Factory competition in the Tudor United SportsCar championship is expected to raise to a whole new level with the news revealed today that Porsche will contest the GT class next year with a two-car factory team.

The German manufacturer has joined forces with CORE autosport as its competition partner for the program. CORE only entered GT competition for the first time in May this year at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca but has obviously impressed the Porsche factory with its prowess. The team launched its GT program after scoring back-to-back PC championships in the American Le Mans Series.

The effort will utilize the new Porsche 911 RSR, the same as the 2013 24 Hours of Le Mans LM GTE-Pro class-winning entries.

“North America is Porsche’s single largest road car and motorsports market. Therefore, we have decided to focus a full factory program in the newly formed series, similar to our competing in the World Endurance Championship together with Manthey Racing,” said Hartmut Kristen, head of Weissach, Germany based Porsche Motorsport.

“Having finally a unified platform to compete on has made the decision so much easier to enter a GT based Porsche factory team for the first time in American sports car racing.”

No drivers for the program have been announced at this stage but existing Porsche factory men are expected to fill the seats for 2014. Factory pilot Patrick Long has been assigned to CORE’s existing customer effort this year.

The Porsche announcement will result in a brilliant factory GT battle in 2014 between the Weissach-based manufacturer plus Corvette, BMW and SRT. Additional GT entires are expected from Ferrari.