Proton Competition will once again run in WeatherTech colors, when the team makes their debut at the brand new Porsche 963 in the FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
The German started working with WeatherTech in 201, where they would run the IMSA car, in addition to Cooper MacNeil in the European Le Mans Series, as a warm up for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. They moved away from the Porsche to a Mercedes AMG GT3 in the IMSA series instead, but the collaboration with Proton continues, and they still run the white Mercedes in IMSA to this day.
The team has ordered four 963 cars, but just like the other privateers, Hertz Team JOTA and JDC Miller Motorsports, they had to wait for delivery, since there weren’t enough hybrid systems around for all the new LMDH cars, which made their racing debut at the Daytona 24 hours earlier this year.
JOTA only received their car in the week leading into the 6 Hours of Spa Francorchamps in the FIA WEC, while JDC Miller Motorsports got their car one week later, so they could make their debut at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
Proton Competition got their first car in the middle of May, and despite tham actually having an entry permit for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, they chose all the way back in February, to give that one up, since they were not interested in making their racing debut with the car in the 24-hour race, but wanted to do some testing beforehand. So their debut will happen in one and a half weeks’ time at Monza, for that 6-hour race.
The IMSA car will make its debut on 8 August at Road America.
Common for the two programmes will be Gianmaria Bruni and Harry Tincknell. Bruni is a Porsche works driver while Tincknell is works driver at Multimatic – the constructor behind the Porsche 963. They will be joined by Neel Jani, former Porsche works driver, when the car races in the FIA WEC, since three drivers are needed for the 6-hour races.
The future plan for Proton Competition is to run two Porsche 963’s in the FIA WEC, and two in IMSA next year. That is in addition to the two Ford Mustang GT3 cars in the FIA WEC – and wherever else they will appear with Porsche, Ford, or something completely different.
The car will run #99 in the FIA World Endurance Championship, while #59 will be their IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship number.
