Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid Does Good In 1st Race

Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid Does Good In 1st Race: "

Timo Bernhard, Marc Lieb and Marcel Tiemann won the season-opener of the Nürburgring Long Distance Championship driving their new, 480 hp Porsche 911 GT3 R to victory. But it was another Porsche that came in sixth that is even more interesting.

The Porsche that came in with a sixth place finish was a 911 GT3 R with a difference, this one was a 911 GT3 R Hybrid.

“I’m positively surprised how well this car performed already at its first race,” said Joerg Bergmeister, German driver of the Hybrid Porsche. This was the Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid’s debut race, and everyone within the company race team was suitably impressed.

“We tried many things out during the race and will be busy further developing the hybrid drive for the 24 hour race in May. Our aim is to use less fuel than our competitors without compromising performance,” explained Bergmeister’s Austrian teammate Richard Lietz. Bergmeister and Lietz were also teamed up with former Porsche Junior Martin Ragginger for the cars inaugural race outing.

The Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid has a “normal” internal combustion engine driving the rear wheels and two supplementary electric motors delivering 60 kW each to the front axle. The whole race was run without a hitch, and the Porsche came in sixth place after the trouble-free race.

The 911 Hybrid uses a unique electro-mechanical flywheel energy storage system to power the pair of electric motors driving the front wheels. Under braking, the front motors generate electricity that is used to spin up an integrated flywheel-motor-generator assembly. Spinning away at a dizzying 40,000 rpm, the flywheel can release the electrical energy on demand back to front motors. Interestingly, the system was developed by the Williams Formula One team and licensed to Porsche, rather than worked on in house.

Porsche is the latest company to race hybrids successfully. Both McLaren and Ferrari won Grands Prix last season with there KERS equipped hybrids, Corsa Motorsports has been doing quite well in American Le Mans Series racing with its hybrid prototype and Peugeot is threatening to bring a hybrid version of its bio-diesel fueled Le Mans winner back to the famed 24 hour race this year, and even Gumpert has raced a hybrid.

Photo: Porsche

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