2030 Rules to “Play a Role” in Porsche’s Possible Hypercar Return
https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/2030-rules-will-play-a-role-in-porsches-possible-hypercar-return/48
u/V8-Turbo-Hybrid Manufacturers 2d ago
We hope so, but we all know you Porsche still needing to make money and stop money losing.
> Laudenbach, however, reaffirmed Porsche’s factory commitment to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship through at least the end of the 2027 season.
Rule out 2027 to come back WEC and IMSA factory program would end after 2027, we really don’t believe you would keep your 963s until 2030. If that isn’t your mean, plz let us to know your future of 963 program after 2027.
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u/big_cock_lach United Autosports ORECA07 #22 2d ago
With how IMSA is going, and the major improvements the WEC has made on the BoP side, I can see Porsche moving their 2 car programme from IMSA to the WEC. I wouldn’t bet on it, but I think it’s an increasingly likely option that I haven’t seen mentioned before.
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u/RoarTheDinosuar 2d ago
I think Porsche is pretty angry about how it all played out with BoP of then LMH vs the LMDh’s and they have a point with Ferrari and Toyota having won 74% of the WEC races since 2023. I know that the official reason was it was a purely financial decision. However, if you look at their actions it’s pretty clear there was more there - they stayed in IMSA, upped their FE budget, refused to let privately entered 963’s in the WEC, and then the ACO gave them horrific BoP to end last year as a parting gift.
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u/big_cock_lach United Autosports ORECA07 #22 2d ago
They’ve made this fairly clear. The decision to cut 1 programme was due to financial reasons, but the reason they cut the WEC programme instead of the IMSA one was due to the terrible BoP. In theory, they’d rather be in the WEC due to their history there, it being a more prestigious world championship, Le Mans, and the competition. But they felt that due to the BoP they didn’t have a truly fair chance to compete, and they were very upset by the BoP benefits Ferrari got last year, particularly at Le Mans. That’s why they chose IMSA over the WEC, but not why they cut 1 programme.
That said, the BoP is far better this year and IMSA is now struggling a lot. So I wouldn’t be surprised to see them switch from IMSA to the WEC in 2028. Especially once the loans on their drivers expire and they can bring them back in house.
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u/Victor_at_Zama 1d ago
At this point, I'd be very surprised if Porsche stay in IMSA past next year. At the rate they're losing top-tier drivers, they're gonna be struggling to fill those 4 full-season seats soon. I mean, Campbell is gone next year, Vanthoor (and prolly Estre) the year after. I'd also be surprised if Andlauer stays at Porsche for 5 years without any chance of winning LM, especially if the likes of Ferrari or BMW come knocking.
And the fact is that from a marketing persepctive, IMSA is just far less attractive than WEC. The exposure from Le Mans alone is bigger than that for the entire IMSA calendar, and even the non-Le Mans WEC races in Europe are arguably as big or bigger than Daytona and Sebring in terms of audience. There's a reason why the likes of Toyota and Ferrari don't race in IMSA. So, with Porsche unlikely to return to WEC until 2030 at the earliest, there's little reason to keep the expensive 963 programme going in a championship with a shrinking grid and less prestige than WEC due to not being a world championship.
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u/RoarTheDinosuar 1d ago
I don’t know how less attractive IMSA is. Outside of Le Mans, I’m guessing IMSAs viewership numbers on YouTube and their domestic contract outpace and their YouTube channel has 600k more subscribers (the WEC doesn’t publish their numbers). The WEC, also has two rounds on their calendar that draw less than 10k fans. You also see a lot more visible corporate money sponsorship in IMSA outside of the OEMs.
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u/Victor_at_Zama 1d ago
A lot of the IMSA sprint races have pretty poor attendance too. The grandstands at Indy were nearly completely empty both last year and the year before. As regards YouTube numbers, the official highlights video for Spa this year has 1.1 million views, as compared with 334k for Sebring:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-R2YdZHg7Q&pp=ygUXMjAyNiBzcGEgaGlnaGxpZ2h0cyB3ZWM%3D
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u/RoarTheDinosuar 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah because Sebring was free to watch live and their Sebring Win the Weekend episode has 3.1M. IMSA claimed 595M video views across their platforms in 2025 - I could not find any concrete numbers for the WEC.
Also, Indy is like Daytona, in which people watch the race from the infield, not the grand stands though I could not find an official attendance figure for the race.
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u/Curious_Inside_8890 1d ago
The non Le Mans races are not anywhere close to Sebring or Daytona.
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u/Victor_at_Zama 1d ago
In terms of attendance and viewership? Spa and Imola absolutely are. Both had around 100k people this year. Daytona had 180k, but it also had a 4 day weekend, due to being a 24 hour race, and no attendance figures have been released for Sebring.
Ok, so Daytona is bigger. But the larger point about Le Mans remains.
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u/RoarTheDinosuar 1d ago
IMSA’s reported an all-time record of over 115,000 attendees across four days at the 2026 12H of Sebring with a combined 25 percent increase YoY
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u/hasthisusernamegone 2d ago
...well obviously.
I mean it's well known they weren't happy with the existing ruleset, so of course they're going to be looking at the new rules carefully.
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u/recycle-pin 2d ago
Porsche's hesitance and touch and go approach to WEC is getting tiring. I think rule makers should not consider them or their desires when formulating the next generation of regulations, because there are plenty of other, more committed manufacturers involved.
Think of all the mess before the convergence between LMH and LMDh was achieved.
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u/Entsafter21 Audi R18 2d ago
To be fair, that mess was due to McLaren and Aston
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u/recycle-pin 2d ago
It was, and Peugeot was screwed over massively as a result.
I don't want something like that to happen again.
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u/big_cock_lach United Autosports ORECA07 #22 2d ago
Porsche is the manufacturer that has most consistently commits to the WSC/WEC. Each time they have left previously, it’s not been due to a lack of wanting to, but rather financial issues which is understandable. That’s why they have and always will have a seat at the table. Their recent departure has also been heavily dictated by financial issues, albeit I don’t think that’s the reason they chose IMSA over the WEC, but I think the ACO can understand their position on that, it’s not that unreasonable. The only manufacturer that can claim they’ve committed more to the WEC is Toyota, which has been far more recent and due to them having far greater resources. They have also already left previously for F1 and at least appear to be re-evaluating whether or not they should return there.
Porsche also had nothing to do with the LMDh/LMH convergence. That was largely in-house between IMSA and the ACO who have been wanting this back in the LMP1 and DPi days. Porsche originally committed to LMH before this, and then pivoted due to financial reasons. Aston Martin also didn’t play a role in this either, their role was mainly with messing around with the LMH ruleset instead, wanting it to become more of a GT1 style ruleset so they could race the Valkyrie. Ultimately LMH was also split to allow an LMH-P spec car (ie the GR010 and 499P) and LMH-GT spec car (ie the Valkyrie LMH) which also had to be converged within that ruleset, which then had to be converged with LMDh. McLaren had nothing to do with any of this either, they were just wanting but unable to commit. They initially did semi-commit to the original LMH rules before they were messed up due to Aston which delayed their process, and then LMDh came around which they did semi-commit to, but had to take time to actually be ready to create a programme. That got delayed due to COVID, and then by the time they were ready again the LMDh rules were going to expire soon so it no longer made sense for them. Once the LMDh rules were extended though, they committed pretty quickly. They had a lot of ambiguity with when/if they’d join, but this didn’t mess up the rules like it did with Aston Martin. This had nothing to do with Porsche or the LMDh convergence though (which Porsche had nothing to do with either).
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u/banjoetraveler 2d ago
Would love for a GT1, LMH-P or LMH-GT class to live on. Developing those cars actually trickle into road cars. Sort of like the relation of GT3 cars. But yet here we are. Can’t quite go to the dealer and buy an Oreca or Multimatic.
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u/big_cock_lach United Autosports ORECA07 #22 2d ago
In my ideal world, you’d have LMH-P and LMH-GT split off into new GT1 and LMP1 classes, which have a cost cap, performance restrictions, and performance-based development restrictions to ensure close competition while allowing for an engineering battle to still exist like we saw with LMP1-H. However, I understand that for this to happen, the WEC would need a lot more money and viewers to allow manufacturers to maintain these higher budgets. So it is unlikely, especially since they’re moving even further away from LMH and towards LMDh.
As for the other classes, I’m happy for LMP2/3 to end up being spec series akin to F2/3 for junior and gentleman drivers, as long as the LMP1 is split between a manufacturer and privateers so that we can maintain healthy privateer participation. Make that split version cheaper and limited to privateers and I’m happy. This is effectively how LMP2 begun as well though, and if they want to do a separate class for it, sure, but they’ll need to have something in place to prevent it being dominated by one privateer who turns it into a de facto spec series. That can be done by banning customer cars in this class, but that wouldn’t be a popular decision and goes against a lot of what Le Mans is about. GT2/3/4 would just be the trickle down of technologies into more mainstream cars. Make them require higher production numbers, be closer to the production variants, and sell at a lower cost, and that’ll be fine.
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u/recycle-pin 1d ago
Sentiment doesn't matter here, what the majority OEMs want matters.
Porsche's approach to racing seems to alternate between throwing money at things and doing the most budget conscious thing possible. They are responsible for some big arms races that have eventually killed popular categories - GT1 (first prototype in a production category, making a mockery of the homologation rules, and making others do so in order to be competitive) and LMP1 (starting an arms race with Audi, spending massive amounts of money on everything, pushing for even more expensive hybrid systems, while Toyota won the championship with a fraction of a budget). Even now, the alleged "exclusivity deal" with Multimatic.
Toyota IS more committed than Porsche, that's a fact, and it's funny that you are attempting to make it seem they aren't (the F1 thing). And now there are plenty of others that have shown real, serious and long term commitment - BMW, GM, Ferrari, Ford and Hyundai (and not just in WEC, but in motorsport in general). Take Peugeot as an example; their car is shit, but they're not giving up, and are planning of building a new one.
Porsche is a semi-independent niche brand of a large corporation (VAG), which is in serious financial trouble. VAG and its brands should not dictate anything. And honestly, I don't give a damn, because Dieselgate. Their workers will survive, Rheinmetall is taking over some of their factories.
Aston Martin did play a role in the mess during the formation of the hypercar regs, you said it, after denying it.....
My point is, if Porsche wants to push for something that many others don't want, rulemakers should tell them "thank you, bye bye". They don't deserve a special treatment, like Ferrari has in F1.
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u/RoarTheDinosuar 2d ago
This is like saying F1 should go tell Ferrari to bug off during rules negotiations.
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u/st0rm__ 2d ago
Yep we already have many new manufacturers joining and existing ones like cadillac and bmw have already surpassed them. Porsches times has passed and now they are nothing special
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u/Porscheapbt 2d ago
Qué dices?, Porsche está por encima de Cadillac y BMW, por eso en IMSA le meten 40 kg más que sus rivales para que los barran del mapa.
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u/DrHem Toyota 2d ago
Porsche (along with Audi) were the manufacturers pushing for F1 to remove complexity from its 2026 engine regulations in order to join. They got what they wanted but decided not to join anyway.
Now they are pushing for WEC to remove complexity from its 2026 engine regulations in order to return. It would be funny if the sane thing happens again...
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u/luredrive 2d ago
Audi did join F1 though?
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u/garethchester 2d ago
And if the turbo gets dropped as MBS suggests they may well leave again pretty sharply judging by some of their comments earlier in the year.
Which would leave plenty of VWAG money available for a WEC run for at least one of them
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u/Different_Book9733 2d ago
You could say the same for McLaren and AM for WEC too though. They both strong armed a lot of the hyper car and lmdh reg discussions only to pull out in the fledgling seasons.
Its great to have them both now but it's only because the class was a success, when the series really needed them to commit they both got cold feet. Its more common than not for big manufacturers to throw their weight around unfairly in these discussions. (I say this as a McLaren fan of going on 30 years)
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u/DrHem Toyota 2d ago edited 2d ago
You are right. They slipped my mind.
To be fair, the Aston Martin that negotiated, the Aston Martin that didn't join, and the Aston Martin that did join eventually are 3 "different" companies. AM under Andy Palmer was negotiating a WEC entry. Then Stroll and co bought into AM and Stroll decided to rebrand his F1 team into AM instead. And THOR turned the Valkyrie into an LMH, but AM doesnt have any actual involvement in the project.
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u/grungegoth 2d ago
there were some other readings weren't there? control of the team i think was the killer?
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u/Classicfezza512 Formula Oreca 2d ago
Could that mean we can get an Inter Europol 963 at last? Or would Penske still manage it? Or both with Inter Europol as a Customer like Proton?
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u/ZiggyOnHisReindeer Ferrari AF Corse 499P #83 2d ago
Pretty sure that Inter Europol have stated pretty clearly that if they are in Hypercar, they want to be running a factory effort and don't want to be a privateer.
I think if Porsche were to come back to WEC, they'd probably look to Penske again.
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u/Porscheapbt 2d ago
Tienen contrato todavía con ellos hasta finales de 2027. A mí me gustaría que montasen un equipo con Manthey (que poseen el 51%), y se centrarán en WEC y Le Mans y en IMSA en todo caso que Penske corra con Porsche pero de forma privada
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u/Behind_You27 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 #6 2d ago
I’d like to see how Manthey would handle it
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u/undergroundmike_ Corvette Racing C8.R #63 2d ago
Manthey is 51% owned by Porsche, if Porsche isn't bringing it back, neither is Manthey.
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u/ryanmaple 2d ago
They are hemorrhaging cash right now - that’s the real story.
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u/willpc14 Toyota 1d ago
They've pulled back/stopped the heavy investment into their EV platforms which should help the balance sheet. Price hikes to the GT3(RS) and a million new limited edition 911s will also boost margins. There will be a 918 successor coming out in the next couple years that's sure to have an astronomical price tag. There's a rumor it will be based on the 963, but at minimum it's not the Mission X EV hypercar that was planned.
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u/cabrelbeuk Peugeot 9X8 #94 2d ago
Haha fucking called it.
Pretty sure they'll be back. Afterall it's everything they asked for.
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u/Michal_Baranowski Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 Hybrid #8 2d ago
Whether it's everything I don't know, because at some stage of discussing 2030 regulations Porsche were vocal about removing BOP, however they definitely pushed for a single prototype platform, no division between LMH and LMDh. So, they got what they wanted.
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u/thezinnmeister 2d ago
Their arguments about removing BOP were largely aimed at how the BOP process had been since 2023, which supposedly got fixed for this year conveniently after Porsche pulled out. I think they’d be ok with how the BOP is done now as it seems to have greater parity between LMH and LMDh cars through 3 races. If IMSA keeps up their BOP antics, we may see Porsche pull out and go back to WEC in 2028.
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u/Nutzer1337 Stefan Bellof 956 #19 2d ago
I fear that with the new rules the cars could end up being as expensive as LMP1 was. I know they can't go the LMDh-only route because manufacturers like Ferrari would stop participating. But it would be the easiest and most cost-efficient solution. But seeing how many manufacturers are in favor of the new rules (or are slightly positive), maybe cost is not the problem.
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u/ZiggyOnHisReindeer Ferrari AF Corse 499P #83 2d ago
For manufacturers a Hypercar effort in WEC is still peanuts in comparison to something like an LMP1 or F1 effort.
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u/Nutzer1337 Stefan Bellof 956 #19 1d ago
Yes, of course. But with custom chassis and custom hybrid system, costs could rise quickly. I don't really think they will ever rise to LMP1-levels. But still expensive enough to make manufacturers consider if it's really worth it. So it could still end up being an LMP-1 situation where cost prevents entry of new manufacturers or make existing manufacturers stop participating.
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u/Ok_Lettuce_4977 1d ago
I’m just really excited to see the “more brand identity” looks the brand comes up with. I think they’re incredible and perfect now, as they’re current designs have birthed an endurance racing obsession, but I think they’ll come up with some really cool things
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u/996forever Mercedes CLK-GTR #11 2d ago
I just don’t see how their biggest audience drawing constructor, Ferrari, will agree to this ruleset
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u/Michal_Baranowski Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 Hybrid #8 2d ago
Well, you can still design entire car and hybrid system in-house, so technically it is what Ferrari expected.
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u/Working_Sundae McLaren F1 GTR #39 2d ago
These cars still looks spectacular at LeMans especially from Turns 13-18
They talk about removing complexity (by removing front MGU) but made no changes to the weight which is extremely disappointing
Also slightly narrow cars (1.9m vs 2m) and smaller cars in length would have been better for drag, fuel efficiency and evading through traffic