You Really Need To Watch This Wild Porsche Carrera Cup Race At Le Mans

This is nine manic laps of racing, proving that single-make racing still has a place in the world of motorsports.

Porsche / YouTube

Every year, ahead of the start of the 24 hours of Le Mans, Porsche hosts a Carrera Cup race with dozens of competitors from across Europe, including Carrera Cup GB, Carrera Cup BeNeLux, and Carrera Cup France. There are, inevitably, some racers that jump in just for the Le Mans run, because it's the biggest event of the series season. Being that the race is held with identically prepared GT3 Cup cars (using the same 4-liter engine as found in the new GT3), the racing is spectacularly tight and stays that way for every single second of green flag action. It isn't often that GT3 Cup cars have to worry about slipstreaming or "drafting" as we call it in the US, but when you have the long Mulsanne straight those cars really cut a huge hole in the air. 

As exciting as the 24 Hours of Le Mans race was when it took place just a few hours after this Cup race, this race is incredible to watch. Take 45 minutes and watch this race. The action begins at about the 13:45 mark in the video.

The race does feature a yellow-flag event on the very first lap, but that's to be expected when you're trying to shove nearly 60 cars down into turn 1 with many of the drivers being quite young. Exhuberance and bravado help these drivers pull off incredible moves on each other, but they occasionally step a few millimeters beyond the edge. There are passes up the inside, round the outside, and straight up drag races down the straights. It's just purely incredible to witness. We won't spoil the finish, but at the very least you need to watch the final lap. It's just so good.