Manthey Racing will enter two works cars when the Nürburgring 24 Hours will be run in May 2018.
That was announced by Porsche during their Night of Champions party.
Earl Bamber, Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Estre, and Patrick Pilet will be driving car #911, with Romain Dumas, Richard Lietz, Fred Makowiecki, and Nick Tandy steering #912.
Both cars will be the brand new Porsche 911 GT3R cars, that Manthey has developed during this fall in the VLN series. They participated in the SPX category, making them run outside the normal usual homologated cars. The cars will however enter the SP9 category for homologated GT3 cars in the 2018 event.
Manthey Racing has won the 24 hours race at Nürburgring overall 5 times, but has taken several class victories and VLN Championships as well.
At the 2010 N24 they started with a Porsche 911 GT3 Hybrid, which was just 90 minutes away from being the first hybrid winner of the race ever. Unfortunately it didn’t run until the end, but participated at Petit Le Mans later the same year, where there Fly-brid hybrid system impressed throughout the 10 hours. the car was then parked up at the Nürburgring museum and hasn’t been used since. The focus on hybrid technology was pointed towards the Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 car, which was running on batteries instead.
It will however be a traditional GT3 for the team during the 2018 event – in the latest updated version.
The Nürburgring 24 Hours will be run on 12-13 May.