Heinrich gets full-time Penske seat as Vanthoor joins McLaren

With the amount of factory Porsche 963 seats in the world halved for the foreseeable future — and no 963 seats whatsoever at Le Mans — the squeeze is on for Porsche’s top drivers. So as news began to roll out about some of their next moves, it looked at first like a silly season for the ages, but it turns out to just be well-orchestrated rollouts of some orderly transitions.

There was never any question that Laurin Heinrich was destined for a full-time job in the top class, and when he won Laguna Seca in a privateer entry in last year’s car, Porsche Penske Motorsport took advantage of the obvious PR advantage of announcing him right afterwards. This meant some piece on the board had to move, and based on what was public at the time, it had to be Laurens Vanthoor — who had recently, without anybody really asking, declared in a press conference that he would be racing for Porsche next year. When it turned out that he meant only in the endurance rounds, people thought he might be headed for a farm upstate.

There was, however, a twist coming: Vanthoor was about to be announced as the first big name driver for McLaren in their upcoming WEC Hypercar entry. It turns out that Larry is going to have a next act, and it might be an incredibly fruitful one.