Porsche will run three drivers per car rather than two at the Imola World Endurance Championship round in April as part of its preparations for the Le Mans 24 Hours.
The Porsche Penske Motorsport squad will delay its plan to field just two drivers in the six-hour WEC races until after the second round of the 2025 campaign on 20 April, as it gears up for the French enduro in June.
Mathieu Jaminet and Matt Campbell, regulars with Porsche in the IMSA SportsCar Championship, will join the respective #5 and #6 PPM car crews in Italy for the second race in succession after the 10-hour season-opener in Qatar at the end of February.
Porsche Motorsport boss Thomas Laudenbach described running three drivers per car at Imola as “the best possible preparation we can do” for Le Mans.
PPM managing director Jonathan Diuguid explained the race at Imola represents another opportunity for the full Le Mans crews to drive together and for Jaminet and Campbell to increase their relationship with the engineer teams on their respective cars.
The German manufacturer will not, however, be able to bring them in for the Spa round in May because the race clashes with the IMSA event at Laguna Seca.
Porsche announced ahead of last year’s WEC Bahrain finale in November that Michael Christensen and Julien Andlauer will drive the #5 entry as a duo in the majority of WEC races and reigning world champions Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor will do likewise in #6.
It made the move because it believes that a reduced squad of drivers offers advantages in terms of seat time during practice and fewer compromises on car set-up.
Porsche revealed at the same time that the two crews would be bolstered by Jaminet and Campbell for the longer races: Le Mans and the respective 10 and eight-hour events in Qatar and Bahrain that bookend the season.
But Porsche has always insisted that it would employ what it termed a flexible approach regarding its plan to slim down its regular WEC squad to four drivers across the two cars.
Diuguid stressed that no decisions had been made about the three six-hour races between Le Mans and Bahrain.
“We don’t have to make any decisions [now],” he said. “We are going to do two races with three drivers [Qatar and Imola] and one race without [a third driver] at Spa, so we are going to get feedback from the engineering crew.
“They will have a seat at the table - we are pretty open.”
Diuguid admitted that Porsche could bring in a third driver for one of its 963s at Spa to give experience to whoever joins its additional third entry for Le Mans.
He said it “is something that we have discussed”. Porsche has the right to a third entry for Le Mans after winning last year’s IMSA title, but PPM only has a total of eight drivers on its books.
Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy, winners of last weekend’s IMSA season-opener with Vanthoor, are certain to be in the extra Le Mans entry for a third year - but Porsche is yet to confirm the identity of the third driver.
Laudenbach, who stopped short of confirming that it is definitely taking up the auto entry, said: “We have eight regular drivers and you need nine for three cars.
“We have got so many drivers contracted, so we don’t have a problem. As an example we have Formula E drivers, and some of them have already done endurance racing, and so many other skilled GT drivers that if it happens we will have a competitive third car.”
Porsche FE factory driver Antonio Felix da Costa is a class winner at Le Mans in LMP2, while reigning champion Pascal Wehrlein made his race debut in the 963 at Daytona driving the JDC-Miller MotorSports customer car.
Nico Muller, who has been placed with the Andretti FE team after joining Porsche at the end of last year, has raced at Le Mans three times.
Laudenbach refused to discuss the chances of four-time Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel joining Porsche’s Le Mans assault.
The German was in the mix for a seat last year after testing a factory 963 at Spain’s Aragon circuit in March, but has not driven the car since.
