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#DRAWIT TOO SPEED DRAW COULUSSES SERIES#

“Leading both motorsport and series production at the same time has a very special appeal. The task of following in the footsteps of Hartmut Kristen, who after ten years in the position will now become adviser to the board member for development, seems tailor-made for Walliser. “So I still have one foot in the series production business,” says Walliser. This side includes all of the conventional areas of a carmaker’s business, from development to production and sales to after-sales, with a volume of some three thousand vehicles a year. His appreciation for the challenge is clear to see, palpable.Īnd then there is the business side of his work, for the racing department at the Weissach Development Center also turns out Porsche’s GT versions for the road, such as the Cayman GT4. Motor racing means delivering performance on the spot,” says Walliser of his new and former field of activity. “In series production you have competitors too, but seldom in such a direct way. GT racing is Porsche’s homeland, but the respective race series, such as the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and the Tudor United SportsCar Championship (IMSA), are hotly contested terrain for a variety of manufacturers. They may be split-second decisions on the track, but they’re based on meticulous preparation. “I have to be able to read the race development and then draw the right conclusions,” he says of the new challenges. He met the major motorsport community at his very first appearance the weekend in Austin, Texas, saw the biggest Porsche factory contingent in history: “That was an absolute overdose, but a beneficial one.” Analysis always comes before excitement. Now, unlike his time with the RS Spyder, Walliser is responsible not only for the factory team, but for all Porsche customers.

In his new role, Walliser functions as a manager, technician, and tactician in one. The biggest difference is the highly emotional component that comes into the mix in the motorsport arena, even when the head of motorsport might express his task more austerely: “The key is to establish a technical-organizational ability to win.” But even there high speed and concentration are essential, so the requirements really aren’t all that different after all,” says Walliser of his internal technology transfer. “Series development is about complex technical processes.

As the overall project manager, Walliser, now 45, brought the groundbreaking 918 Spyder super sports car to production maturity-and a record lap on the Nürburgring.

With that head of steam behind him, he returned to series production. The RS Spyder which he helped to develop brought home three driver’s titles and one team title in the American Le Mans Series. In 2003, knowledge and passion culminated in a leadership position as the head of motorsport strategy at Porsche. His focus was combustion engines, in combination with the field of technology management. On April 1, he’ll have been with Porsche for twenty years: in 1995 he joined the Weissach Development Center as a student of mechanical engineering. It’s an indispensable quality for someone who took over at the helm of Motorsport at Porsche AG last October and has since been responsible for Porsche’s global activities in GT racing and GT production sports cars.įrank-Steffen Walliser has always been a traveler between the two worlds. And it’s no different with the wearer of the cufflinks, as he readily acknowledges with a grin: “I have a left and a right heart chamber-one of them beats for racing, and the other for the series.” Together, that’s a lot of heart for Porsche. The Porsche, in other words, that bears the genes of two worlds-the world of motor racing and the world of series production. They are small silver sports-car silhouettes, easily recognizable as the Type 918 Spyder. Frank-Steffen Walliser as a man at home in different worlds. Motor racing is in his blood-and so too is series production.Įven his cufflinks mark Dr. Frank-Steffen Walliser has been head of motorsport at Porsche since October 2014.

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