer, Estre, Vanthoor and Porsche team manager Francis Schammo
Porsche AG
Add in Pascal Wehrlein’s last-gasp Formula E world title earned in London, where the German plucked the title from Jaguar pairing Nick Cassidy and Mitch Evans, and Porsche’s season takes on an even brighter hue.
Still, despite it all the glaring hole remains. In 2025, for both Penske and Porsche, only victory in the ‘Big One’ – the Le Mans 24 Hours – will do.