Pascal Wehrlein will debut this year with the Factory Porsche team at Le Mans 24 hours a day.
Wehrlein will share the addition of Porsche Penske Motorsports #4 963 LMDH with Nick Tandy and Felipe Nasr at the Centerpiece Round of the World Endurance Championship from June 14-15.
Porsche is preparing Wehrlein for a possible drive at Le Mans from November when he was handed the last minute opportunity to join customer team JDC-Miller in IMSA enactment tests in Daytona.
This was followed by a 24-hour Daytona Maiden appearance on the same team, where he scored a fantastic 6th place.
Wehrlein tested the Porsche 963 during the development stage in 2022, racing a slightly similar prototype machine in the Class 1 era of DTM, although he is not used to endurance racing.
Germany has been part of Formula E’s Porsche factory roster since 2020, winning three wins last season towards his Maiden World title title.
Le Mans’ outings are seen as a reward for his Formula E success in the 2023/24 season.
“Competing in Le Mans Porsche Pensque Motorsports is a dream for me,” the 30-year-old said.
“We look forward to this big challenge. Unlike Formula E, we need to share everything about the Porsche 963.
“Of course I would like to add other titles to my Formula E World Championship victory, but my main goal is to do strong work for my team and learn as much as possible. Porsche is very grateful for this opportunity.”
Like last year, Porsche Penske Motorsport has been filling three 963 LMDH prototypes in the hypercar category this year, with IMSA additional cars taking part in two World Endurance Championship entries.
Porsche won an invitation to the French Endurance Classic after winning the GTP title in its second attempt at IMSA last year.
However, Porsche expanded its factory LMDH pool from 10 drivers to eight, creating vacant seats for the Le Mans team.
The #5 Porsche 963 will continue to be driven by Michael Christensen, Julian Andrauer and Matthew Jaminette, while the sister #6 car will be crewed by Lawrence Vantor, Kevin Esther and Matt Campbell.
“The Porsche driver roster is absolutely top-notch and incredibly deep,” said Porsche Motorsports vice president Thomas Rodenbach. “It makes perfect sense to leverage the strong personnel from the Formula E Factory team for Le Mans’ third Porsche Penske Motorsports entry.
“Pascal has completely convinced us with his performance in the test and his 24-hour Daytona participation.
“As a real-life Formula E world champion, he won his Le Mans debut with the wheels of the Porsche 963.”
Porsche has also announced that Antonio Felix Da Costa, a partner in the Formula E team, will race in Le Mans’ LMP2 division after missing out on the 2024 edition of the race completely.