For long-standing endurance racing stalwarts Proton Competition, a new chapter begins in 2023.
With the official confirmation from the team that they will field two Porsche 963, the team from Ummendorf in Swabia, led by brothers Michael and Christian Ried will, for the first time, contest the top class of sports car racing.
Proton will field a car apiece in both the FIA WEC and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in the USA as a Porsche customer.
Proton Competition will also be represented in GT racing with further details about those programmes, and the drivers for the Porsche 963s, at a later date.
“This step marks the beginning of a new era for us. After more than 25 years of successful GT motorsport, we are looking forward to tackling a new challenge in top-class endurance racing with Porsche and fighting for overall victories in the two most important endurance championships,” says Christian Ried.
His brother Michael adds: “We would like to thank all of our partners for the successful cooperation in GT racing and we look forward to a mutual, hopefully no less successful, future.”
Proton Competition was founded by Gerold Ried in 1996 (below in the Monza 4 Hours, 1996 BPR – Porsche 911 GT2) and has taken numerous significant victories and titles in various GT championships with Porsche.
The team’s greatest successes include two victories in the 24 Hours of Le Mans (GT2 2010 (pictured below, image Regis Lefebure) and GTE Am 2018).
In addition, Proton Competition won the team classification in its class in the Le Mans Series (2009, 2010), in the International Le Mans Cup (2010) and in the European Le Mans Series ELMS (2018, 2020 & 2022).
The team won the GT drivers’ championship in the World Endurance Championship WEC (2012), in the Le Mans Series (2009, 2010) and in the European Le Mans Series (2018, 2020 & 2022) plus victory at the 1000 miles of Sebring in 2019, held as part of the FIA WEC.
