page_title: Proton Competition
section_title: 2009
hierarchical_section_title: Proton Competition / History / 2009
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Richard Lietz au volant de l'une des Porsche 911 GT3 RSR (997) de Team Felbermayr Proton aux 1 000 kilomètres de Spa 2009. English: Richard Lietz at the wheel of Felbermayr-Proton's Porsche 997 GT3-RSR at 1000 km of Spa 2009. Deutsch: Richard Lietz fährt einen Porsche 997 GT3-RSR des Team Felbermayr-Proton beim 1000-km-Rennen von Spa 2009.
context_page_description: Proton Competition is a German auto racing team founded by Gerold Ried. The team is based in Ummendorf, Baden-Württemberg. They currently operate a Porsche 911 RSR sports car in the FIA World Endurance Championship and European Le Mans Series
context_section_description: The 2009 season was Felbermayr-Proton's most successful season to date. Marc Lieb remained in car 77 for the 2009 season with Richard Lietz becoming his teammate replacing Alex Davison. Horst Felbermayr, Jr. and Christian Ried remained in car 88 with Felbermayr, Sr. replaced by Francisco Cruz Martins. It was car 77 that earned all of the success for the team winning three of the five races and winning the Teams Championship by just one point ahead of JMW Motorsport, with car 88 finishing tenth in the standings earning five points. The pair drivers of Lieb and Lietz also won the Drivers Championship beating JMW drivers Rob Bell and Gianmaria Bruni by a point. The team entered the 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans with  essentially two cars with No. 77 driven by LMS regulars Lieb and Lietz, who were joined by Wolf Henzler. They also partnered IMSA Performance Matmut who are long time Porsche competitors with car No. 70 with the two Felbermayrs racing alongside Matmut driver Michel Lecourt. The team were pretty confident going into the race after qualifying where they repeated their 2008 qualifying position of second in the GT2 class. The team narrowly missed out on pole position by only 0.030 seconds behind American Porsche competitors Flying Lizard Motorsports. Unfortunately their race came to a very early end after just 24 laps when car 77 ran out of fuel. The IMSA/Felbermayr car 70 soon followed by retiring on the 102nd lap. Felbermayr-Proton wrapped up their season when they contested the inaugural round of the Asian Le Mans Series and indeed the only round of the season in Asia. The race was at Okayama in Japan and the team brought over the two cars but mixed the driver pairings up a bit. All four drivers were German. Marc Lieb was joined by Le Mans teammate Wolf Henzler in No. 77 and Christian Ried was joined in No. 88 by Marco Holzer. Both cars finished second and fourth in class respectively.
caption: Team Felbermayr-Proton Porsche 997 GT3-RSR at the 2009 1000 km of Spa
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