clarification please: Porsche factory teams
 

Does Porsche run 'factory' teams like GM does with their Corvettes? I was under the impression that Porsche offered services & products (aka factory built cars & parts) to teams but did not themselves own & run teams in pretty much any series.

tia,
krista

You are right. No true factory teams any more. Sad but true.

To be historically exact, the last factory (werks) team from Porsche was their 1998 motorsport program that fielded and won Le Mans (Porsche GT1).

Since then, Porsche has focused its resources to what has become a very successful business plan supporting customer motorsports. Their were factory-favored race teams that received R&D equipment and latest technologies in the past.

I'm currently not aware of any such relationships between private customer race teams and Weissach.

Some current GT2 teams have 'better' access to new parts and information than others. Some teams have better access to the best tyres, ie for enduro racing, not all tyres from the same manufacturer are created equal.

Quite often, the Weissach engineers have been surprised by the developments undertaken by 'non factory supported' teams.

Some years ago, one of my friends flew from the States to Weissach to rebuild his not yet delivered new race car on site, with ready access to required parts. He and his crew flew over with a crate of quick release fittings, amongst other things, the racing department spent their lunch and coffee breaks watching what the crazy Americans were doing with all these fittings, and remembered. Especially when that car won lots of races that year.

R+C

Don't forget there are factory drivers that are loaned to certain customer teams as well.