Porsche teases its Le Mans-ready LMDh prototype race car for 2023
It will compete in both the FIA WEC and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar championships.
This looks cool.
At the end of 2020 Porsche announced its intent to enter the LMDh prototype class that will jointly compete in the FIA World Endurance Championship and North American IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, releasing some sketches of the awesome-looking race car. On Saturday Porsche released the first teaser images of the real thing, and it's pretty rad.
The teasers are just focused on the rear end of the car and it's covered by a camouflage wrap, but we can still see a lot of detail. A Taycan-like light bar slices through an opening at the rear and sits atop a big diffuser, and the prominent rear haunches flank a teardrop greenhouse that runs all the way to the rear of the car. A pair of exhaust tips are inset into the bodywork, and we can see a large roof scoop.
I don't think that wing is big enough.
But the real centerpiece is the massive wing. The end plates are integrated into the rear fenders and have vertical light elements, while a central tailfin extends off the roof and has a swan-neck mount onto the horizontal plane. The wing is adjustable, and we're likely to see different setups depending on the track.
Porsche is developing the LMDh racer with Penske Motorsport, with Urs Kuratle acting as the team manager. The race car will be driven by Dane Cameron, who won the DPi class of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in 2016 and 2019, and Felipe Nasr, an ex-Formula 1 driver who won the North American endurance racing series championship in 2018 and 2021.
The LMDh race cars are built on an LMP2 platform, use a 670-horsepower hybrid system and weigh around 2,200 pounds. Acura, Audi, BMW and Cadillac are all also set to field LMDh entries in 2023, with those cars racing alongside the even wilder LMH hypercar prototypes from Toyota, Ferrari and Peugeot.
