Hampton Downs Motorsport Park’s annual New Zealand Festival of Motor Racing is set to be bigger and better in 2016, with this event celebrating our friends from Stuttgart: Porsche.
Following on from the successful 2014 Ferrari Festival and 2015 F5000 Festival, which both produced the largest domestic gatherings of Ferraris and F5000s respectively, the Porsche Festival has a lot to live up to. But with up to 1000 Porsche road cars and race cars expected to attend the dual-weekend event, it already looks like it’s going to be one of the marquee race meetings of 2016.
Photo: Porsche
Headlining the list of attendees will be a number of rare Porsche race cars from overseas, with the best of them to be flown to local shores directly from Porsche’s factory in Germany. While it’s yet to be revealed what the cars might be, it’s suspected that one could be the Porsche 919 Hybrid that Kiwi Earl Bamber helped steer to victory at this year’s 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Photo: Porsche
Bamber and his fellow Kiwi and Porsche factory teammate Brendon Hartley are also potential attendees, which would make this the second consecutive festival Hartley has attended, after he surprised some race fans by popping up at the F5000 Festival earlier in 2015.
Photo: Porsche
Organizers are also aiming to secure a number of Porsche racers that reside in Australia. Historic racing models like Porsche’s 956, 935, GT1, and 917 variants have never been seen in New Zealand before, and organizers are hopeful of securing their attendance.
And it won’t just be Porsches present either. Approximately 20 of the best F5000s in the country will return to battle for the F5000 World Series cup, as well as the Historic Muscle Car series, the Heritage Touring Cars, and many others — all of which will build up to a one-hour endurance race, a fitting inclusion considering Porsche’s endurance heritage.
The Porsche Festival is scheduled over two weekends in 2016: January 15–17 and January 22–24. Tickets are now available to be purchased from the Porsche Festival website website.
