The band is back together. Penske and Porsche have teamed up to run the new 963 LMDh car in both the World Endurance Championship and IMSA SportsCar Championship. And expectations are rightly high after the huge success enjoyed by their last collaboration on the RS Spyder LMP2 project, which yielded American Le Mans Series class titles in all three years that the factory programme ran.
All who raced the RS Spyder recall it fondly. With less power than the LMP1 Audi turbodiesels but less bulk too, which it used to good effect in the corners, it famously won the 2008 Sebring 12 Hours outright on a day when Audi and guesting Peugeot dropped the ball. But that was just the most famous of its overall ALMS victories – it managed eight in a row during its competitive zenith in 2007, before Acura turned up the wick in 2008 and made it a more equal contest.
