Porsche’s modern Le Mans legend

When the Manthey Porsche crossed the line to take the LMGT3 victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours in June, Richard Lietz was able to celebrate a sixth class success in the world’s most celebrated endurance classic.

The long-serving Porsche factory driver has conquered the event with 11 different drivers, in four different types of 911, in three different classes, over a 19-year period.

For a man who started out with aspirations of following his father into rallying, and called time on single-seaters after finding he was “not prepared for the amount of testing and everything you need to be successful”, the Austrian’s honours list is staggering.

After two GT2 title successes in the Le Mans Series (2009 and 2010), Lietz scooped the 2015 World Endurance Cup for GT drivers as the WEC GTE Pro champion, and has delivered in several big enduros. His CV includes outright wins in the 24-hour races at the Nurburgring and Spa, as well as three class triumphs at Daytona’s twice-round-the-clock classic.

He’s also credited with the rain-shortened 2015 Petit Le Mans, though never got behind the wheel on a day when Michelin’s superior wet tyres formed the basis of a giantkilling act.

A year-old Dallara entered by unfancied Austrian squad HBR Motorsport was never likely to trouble the 2003 F3 Euro Series frontrunners, although Lietz got on the front row at Hockenheim.

A switch to Germany’s Carrera Cup beckoned, and during three years with Tolimit Motorsport he emerged as a factory seat contender, adapting well to the requirements of rear-engined Porsches. “You had a roof, mechanical grip, you were on the limit of the tyre and drifting a bit, which is a bit more natural for myself,” recalls the 41-year-old.

Following a Porsche Supercup race victory at Monaco in 2006, Lietz was invited to a shootout at the Weissach test track, “the first time I drove a GT car, a proper RSR”. He impressed sufficiently to earn a works deal, although his career could have taken an altogether different route into the World Touring Car Championship.

2025 LMGT3 Le Mans winner Lietz relishes his lead role in pro-am line-up

Photo by: Porsche Motorsport

“I tested for the BMW Schnitzer team in the same year, in 2006,” Lietz reveals. “They were looking for a driver to replace [Ferrari-bound] Dirk Muller at that time. What I heard afterwards was none of the drivers [BMW evaluated] got chosen because they got the possibility to get Augusto Farfus from Alfa Romeo.”

Lietz had already made his professional GT racing bow, albeit not in a Porsche. At the behest of Toto Wolff, then beginning to wind down his own racing commitments, he made an Italian GT Championship cameo at Imola aboard a Ferrari 575 Maranello with Antonin Herbeck.

“We had some engine problems, so in total I think we did like six or seven laps,” remembers Lietz. “It wasn’t the most successful event, but it was nice to drive a Ferrari GT1. I only raced once a car with a roof which wasn’t a Porsche and it was only because Toto was busy!”

The 2007 season was a breakout campaign for Lietz. He delivered the International GT Open title alongside Joel Camathias for Porsche customer Autorlando, but more pertinently celebrated his Le Mans debut with a victory.

“Hearing the fans singing the national anthem and seeing these emotions was quite unique. And sometimes, when success is unexpected, it’s the nicest way” Richard Lietz

Jaime Melo’s leading Risi Ferrari shunted, then Scuderia Ecosse’s Ferrari lost a driveshaft, opening the door for Raymond Narac’s IMSA Performance team, in which Lietz partnered the French gentleman driver and works gun Patrick Long.

The memory is a cherished one for Lietz, as the only time his grandfather Alfred – himself a prolific hillclimber in Porsches – came to watch him compete.

“To win the race when he was there, my mum, my dad, driving for a French team and winning Le Mans in France was really overwhelming,” Lietz reflects. “Hearing the fans singing the national anthem and seeing these emotions was quite unique. And sometimes, when success is unexpected, it’s the nicest way.”

A trophy-laden partnership with Marc Lieb at the Felbermayr-Proton team began in 2009, and the duo teamed up with Wolf Henzler for Le Mans spoils in 2010 after drama befell Corvette. The ideally balanced combination was only split at the end of 2013, when Lieb joined Porsche’s LMP1 programme.

Lietz – here on this year’s Le Mans podium with Ryan Hardwick – plans to keep racing as long as he can

Photo by: Porsche Motorsport

“When he was angry, I was calm and when I was angry, he was calm,” chuckles Lietz, who remains in regular contact with Lieb. “We respected each other.”

The second Lieb/Lietz Le Mans win, together with Romain Dumas at the Manthey-run factory team in 2013, was less joyful. “This was basically the first race where we really didn’t care,” Lietz recalls of an event overshadowed by Allan Simonsen’s death in a first-hour accident. “When we heard, it was hitting really hard on us. We won, but it didn’t matter.”

History shows a 1-2 for the new 991-model RSR, which Lietz took a lead role in developing. He also led the line in 2015 when engineer Andrea Mercatelli, an influential figure during the Felbermayr-Proton days, joined Manthey. Lietz won the GTE Pro title solo, after regular co-driver Michael Christensen missed Spa for an IMSA clash.

“If you win a championship, it means you were good over a complete year, which I think is more difficult than winning Le Mans or a single race where you need a bit more luck,” he asserts. “So, I rate the [2015] championship quite high – even though I prefer to win Le Mans!”

The 2015 title came with wins at the Nurburgring, Austin and Shanghai, with the main opposition coming from Ferrari pair Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander. Bruni recalls having “to do everything perfect” to beat Lieb and Lietz in their LMS pomp and had developed an impression of Lietz as a “clever” driver who “always had this kind of lucky charm to get the results on his side” and steer clear of trouble.

The Italian’s understanding was strengthened when he joined Porsche to partner Lietz in 2018. “He’s super-strong on double-stint tyres,” Bruni explains. “I think one of the best drivers I saw in terms of managing tyres.” 

Put this to Lietz and he agrees that tyre management “is more natural to me than pushing the tyre over the maximum. I prefer a bit a softer tyre, which the driver must take care of, instead of a tyre which needs to be stressed to be activated and then keep the energy in the tyre with aggressive pushing. This is not my driving style.”

Lietz didn’t really get the chance to defend his title in 2016. Porsche Motorsport’s GT boss Frank-Steffen Walliser withdrew Manthey for that year while developing the new-for-2017 RSR. Lietz successfully lobbied his bosses to retain a GTE Pro presence, reuniting with Proton boss Christian Ried, but doubts the outcome would have been much different with Manthey: “Our performance wasn’t there, but we would have also not had a chance with the factory.”

Lietz was an outright winner twice around the clock at Spa in 2019, alongside Kevin Estre and Michael Christensen

Photo by: SRO

After Manthey’s return to Le Mans in 2017, Lietz finished runner-up in the following two years. The 2018 result still stings; a fourth-hour safety car split the other works Porsche off from the rest of the class pack, gifting it an advantage it would never lose. “This was a tough one, but in 2013, we were the lucky ones with the safety car [relative] to our sister car,” concedes Lietz.

He and Bruni won on the new mid-engined RSR-19’s debut at Silverstone in 2019 but would not ascend the top step of the podium again until GTE Pro’s Le Mans swansong in 2022, alongside Fred Makowiecki.

The combination tended to play second fiddle to team-mates Christensen and Kevin Estre, with Lietz suggesting “it was very difficult to beat them” on tyres developed by Estre. By the end of the season, he’d accepted his career reaching a natural conclusion. “I celebrated my last Le Mans win in 2022,” Lietz admits. “I was OK to stop professional motorsport.”

What he calls “the fun year with Michael [Fassbender]” followed in the 2023 European Le Mans Series, before earning an “unexpected” WEC reprieve with Manthey for 2024 as GT3 cars replaced GTE. Following victory at Le Mans that year with rookies Yasser Shahin and Morris Schuring, he paired up with Riccardo Pera and Ryan Hardwick for an even more dominant display this year.

“There’s no shortage of fast drivers, but I think there’s a shortage of people with less ego, doing the best for the team and the result” Richard Lietz

Lietz has enjoyed taking a more “important” role in the pro-am LMGT3 category, “being again a bit more in the lead with the set-up, deciding what happens also strategy-wise and a bit more driving” compared to his later GTE Pro years. His grounded approach is one Bruni keenly appreciated. 

“He straight away said, ‘Gimmi, I’m doing the double-stinting, you’re doing the start, qualifying, finish; you’re the fighter’,” recalls Bruni of their first test together in Abu Dhabi in late 2017.

“I said, ‘OK, perfect’ and that’s how we go together. Richard is very straightforward, a super-nice guy, you can really trust him. I’m happy that for a few years I could be his team-mate.”

“In all these years with Gimmi, I know what my role was and I’m OK with it,” Lietz offers. “It’s a team sport and you need to work together. There’s no shortage of fast drivers, but I think there’s a shortage of people with less ego, doing the best for the team and the result.

Bruni (right) valued Lietz as a team-mate “you can really trust”

Photo by: Porsche Motorsport

“This year’s Le Mans, I had a lot of times that the tyres were [used] from Ryan in my first stint, but for the result, this was the best strategy, giving the new tyres to Ryan. Stuff like this, you can only accept if you have no ego.”  

Lietz doesn’t know what the future holds and isn’t in control of how long he will remain on Porsche’s books. He owns a farm in Austria, which produces apple juice and houses several of his ‘toys’. But dreams of spending more time there are on hold. He plans to continue racing for as long as he can, since “I still didn’t find anything which makes me as happy”.

So, how does he assess his achievements? “People will always say, ‘Yes, but you didn’t win Le Mans overall’,” he considers. “But you cannot say to a downhill guy, ‘You never won the Tour de France’ or to a slalom skier, ‘But you never won Streif’. Porsche gave me the contract in 2007 and sends me somewhere. I only can try to win this category for Porsche, where they send us.” 

Nobody could dispute how effectively a modern Weissach legend has done just that.

CV highlights

2007, 2010 Le Mans 24 Hours GT2 class winner
2013, 2022 Le Mans 24 Hours GTE Pro class winner
2024, 2025 Le Mans 24 Hours LMGT3 class winner
2009, 2010 Le Mans Series GT2 drivers’ champion
2015 World Endurance Cup for GT drivers’ champion
2018 Nurburgring 24 Hours winner (overall)
2019 Spa 24 Hours winner (overall)
2012, 2014, 2022 Daytona 24 Hours class winner (GT, GTLM, GTD)

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Although he prefers a Le Mans win, Lietz rates his 2015 GTE Pro title highly

Photo by: Porsche Motorsport