Porsche “Not Buying” Pro Entries for IGTC Season

Photo: Kevin Pecks/SRO

Porsche will not pay for customer teams to run in the Pro class of Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli according to its GT3 project manager Sebastian Golz, who is hopeful of seeing additional cars for the remainder of the season.

The German brand, a two-time IGTC manufacturer’s champion, is one of three registered manufacturers in this year’s globe-trotting GT3 series, although has taken a different approach to BMW and to some degree Mercedes-AMG in exclusively utilizing customer teams.

While Manthey EMA, a privately funded operation, took part in last month’s season-opening Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour, Pro-Am class entrant Grove Racing was the sole Porsche at the Kyalami 9 Hour.

Golz told Sportscar365 that it will have a strong customer presence of Type-992 Porsche 911 GT3 Rs for the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa, the next IGTC round in July, with several U.S. and European-based teams poised for the Indianapolis 8 Hour and Gulf 12 Hours, respectively.

However, he stressed they will not fully fund teams in IGTC, nor any GT3 championship, meaning Porsche’s assurance of competing in the Pro class, outside of Spa, is not guaranteed.

“Hopefully for the last races of IGTC we will have more teams,” Golz said. “[Kyalami] was definitely a problem due to the schedule. We don’t have that many cars in the local market.

“The customer support side is always the same: we are supporting teams but we are not buying them.

“Every race we support the same for our GT3. It doesn’t matter if it’s DTM or SRO. We can just support.

“We support through performance support, technical support, parts support, drivers and also a little bit of money. Nothing more.”

Porsche’s highpoint of the IGTC season will come at Spa, where Golz said there “could be” more than ten cars on the grid, in what’s expected to be an oversubscribed field for the first time.

“It will be quite a big grid, if all teams get an entry with the Porsche, it would be quite a big amount of cars.,” he said. “I don’t think everybody will get an entry.”

The majority of the Porsches at Spa will be Type-992 models, which is being rolled out to customers in a strategic method based on the start dates of each championship.

IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship teams, for instance, were among the first to receive their cars due to January’s Rolex 24 at Daytona.

European and Asian teams are now beginning to receive their cars, with Golz confirming that more than 20 have so far been delivered.

“You cannot say, ‘Customer A, B, C, you ordered on that date so you get it on that date,'” he explained.

“You have to look at the [timing] of the championships and what they want to do, then you mix it on the right time, otherwise it’s not fair for everybody.”

Golz said demand for the car has been high in all regions, including the Asian market, which has seen a resurgence due to the end of pandemic lockdown measures.

“The first generation of the 991 was a quite tricky car, to be honest,” he said. “We built generation 2 (Type-991.2) and then we had to get the trust of the customers back, in what we’ve developed is a huge step forward.

“Now the trust is there. The demand is quite good. We cannot deliver the quantity of what they’re asking for. But it’s all over the world at the moment; you cannot get the parts.”

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