Proton Finalizing Porsche 963 Rollout Plans, Third Driver

Photo: Porsche

Proton Competition is plotting the rollout schedule for its pair of Porsche 963s according to team boss Christian Ried, who said the same chassis could contest both the 6 Hours of Monza and the final three IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship races of the year.

The German squad will debut its first customer car in the next FIA World Endurance Championship round, which will replace the team’s No. 88 Porsche 911 RSR-19 for the remainder of the WEC season.

Ried said its third driver, alongside the already confirmed Harry Tincknell and Gianmaria Bruni, who boasts previous prototype racing experience, will be announced shortly.

“It should be confirmed before the start of the [Le Mans] race, sometime next week,” he told Sportscar365.

“Right now we have some guys in Weissach to build up the car and we should get the car the week after Le Mans.

“We’ve started to build both cars. It’s just really important to get one car, the Monza car, right after Le Mans and do some testing.

“The second one, we still have some time.”

Ried said they’re targeting between “four to six days” of testing with the first car in the build-up to the July 9 race, with additional testing also planned post-Monza.

He revealed that the same car to be used in Monza could then be shipped to the U.S. for its scheduled slate of races at Road America, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Motul Petit Le Mans.

It would then mean the second chassis would debut at the following WEC round at Fuji Speedway and close out the season in Bahrain.

“It’s an option but it really depends when we get the second car ready, the time we will have to test the car,” Ried said.

“I prefer to have a car in the U.S. which we drove already but it’s difficult because we’ll have to ship the other car to Fuji. We will fly it there.

“It’s complicated but at the end this is what we know, it’s my business [logistics company Fried-Sped]. We should be able to handle it.”

Proton is the third customer team that’s set to run the Porsche 963, following debuts from Hertz Team JOTA and JDC-Miller Motorsports in the recent WEC and WeatherTech Championship rounds at Spa-Francorchamps and WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, respectively.

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John