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Ahead of the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) which kicks off with the traditional Prologue at the end of March in Paul Ricard, Southern France, German luxury carmaker, Porsche, is revealing for the first time the visual details of the engine featured in its Le Mans winning Porsche 919 Hybrid.
With a capacity of just two litres, it is the most efficient combustion engine Porsche has built so far. Beside its remarkably compact design, it offered the basis for a technology transfer to the new four-cylinder turbo engine in the Porsche 718 Boxster.
Motorsport knowledge was directly applied to the interspace between the cylinders, the short stroke and the central direct fuel injection. Alexander Hitzinger, the Technical Director responsible for the 919, said: “Right from the beginning we had a brave concept, but it was also the right concept. This is paying off now.”
As with every Porsche, the 919 Hybrid is being developed in Weissach at Porsche’s Research and Development centre. Especially when it comes to the powertrain, Hitzinger’s crew works closely with the engineers from production cars. “They support us significantly in the areas of combustion development and fuel mixture preparation,” said Hitzinger.
Despite all its affinities, the 919’s four-cylinder is not a flat engine like the new turbo generation for the 718 Boxster, instead it has a 90 degree V-angle. The small powerhouse, with which Porsche took its 17th overall win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans last year, produced over 500 hp. For the 2016 race season, the regulations require a lower amount of energy from the fuel used per lap and have also reduced the fuel flow for all prototypes. For the Porsche race engine this results in a loss of eight per cent of fuel, resulting into a reduced power output of less than 500 hp. Together with the electrical energy from two recovery systems (brake energy from the front axle as well as exhaust energy), serving the e-machine on the front axle, the Porsche 919 Hybrid’s overall power system now produces approximately 900 hp.
The regulations for the top segment of the WEC (class 1 Le Mans prototypes, LMP1) require manufacturers to use hybrid drive systems. The WEC gives engineers a great degree of freedom in terms of the hybrid drive concepts that may be employed. The teams can choose between diesel and petrol engines, naturally aspirated or turbocharged engines, various displacements, and one or two energy recovery systems. This set-up puts the focus on innovations that can have a significant impact on future production sports cars – the main reason why Porsche decided to return to the world of top level motor racing.
The 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) kicks off with the traditional Prologue at the end of March in Paul Ricard, Southern France, followed by nine subsequent races. For the season’s highlight in Le Mans, a total of 60 race cars will compete on the famous 13.629 km circuit. With the exception of Le Mans, all other races in the championship have a duration six hours, with a 32-car strong field divided into four classes.
