Porsche has revealed that there will be changes to its 963 LMDh driver line-ups across its factory assaults on the World Endurance Championship and IMSA SportsCar Championship next season.
The revisions planned for the two-car Porsche Penske Motorsport programmes in each series will not be radical and are scheduled to be announced prior to the end of the current WEC campaign at the start of November in Bahrain, it has stated.
PPM managing director Jonathan Diuguid told Motorsport.com that the 2025 driver crews “will not be dramatically different” to this year.
“All options are on the table and we are getting close; hopefully there should be some news before the end of the WEC season,” he said.
Porsche LMDh programme manager Urs Kuratle reiterated Diuguid’s standpoint.
“There will be changes and we are close to an announcement, which will be before the end of the season,” he said.
“The line-ups will not be the same as this year, but we are not 100% there yet, only 99%.”
Asked whether there could a reshuffle of drivers between the four PPM 963 LMDh as there was for 2024, Kuratle answered: “That is part of the missing 1%.”
It appears that there could be at least one newcomer in the PPM line-up.
Porsche-contracted Julien Andlauer appears in contention for a seat in one of the team's entries in either the WEC Hypercar or IMSA GTP classes next year after impressing at the wheel of the Proton Competition customer 963 in the WEC this year.
One possibility appears to be that he will be slotted into the IMSA squad in place of Dane Cameron.
It is also known that Porsche has evaluated downsizing its WEC line-up to run two drivers in each car at the six-hour races in the same way as Cadillac has done this year.
Should Porsche decide on that course of action, PPM would then bring in drivers from its IMSA programme for the longer WEC races, the Le Mans 24 Hours included.
With only eight full-time drivers on its books in this scenario, PPM would be one short should it be decided by Porsche to again field three factory cars at Le Mans.
Porsche should be free to go down this route because the proposed rule change mandating three drivers in each car in Hypercar appears to have been rejected by the manufacturers.
Diuguid revealed at the Austin WEC round in September that Porsche was against any rule change.
This season the only change in the PPM line-up was the swap of Cameron and Matt Campbell between championships.
Cameron moved from the WEC to partner Felipe Nasr in IMSA, while Campbell shifted in the other direction to join Frederic Makowiecki and Michael Christensen.
Nick Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet have continued their partnership in IMSA, while Andre Lotterer, Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor stayed together in the WEC and are now on course to take the Hypercar drivers’ title.
