With so many factory teams racing at the top end of the sport these days, it’s hard to look past the championship-winning manufacturer(s) for Prototype Team of the Year. And in this case, it can only be Porsche Penske Motorsport that takes this crown after such a consistent and successful season racing on two fronts.
However, there were plenty of season-long efforts and standout performances that also deserve plaudits. So we will start with those.
Of the LMP2 contingent worldwide, Inter Europol Competition continues to impress and came very close to titles in both IMSA and the ELMS, clinching the former with PR1 Mathiasen and taking the latter down to the wire at Portimao.
Also noteworthy was its performance at Le Mans, which saw it defend its crown honorably with a fighting second place. It will return to IMSA in 2025 with a standalone effort and the ELMS, and we can’t wait to see what that brings.
TF Sport continued its climb too in 2024, taking the ELMS LMP2 title after a tricky start to the season for the AO-backed effort in as deep of a P2 class as we’ve ever seen, globally. Its WEC LMGT3 programme with Corvette lacked standout results, but the signs were there by the end of the season that things may come together soon.
Algarve Pro Racing too has earned a mention. It took a fourth title in the Asian Le Mans Series and race wins in every series it contested.
Its reputation for strategic nous is pretty much unmatched in the class these days.
In LMP3 competition meanwhile, COOL Racing deserves a tip of the cap in the final year for the team under its current guise (switching to the CLX Motorsport monikor for 2025). It clinched LMP3 titles in both the Asian Le Mans Series and Le Mans Cup during the season and bookended the ELMS season with a pair of race wins in LMP2.
As for Hypercar and GTP, HERTZ Team JOTA‘s performance was superb this year, taking the fight to the factories with an expanded effort. During the season it scored the first WEC overall win for a privateer in the Hypercar era, finished 1-2 in the Hypercar World Cup and arrived at Le Mans with its #12 crew sitting second in the Drivers’ Championship.
Its recovery from a car-destroying crash in practice would have simply underlined a decision that by then had already been made by GM, to award the British team Cadillac factory status for 2025.
We must mention Toyota Gazoo Racing too. Despite its dip in race winning form (just the four wins this year!), taking the Hypercar World Endurance Manufacturers’ Championship again was nevertheless an extremely impressive achievement with the oldest car in the field and a set of competitors improving on a race-by-race basis.
Our final honourable mention goes to AF Corse, the only team to take race wins in all three ACO prototype classes this year. It was a big year for the Italian Ferrari stalwart, winning Le Mans overall for a second consecutive year with the factory 499P programme.
And that was not all, as it also captured an LMP2 Pro/Am Le Mans class win and ELMS title with its #83 ORECA, an double LMP3 race win in the Asian Le Mans Series at Sepang and a FIA WEC race win at CoTA with the #83 499P.
In another year, that may have been enough to take the mantle of Team of the Year, but the scope scale of Porsche’s triumphs pipped it this time.
Dailysportscar’s 2024 Prototype Team Of The Year
Porsche Penske Motorsport
Yes, it’s another award going to Porsche and co, but that reflects a quite extraordinary 2024 for Weissach and its partners, with a clean sweep in IMSA GTP and a Drivers’ title in WEC.
The 2024 season marked a massive turnaround for the dual 963 effort run by Penske, which started to show signs of life in the late in the 2023 season. It blossomed into a race and title-winning force from January onwards and looks set to become a force for years to come.
The achievements this year are a product of hard work from both Porsche and Penske.
There were some head-turning driver performances too, both in attack and defence in racing on both sides of the Atlantic, including – perhaps most memorably – Kevin Estre’s last-gasp Hyperpole at Le Mans.
After such a Titanic 2024, you might ask the question: “What more is there to achieve?”
The answer is simple. Roger Penske has still not won either Le Mans or a World Championship.
Watch this space…
