What Is Porsche Up To At Le Mans 2017?

Porsche has come to the 2017 racing season with an all new GT race car with the Porsche 911 RSR. The difference from all pervious 911’s that the German manufactuer campaigned in the GTE Class at Le Mans is that the loose regulations allowed Porsche to move the 911 flat-six engine from behind the rear axle to in front. Making the 911 RSR a mid-engine car with 4-litres and direct fuel injection engine configuration.

The 911 RSR has come to the Le Mans 2017 already with high hopes but the debut of the RSR’s performance in the opening races of the 2017 WEC season hasn’t been perfect. The Porsche seems to be lacking a little pace compared to the Ferrari’s and Ford’s. With Le Mans upon us the Porsche works team showed up to the France race with a brand new exhaust system. This may seem like a small performance upgrade but it is a major change when we talk about homologated cars, this is highly unusual and from sources this would most likely require approval from the Porsche rivals in the class.

In the video below you can hear the pure sound of the Porsche 911 RSR during a test day at Le Mans. The main reason for the Porsche to go mid-engine is to help increase the rear diffuser efficiency by moving the engine forward this allowed the Porsche engineers to reconfigure the aero under the car which seems to be helping the Ferrari’s and Ford’s in the class. Below is the previous exhaust system that the RSR was outfitted with during debut at the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the opening WEC events.