The future of Porsche in motor sport is something to behold. It has its Formula E programme and its works RSR team, while customers can buy 911s in RSR, GT3R or Carrera Cup guise, or a Cayman for GT4 racing. For good measure there’s also a GT2 RS Clubsport to race wherever it may be allowed and, of course, its own Esports Supercup series.

But that’s nothing. In 2023 it will return to the top level of sports car racing when it enters the LMDh category of the WEC, and if the mood music emanating from Stuttgart is to be believed, it seems very possible it will be back in Formula 1 in time for the next big rules shake-up in 2026. It can’t do it all. Can it? But as you will note on these pages, its ambitions go further. For what you are looking at is Porsche’s vision of an all-electric customer racing car of the not very distant future. Which is why this Porsche Mission R, despite being a ‘concept’ car of which just one functioning example will be built, is one of the most important cars in Porsche’s history – and, indeed, the evolution of the sports car.

For while other manufacturers may regularly produce concepts almost for the hell of it – or, more usually, because they don’t want to go to a motor show with nothing new to talk about – Porsche never does. Its concepts always find a way into production. Look, for instance, at its previous ‘Mission’ concept, the Mission E. That was turned with remarkably little alteration into the Taycan which, as I write, is now the UK’s best-selling Porsche.