Porsche will not operate a factory effort in the new GT3-based category that the ACO is set to introduce in 2024, according to Pascal Zurlinden.
The ACO announced during a press conference on Friday that the current GTE regulations will be abandoned at the end of 2023, with a category based on the GT3 formula.
Porsche has previously maintained that GT3 is its customer racing platform and that they will not enter a full factory effort into a GT3 series.
After Friday’s announcement, that has not changed, maintains Pascal Zurlinden, Porsche’s director of factory motorsports.
“This will stay like this,” Zurlinden told MotorsportWeek.com. “But if customers want to go in the Pro class, like they did here [at Le Mans], they will get all of our support.
“With drivers, engineering, everything as we do it here, bringing a car on pole, this we will do with our customers. But it is a customer driven-decision.”
When asked if there will not be a factory pro effort, Zurlinden simply responded: “This we never do, because for us, GT3 is customer racing.”
Instead, Zurlinden indicated that Porsche’s factory efforts would instead go towards a prototype programme under the LMDh regulations, which is set to debut in 2023.
Zurlinden did say that the announcement is fully to Porsche’s expectations, including the two final years under GTE regulations.
“It fulfills all of our expectations. Our customers who bought cars last year can run two more years with GTE cars, the RSR-19, until the end of 2023. And then from 2024 joining the global platform, which is based on GT3. That’s perfect.”
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