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American LeMans
ALMS: 10 Questions With Paul Ritchie
Porsche Motorsport North America President discusses 911 GT3 R Hybrid’s upcoming U.S. debut at the Petit Le Mans.
John Dagys  |  Posted July 21, 2010   Chicago, IL
Porsche's 911 GT3 R Hybrid is based from the GT3 car which competes in various national and European championships. (Porsche Cars North America)
Following its impressive outing at the Nürburgring 24 Hours in May, Porsche’s 911 GT3 R Hybrid will make its debut on U.S. soil later this year at the Petit Le Mans, the German automaker confirmed Wednesday.

The announcement, which came as part of a green racing event hosted by the American Le Mans Series and Porsche in New York City, marks the second gasoline-electric hybrid race car to compete in the series and the first in the production-based GT ranks.

See: Porsche GT3 Hybrid To Race At Petit Le Mans

Unlike conventional hybrids that use battery storage systems, Porsche’s kinetic energy recovery system, developed by the Williams F1 Team, is flywheel-driven. Two 60 kilowatt electric motors, mounted at the front axle, supplement the 480 horsepower produced by the 4.0-liter flat-six combustion engine.
Porsche Motorsport North America president Paul Ritchie. (PMNA)

The electric motors are powered by converted kinetic energy from the car’s brakes. Once energy is stored, drivers can manually utilize the energy with a boost paddle on the steering wheel.

With the ALMS or ACO not yet having regulations for this type of technology in GT, the 911 GT3 R Hybrid will run unclassified, similar to as Dyson Racing did late last year when it used the then-experimental Isobutanol fuel.

Additionally, Porsche announced the car will also compete in the end-of-year Zhuhai 1000km Asian Le Mans Series race in China, the third and final leg of the Le Mans Intercontinental Cup.

With the exciting news, we caught up with Porsche Motorsport North America President Paul Ritchie to discuss the latest developments and take a glimpse into the future of GT hybrids. It’s all a part of the latest installment of “10 Questions.”

DAGYS: What is the primary objective for the 911 GT3 R Hybrid in its American Le Mans Series debut?

RITCHIE: Our primary goal is to gain further experience with the hybrid car racing system. It’s something that’s very new, of course, and we want to put more and more miles on the car at this point.

Despite the fact that it’s already been successfully debuted in Europe at the Nordschleife, having run six times there, it’s still a prototype entrant. It’s still on an experimental platform. There’s still a lot of potential in the car and it needs a little further development of course because it’s all-new technology. It will give us a better, deeper understanding of how to best utilize this hybrid system.

DAGYS: Was there a specific reason in going with a flywheel design over a conventional battery storage system?

RITCHIE: The requirements for energy storage for a race car is quite different to a road car's requirements. For the road car, it’s important to be able to store large amounts of energy, like battery systems, for longer range.

But that’s less important for the race car because what we want to do in a race car is discharge energy quickly and over a very short space of time. So the flywheel system lends itself to that very nicely. Batteries take longer to charge, while the flywheel is very, very fast to charge up with the braking system.
It's unclear where the GT3 Hybrid will stack up to the ALMS competition, but it should outpace the majority of the GTC field. (PMNA)

DAGYS: Given it’s a GT3 class-based Porsche and running unclassified, where do you think the car will stack up amongst the field?

RITCHIE: I’m not sure where they are going to place us with the rules yet. The whole idea behind the car it’s fuel efficiency. From what I heard at the Nurburgring, it did an extra lap - 15 miles - on the same tank of gas as the GT car. Using the electric power sparingly, then it should have to make less pit stops.

Ideally, it would be nice if there was a full hybrid class in the future. You would have equal competition. But we’re not sure how all of that is going to shake out and we’re a little bit ahead of the wave with some manufacturers in developing this technology.

DAGYS: Have drivers for the car been announced?

RITCHIE: No they have not yet. We understand that we’ll know by the the end of this week at the very earliest, but I think it would still be a couple of weeks away.

Obviously the drivers we have in North America like Jorg Bergmeister, Patrick Long and Wolf Henzler are occupied with their ALMS teams, and I’m not sure who they have available in Europe at this point. I think there’s a number of drivers who have experienced the system and have driven it, but they haven’t told us who will drive the car for that event yet.

DAGYS: Has there been any additional testing or developments made to the car since the Nürburgring 24 Hours?

RITCHIE: The car started development in 2009 and it was a very short development window of only 16 months. It ran two or three times before its debut at the Nurburgring 24 Hour race. Of course there was an awful lot of work involved in getting it from the drawing board to the track in that amount of time.

As is typical in Germany, the guys are now on vacation! They’re taking a very well deserved break. So there’s no current development apart from some of the small adjustments we have to make for the typical things you find when you’re developing a platform like this.
The Porsche GT3 Hybrid competed at the Nurburgring 24 Hours with Jorg Bergmeister, Richard Lietz, Marco Holzer and Martin Ragginger. (PMNA)

DAGYS: How responsive has the ALMS and ACO been in allowing the hybrid to compete, albeit unclassified?

RITCHIE: The ACO and ALMS have just been incredible. This is exactly what they have been looking for and why we’re here today with the ALMS guys. This is exactly what green racing is all about - challenging the manufacturers to come out with new and alternative systems for efficiency. They’ve been absolutely wonderful with helping us bring this car to the U.S. and letting it run over here.

They’ve been asking us all year, ‘When will the car be ready?’ without us even asking if we could bring it. So they’ve been outstanding in that respect. Even the ACO with the 24 Hours of Le Mans... The car wasn’t ready for that, but they did let us put it on display there and show everybody the technology, which was a great support to us.

DAGYS: Despite being unclassified, could the car be eligible for Michelin Green X Challenge honors?

RITCHIE: At this point, we won’t gain points for the championship, therefore we don’t really believe we should gain points for the Michelin Green X Challenge either because it’s an experimental platform. We just want to gain experience and show the car will work in these conditions.

In the future, when there are hybrid regulations, there will be benefits to compete for Green X Challenge honors. But we don’t want to go out there and Road Atlanta and try to win the Green X Challenge. Our goal is to put miles on the car and showcase it to everybody.

DAGYS: Do you see a future for this specific car in Le Mans racing, or hybrid technology in GT racing altogether?

RITCHIE: There’s a future for all different types of technology and the ALMS and ACO give us the platform to do that, along with other series. The hybrid is one way to achieve this, as it combines a high efficiency with a high performance of the car. Therefore it’s a perfect example for our new slogan, ‘Porsche Intelligent Performance’. It gives us a platform to show this technology.
Thanks to the two 60 Kw electric motors, the Porsche GT3 Hybrid gained an additional lap - 15 miles - on a tank of fuel. That results in a substantial savings over a 1,000-mile race. (PMNA)

We’ll most likely see it in road-going GT cars in the future, given that GT racing is always close in terms of technology in road-going cars. To us, this is a platform for development of the technology and not a flat-out racing platform. It’s a racing lab, as we call it.

This is one of three technologies we’re showing at the moment. We have the full parallel Cayenne Hybrid system. We’ve got the plug and parallel system in the 918 concept, and here we have a full flywheel-based system in the GT3 race car. Like everyone, we’re looking at different ways of achieving efficiency. Potentially it could be used in racing in the future, but right now, we’re just developing fuel saving technologies in racing and road-going cars.

DAGYS: On that note, the FIA is believed to be announcing the revival of its GT2 European Championship next weekend at Spa, possibly involving alternative technologies. How difficult would it be to outfit a 911 GT3 RSR as a hybrid?

RITCHIE: Anything is possible for our engineers. It physically can be done because it’s adding a system of the current car that we’re showing today. There’s no reason why it can’t be done in the RSR in the future, either. We’re open to any ideas regarding hybrid technology.

DAGYS: Are there any long-term plans or goals to have the GT3 R Hybrid compete in a full-season championship in the U.S. or Europe?

RITCHIE: Right now, we’re essentially focusing on testing and development, but there is no doubt you will see a few starts next year with the hybrid system. We’re discussing this right now with various sanctioning bodies. Again, it would primarily be to gain experience for the car, but it will run in some places next year.

Unfortunately, today, there’s no category apart from the Nurburgring that we could officially enter the car. So we’d have to negotiate with the series organizers. To compete in a full season unclassified would not make too much sense to us. On the other hand, we’ll keep working on other manufacturers to come along with similar products and the motorsports governing bodies in order to get some sort of hybrid regulations set up for the future.

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