1960 formula II constructors' world championship In the 1960 season, the formula II constructors' world championship title went to Porsche. On 18th September, Stirling Moss came 1st in Zeltweg in the 718/2. 718/2 : air-cooled 4-cyl. boxer engine,1498 cm3, 155 HP, 456 kg

1962 French Grand Prix Porsche used an 8-cylinder motor for the first time in 1962. With this power unit in the Porsche 804, Dan Gurney won the French Grand Prix in Rouen on 8th June, proving that Porsche was also capable of winning in formula I. 804: air-cooled 8-cyl. boxer engine, 1494 cm3, 180 HP, 455 kg

The cars were competitive but Gurney scored only three second places, although this was enough to place him joint-third with Moss in the World Championship. In 1962 the old cars were supplied to privateers while the factory team ran the new 804, with a new air-cooled flat-four engine. The cars lacked horsepower but they handled well and in July Gurney won at Rouen when all his major rivals fell by the wayside. A week later at the Solitude circuit outside Stuttgart Gurney and Bonnier finished 1-2. The rest of the year was not as successful. At the end of the year Porsche decided that the air-cooled units could not be competitive and so withdrew to concentrate on sportscar racing instead.

Porsche returned to Open Wheel racing with the Indy Car seene in the late 1970's. Unfortunately again for Porsche the timing was wrong, ultimately dooming the project. The man behind Porsche's aborted Indy program was Josef Hoppen, who had migrated to the United States in 1958 to work at a local dealership in Daytona Beach. He began his American racing by campaigning a series of Porsche Spyders in the SCCA events.



Prsche's first Indy car was a Vels-Parneli chassis, which had its Cosworth V-8 replaced by the water-cooled Porsche 935 turbocharged flat-six.
The car proved to be very sucssefull and would have dominated the Indy series if not for the changes set in 1979 by the USAC, the plans that soon started the CART-USAC war, a conflict that would soon engulf Porsche's Indy plans.

The USAC put out a technical bulletin after months of debate saying that the boost limit for Porsche would be no more than that given to the Cosworths-48 inches "48psi pressure limit". With less than a month remaing before the start of practice for the Indianapolis 500, Porsche's responce was quick. In its own, terse one-page press release, the company announced it was canceling its Indy Program and porsche left the Indy series.

In 1981 Ron Dennis approached Porsche and asked if the company would be willing to build a turbocharged Formula 1 for McLaren. Porsche agreed to do it if McLaren could find the money. Dennis convinced Mansour Ojjeh of TAG to invest $5m and the TAG Turbo Engines company came into existence. The Tag engine was designed to very tight requirements issued by McLaren's John Barnard, he specified the physical layout of the engine to match the design of his proposed car. The engine was funded by Tag who retained the naming rights to it, although the engines bore carried the  Porsche name. In 1983 after nearly two decades away from Fomula One the new engine was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show  and raced for the first time at the Dutch GP in August.

In 1984 McLaren-TAG drivers Niki Lauda and Alain Prost dominated the World Championship, scoring 12 wins in 16 races, with Lauda World Champion. In 1985 they won six times and took both titles again but in 1986 the Honda engines were becoming increasingly competitive and McLaren won only four times. Prost won the Drivers' title for the second time in succession, but Williams-Honda took the Constructors'. The 1987 season was the last for the TAG Turbos and Prost won only three races.

At the end of the year the program ended. McLaren switched to Honda and Porsche left Fomula One and turned its attention once again to Indycar racing. Porsche unveiled the 2708 chassis, designed by Porsche engineers and built by Messerschmitt Bolkow Blohm in Munich. Al Unser Sr. was named as the lead driver. The car not a success and in 1988 Porsche acquired March chassis and hired Teo Fabi to drive. The Italian won at Mid-Ohio in 1989 but at the end of 1990 Porsche stopped the program and announced that it was going back to Formula One with a new V12 engine for the Footwork team. Porsche's first time out in Fomula One was not good and the second time would prove to be a complete disaster. The Porsche-powered Footwork cars failed to score a single point, and failed to even qualify for over half the races that year and the team gave up on the engines in mid-season.