Porsche had really mixed their cards for the 2021 season.
An unexpected change has come in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Porsche will keep racing with two cars, and while #91 continues with Richard Lietz and Gianmaria Bruni, Neel Jani will step into the #92 alongside Kevin Estre. Michael Christensen is no longer part of that FIA WEC line-up, and has actually fallen out of the Porsche works driver programme. Porsche has however found a seat for him in GT World Challenge Europe, where he will do the full season alongside Earl Bamber and Frederic Makowiecki. There might be other Porsche 911 GT3 R races for him to compete in, like the Nürburgring 24 hours and VLN too.
It’s quite a shock to break up the World Champions from the 2018/19 FIA WEC season, but Porsche has opted to do so.
Porsche hasn’t announced their third drivers for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Photo: JJ Media
Christensen is not the only driver to lose the title as an official works driver. Earl Bamber, Nick Tandy, Patrick Pilet, Sven Müller and Dirk Werner will also be without the official title, but will appear in various GT3 cars round the world. Bamber is already announced in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in the GTD category. Nick Tandy will also be racing in IMSA, but for Corvette Racing in GTLM.
Pascal Wehrlein and Andre Lotterer will be their Formula E drivers, which was announced a few months ago. That puts Wehrlein into the works driver programme. Neel Jani and Simona De Silvestro are test- and reserve drivers in that programme.
Thomas Preining has been upgraded to official works driver.
The full list of Porsche Works drivers for 2021:
Gianmaria Bruni (39/Italy)
Matt Campbell (25/Australia)
Romain Dumas (42/France)
Kevin Estre (32/France)
Mathieu Jaminet (26/France)
Neel Jani (36/Switzerland)
Richard Lietz (36/Austria)
Patrick Long (39/USA)
Andre Lotterer (39/Germany)
Frederic Makowiecki (40/France)
Thomas Preining (22/Austria)
Simona de Silvestro (32/Switzerland)
Laurens Vanthoor (29/Belgium)
Pascal Wehrlein (26/Germany)
Porsche Young Professional
Julien Andlauer (21/France)
Porsche Junior
Ayhancan Güven (22/Turkey)
