<< Prev Page 2 of 2 Porsche's decision to leave the IMSA GTP championship to the privateers and focusing the works effort on the World Championship worked beautifully as the 962 soon became a regular winner. It had arrived too late to make a mark on the 1984 championship but nevertheless scored seven victories in its debut year. For the following year Porsche made a larger version of the 962 engine available, which produced 720 bhp. It was immediately successful as the Preston Henn entered 962 scored an outright victory in the season opening Daytona 24 Hours. A month later that same car also won the Sebring 12 Hours. Porsches would absolutely dominate the GTP class that season, winning all but one race. This stronghold would continue until the start of the 1988 season when the works Nissans really raised the bar.
Meanwhile Porsche had also developed a Group C version, the 962C, and between the two versions, the German manufacturer would sell over 70 examples of the highly successful machine. In addition to the factory built chassis, Porsche also allowed their customers to build replacement and brand new chassis. Although following the original design, these often featured improvements like honeycomb aluminium sections for added rigidity. Some teams also experimented with revised bodywork and a separate rear wing to increase the aerodynamic efficiency. Among the most successful of these was the Chapman built, Busby Racing 962, which scored the type's fourth Daytona 24 Hours win in 1989.
With 54 victories to its name, the Porsche 962 was the winningest of all IMSA GTP cars that raced between 1981 and 1993. Perhaps even more impressive was the fact that all these wins were scored by privateer teams and that it would take a very well funded works effort to finally break the Porsche's stronghold on the championship, over four years after was first introduced. Adding to it the numerous victories of the Group C version, including two outright Le Mans wins, the Porsche 962 remains as the most successful sports racer of all time. << Prev Page 2 of 2
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Porsche's decision to leave the IMSA GTP championship to the privateers and focusing the works effort on the World Championship worked beautifully as the 962 soon became a regular winner. It had arrived too late to make a mark on the 1984 championship but nevertheless scored seven victories in its debut year. For the following year Porsche made a larger version of the 962 engine available, which produced 720 bhp. It was immediately successful as the Preston Henn entered 962 scored an outright victory in the season opening Daytona 24 Hours. A month later that same car also won the Sebring 12 Hours. Porsches would absolutely dominate the GTP class that season, winning all but one race. This stronghold would continue until the start of the 1988 season when the works Nissans really raised the bar.