By the looks of things Patrick Dempsey’s racing career is moving ahead much faster than his acting career!  Dr. Derek Shepherd of  Grey’s Anatomy who is a massive petrolhead and runs his own Dempsey Racing team will be competing at this year’s Le Mans 24 hours with Dempsey Racing-Proton Porsche customer team.

Dempsey, like other Porsche customer teams IMSA Performance Matmut and Felbermayr Proton, will be driving a Porsche 911 GT3 RSR Type 997. Porsche factory team, however, will turn up with two brand-new Porsche 991 RSRs, the latest iteration of one of the world’s most successful racing cars.

Factory cars will be driven by works driver Marc Lieb (Germany), Richard Lietz (Austria), and Romain Dumas (France) in car number 92, and Joerg Bergmeister (Germany), Patrick Pilet (France) and Timo Bernhard (Germany) in car number 91.

“We are very much looking forward to returning to Le Mans with a Porsche works team for the first time since 1998,” said Hartmut Kristen, Head of Porsche Motorsport. “The new 911 RSR performed well in earlier tests and is already proving extremely reliable on the track. Between them, our six drivers have scored eight class wins in Le Mans and have a great deal of experience with different 911 race cars. And our customer teams in the GTE-Am class are also well prepared for the 2013 season.”