October 8th 2025

Porsche to close FIA WEC Hypercar program

In what Porsche calls part of a “comprehensive realignment,” the manufacturer has announced that the factory Porsche Penske Motorsport team will withdraw from the FIA World Endurance Championship after the 2025 season, as Porsche concentrates on its factory racing programs in the FIA Formula E World Championship and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

The decision comes amidst weeks of speculation regarding the future of not only Porsche’s top-tier prototype racing efforts, but also the manufacturer’s financial state due to declining sales of its road cars, and retaliatory tariffs imposed by the United States government on foreign automakers.

“We very much regret that, due to the current circumstances, we will not be continuing our involvement in the WEC after this season,” said Dr. Michael Steiner, Member of the Executive Board for Development at Porsche AG.

The Porsche 963 will continue to race in IMSA’s GTP category, where Porsche Penske Motorsport has won two Rolex 24 At Daytonas, the 2025 Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, and won every major GTP title in 2024. Porsche will also continue its Formula E program with the 99X Electric, as the series gears up to launch its fourth generation of electric single-seaters for the 2026/27 season.

But it will no longer continue as a full-fledged manufacturer in WEC’s Hypercar category, where Porsche won the 2024 World Endurance Drivers’ Championship – and where the No. 6 Penske Porsche 963 still has a mathematical chance to win its second title in Bahrain.

It is not yet clear what this means for Porsche’s involvement in Hypercar with customer team Proton Competition, which currently operates a one-car 963 program.

If it were to continue to on in 2026, it would need to add a second car to satisfy the two-car rule for Hypercar manufacturers. And should Proton opt to withdraw from Hypercar as well, it would mean that the 963 would not be eligible to compete at next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans – even if Porsche Penske Motorsport receives an invite as the reigning IMSA GTP Champion team.

Porsche Penske Motorsport can clinch its second set of IMSA GTP titles this weekend at the Motul Petit Le Mans on Saturday, October 11th.

Porsche’s decision also potentially adds to the already very active silly season for drivers in the WEC, with several current and future Hypercar outfits yet to confirm their 2026 driver lineups. RACER understands that at least in part, the uncertainty to this point about Porsche’s future in the WEC has been a significant factor as other players hold on to see whether the current Porsche drivers might be on the market.

As for Manthey's Porsche LMGT3 program in the FIA WEC, it is not believed to be at risk, and Porsche can compete in the category without a Hypercar program – as Ford, Mercedes-AMG and McLaren have to this point – should there be space on the grid.

In a wider sense, Porsche’s exit is the Volkswagen Audi Group (VAG)’s third withdrawal from Hypercar after both Audi and Lamborghini previously ended their programs in the WEC. Audi’s proposed Hypercar effort never made it past conception due to the manufacturer’s shift in focus on Formula 1, while Lamborghini moved on from its SC63 program in WEC after one season with a single car in 2024.

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