Category Archives: Motorsports

The Gadget Man – Episode 46 – Porsche 919 LMP with Mark Webber

We had a wonderful day at the World Endurance Championship’s 6 Hours of Silverstone last weekend. Not only were we guests of the wonderful people at Porsche Motorsports, we were also able to chat to the Technicians and Drivers and find out more about how the idea of Hybrid power translates to the worlds fastest racecars.

Matt Porter interviews Mark Webber about the Porsche 919 LMP1
Matt Porter interviews Mark Webber about the Porsche 919 LMP1

During our day, we were able to speak to former Formula 1 driver Mark Webber who is now racing the Porsche 919 LMP1. We also spoke at length to Alexander Hitzinger who is in charge for the 919’s development as Technical Director for the LMP1 and Michael Christensen who is the works driver for the Porsche 911 RSR.

I would like to thank the ever amazing Mark Webber for his patience after a long day! Sam Lloyd at Lloyd Bell Productions and Nick Perry at Porsche Cars Great Britain for their help making the day so memorable.

Massive thanks to Paul Shalan for attending with me and taking so many AMAZING photographs!!

You can listen to this weeks episode at the top of the page or below.

Heads up for The Gadget Man on Monday – Porsche 919 LMP1 + Matt interviews Mark Webber

Porsche 919 Hybrid, Porsche Team: Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley, Mark Webber, Porsche Team: Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, Marc Lieb
Porsche 919 Hybrid, Porsche Team – Photo courtesy of Porsche

We had a very exciting weekend at Silverstone for the World Endurance Championship Qualifiers, namely 6 Hours of Silverstone which is the UK heat of the WEC which culminates in the world famous 24 Hour race at Le Mans.

The WEC LMP1 class now uses hybrid technology and following on from our series of electric and hybrid car reviews, we were interested in finding out what Porsche were doing in this area.

Porsche Motorsports and former Formula 1 driver, Mark Webber
Porsche Motorsports and former Formula 1 driver, Mark Webber

Porsche Motorsports very kindly invited us to be their guests for the day and we were able to interview drivers,  Mark Webber & Michael Christensen, plus we were also able to chat to Porsche LMP1 Technical Director Alexander Hitzinger about the technology around the car and what the future holds for us in an increasingly electric world.

To hear the interview, tune in to BBC Radio Suffolk on Monday 20th April 2015 at 11:40 and find out what Mark Webber thinks of the all new hybrid technology and how it will eventually effect us in production cars to come.