WEC News: Porsche scales back GTE Pro entry for Le Mans 24 Hours

The German marque has operated four of its 911 RSRs in the French endurance classic since 2018, and had again planned to bring its two IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship machines to line up alongside its pair of regular FIA World Endurance Championship cars.

However, the economic fallout from the global coronavirus pandemic as well as concerns surrounding travel have prompted Porsche to withdraw the two IMSA cars and focus just on its WEC-entered Team Manthey-run cars.

The two North American Porsches join the SRT41 Garage 56 entry put together by quadruple paraplegic Frederic Sausset in pulling out of the race, which has been pushed back from its usual June slot to 19-20 September because of the COVID-19 crisis.

Nick Tandy, Earl Bamber and Matt Campbell had been due to drive the #93 Porsche, while the sister #94 car was to feature an all-French line-up of Patrick Pilet, Mathieu Jaminet and Julien Andlauer.

No changes are expected to the driver line-ups of the remaining Porsches.

Porsche's decision to halve its GTE Pro class presence reduces the size of the class to nine cars, with the remaining 911 RSR-19s joined by three Ferrari 488 GTEs (including one Risi Competizione-entered car), two Corvette C8.Rs and two Aston Martin Vantage GTEs.

It means that both the ByKolles LMP1 squad and the second IDEC Sport Oreca LMP2 are set to graduate from the reserve list.

That would boost the LMP1 ranks to seven cars and the LMP2 division to 25, keeping the grid at 62 cars in total.

Earlier this year, Porsche expressed an interest in returning to the WEC with prototype machinery under the new LMDh regulations.

Porsche pulled out of the LMP1 class at the end of 2017.

The WEC is due to resume on 15 August at Spa, before taking in Le Mans in September and the finale in Bahrain in November - with the series abandoning its winter series format this year to allow for a full 2020 season to be completed.