Official: 2017 Porsche 919 Hybrid

Musim FIA WEC 2017 baru saja tiba di pojok dengan Prolog sedang berlangsung di Monza. Baik Porsche dan Toyota menggunakan momen ini untuk memulai debut penantang LMP1 2017 mereka, Porsche 919 Hybrid dan Toyota TS050 Hybrid.

Porsche says the 919 Hybrid has updates amounting to 70% of new parts over the previous car. The German manufacturer is the reigning FIA WEC champion and will be defending the manufacturer and drivers titles for the second time in a row, they won both the 2015 and 2016 championships.

WEC rules for the 2017 season are tougher than before, particularly on the area of speed. The downforce is much lower than and cars will corner at lower speeds, thereby increasing the lap times. That said, expect to see slower lap times than the previous season by up to 4 seconds per lap.

Teams will only have two aerodynamic packages as opposed to three, tire sets have also been reduced to three per race. All this has resulted to drastic measures, forcing each team to come up with ways to make up for the slow speeds as well as building more enduring cars. The use of two aero packages instead of three is also a cost effective measure in favor of all teams.

Untuk Porsche, salah satu paket aero telah dirancang khusus untuk Le Mans, untuk memungkinkan kecepatan yang lebih tinggi pada lurus panjang. Powertrain telah menerima pembaruan juga, tetapi logika di balik mesin hybrid tetap sama. Mesin pembakaran 2,0L V4 menghasilkan 500hp yang dialirkan ke roda belakang. Ada dua sistem pemulihan energi, Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) dan Exhaust Energy Recovery System (EERS). Konsep yang sama digunakan di F1, tetapi di WEC, Porsche adalah satu-satunya yang dapat memulihkan energi saat berada di bawah pengereman dan juga selama akselerasi. ERS memberikan tambahan 400hp untuk menebus total 900hp.