PORSCHE 963

Building a Championship-winning chassis for Porsche

Overview

Sportscar racing has entered a new golden era, with multiple automotive manufacturers vying for supremacy in the ‘Hypercar’ class of the FIA World Endurance Championship and the ‘GTP’ class of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

The Porsche 963 made its global racing debut at the 2023 Rolex 24 at Daytona. By the third race of the IMSA season, it had already secured its first victory at Long Beach. Following a strong debut season in both IMSA and WEC, Porsche Penske Motorsport dominated in 2024, winning every possible Championship title in IMSA and topping it off with the Driver’s title in WEC!

Multimatic was honoured to be chosen by Porsche to supply the chassis of the Porsche 963, which is an LMDh (Le Mans Daytona hybrid) car. Multimatic is also a proud Technology Partner of the factory Porsche Penske Motorsport team.

Each LMDh car has a manufacturer defined internal combustion engine – for Porsche it is a 4.6-litre V8 Biturbo – and a spec hybrid system, which is a collaboration between Bosch (motor) and Williams Advanced Engineering (battery system), with a spec gearbox from Xtrac. The styling of the bodywork is manufacturer defined so fans can identify the brands competing.

As the LMDh regulations were brand new, Multimatic had to start with a clean sheet of paper. This is where 30 years of experience in developing competition vehicles came in. Every dimension, and many of the specifications were completely different to any previous regulations so, led by Julian Sole, Multimatic’s motorsport engineering department started from zero.

One of the main challenges was to develop the chassis/car to accommodate different engines; the V8 turbo from Porsche but also any other engine of customers wanting to use the Multimatic spine. Another challenge was the integration of the hybrid system as this was evolving at the same time that the Multimatic engineers were developing the spine but working as a team with the LMDh hybrid partners – Bosch, WAE and Xtrac – kept everything on track.

The spines are built mostly in-house in the UK, utilising Multimatic’s advanced carbon facilities, racing damper expertise and manufacturing capabilities. Final assembly takes place at Multimatic Niche Volume Assembly (MNVA) in Thetford. It should be noted that, as part of the spine, Multimatic also provides Porsche with the latest Multimatic DSSV dampers designed for racing prototypes.

As Technology Partner, Multimatic’s involvement in the Porsche Motorsport LMDh programme does not stop with the delivery of the spines and the parts at Porsche in Weissach. Porsche asked Multimatic to look after its customers with engineering support for performance, drivetrain and systems, but also the parts service at the race tracks. Multimatic is proud to be part of this programme, from the initial concept to the ongoing racing activities.