Well if Asian Le Mans and European Le Mans get to host Hypercars, not only will the viewing figures go up, but it means Porsche and who ever is willing to sell customer cars will benefit. We might even see cars like Isotta get a couple of sales.
Nobody is willing to spend an absurd amount of money to race glorified LMP2's in regional championships with microscopic viewerships and crowds compared to WEC.
Adding Hypercar to these series will give teams a chance to compete for Le Mans spaces at a lower cost and the bonus for the series is that viewing figures will go up. I WOULD 100% watch AsLMS and ELMS if Hypercar was added. Maybe ACO let's them run Pro/am line ups and then there could be a 2nd class hypercar class like LMP2/LMP2 Pro/am. I can definitely see a market for teams entering a single Hyper car in said series. Teams like APR, United, maybe IE at a push. As bad as it sounds maybe even that 99 Racing team Mazepin is with.
Aren't viewing figures for those series basically irrelevant for commercial purposes? Attendance is almost always pitiful and the streams are free on YouTube with at most 20k viewers, but it doesn't matter because what sustains these series are gentleman drivers racing for fun. I don't see how that changes if said gentleman drivers just buy some Porsche 963s or Ferrari 499Ps instead of Oreca 07s.
If anything they'll be more sought after because of the brands. People buy GT3s instead of, say, TCRs because they want to drive a McLaren or a Mercedes AMG, not a Hyundai Elantra.
>I don't see how that changes if said gentleman drivers just buy some Porsche 963s or Ferrari 499Ps instead of Oreca 07s.
You expect bronze drivers to race LMH cars??
The entirety of motorsport except for F1, NASCAR and NASCAR don’t rely on viewership or butts in the seats for their income. They get it from rich guys paying for their seats, pay for test sessions and pay even more for factory technical support. This is supplemented by other rich guys paying for hospitality and vip treatment for their corporate buddies in the name of sponsorship.
Fact of the matter is the FIA would have to start turning away GT3 entries if they want to keep up with customer teams in Hypercar. The only way Porsche could even replace Jota next season would be if IF pulls out, leaving two spots on the grid. Otherwise it will be two Penskes and one Proton only. Anybody else looking into customer entries might as well not even consider it unless they’re strictly selling to IMSA, there simply isn’t enough room.
AsLMS isn’t as big as ELMS, so it makes sense why ACO considering to add Hypercar class in there. However, adding Hypercar class still won’t change many European teams coming this series.
I think WEC needs to keep pushing the grid numbers higher or at least try. There are tracks that can support increased number. WEC in 2012 had higher grid numbers at tracks with 64 cars at Sebring and 42 at Spa and even going back to the Le Mans Series days Imola and Silverstone supported 49 and Road Atlanta supported 56 in 2011. I understand shipping costs and wanting to remain in contract with current tracks but an endurance series should not be capped at 40, especially a world championship. Every other major endurance series can and will support more cars than 40
biggest issue are garage facilties of tracks... with >40cars lots of them should be placed in backdoor garages (the outer garages that are usually reserved to f3 and porsche supercur teams during f1 races) that would make a big mess to deal with during the race
It’s not a track issue it’s how the live pit lane works. Sebring has a smaller pit straight than most tracks WEC goes to but because they make use of the space properly there’s 1.5X the cars starting there.
Right but maybe we should be going to tracks where it can fully support the demand of an endurance series. Plenty of tracks can Monza, Nurburgring, Imola, Silverstone, Sebring, Spa shit even Valencia has hosted over 40. Going to tracks that don’t have the space is limiting the series
i my mind yes.
gt's in WEC are 2 things,
1. grid fillers for when we can't get enough other cars.
2. Moving chicanes to keep the hypercar drivers alert.
there are a million boring gt3 series out there, it would suck to hamper one of the 2 grids of lmh/lmdh cars(imsa and wec), just facilitate yet another boring gt3 series
Wow this is a bad take, GT will always have a presence at Le Mans and in the past 6 or so years been the best racing on the grid. Not having a pro class for GT3 is disappointing but making the whole grid prototypes is a disgusting idea
GT has only not been a part of Le Mans from 86 to 92. Removing GT in favor of Group C, which was excellent at the time, is one of the many decisions that led to the downfall of endurance racing in the 90s and 28 entries in 1991
Spa had 60 entries in 2011. Road Atlanta had 58 but the track was only homologated for 53 cars so they had to turn away some cars including the LMPC pole sitter
The people saying GT3 should be dropped for more hyper are insane. Hypercars are really fun to watch but I'd say over half the fun is actually because there's another class of cars running with them. I even told my friends watching LeMans that the real fun begins when the hypercars start to make it to the GT3 field.
I also just love me some GT3 action and was a bit disappointed in the lack of coverage for them this year.
you have 10 million different boring gt3 series in the world, this is one of only 2 places to see lmh/lmdh cars. you can watch other gt3 racing, we can't watch other hypercar racing
I don't get the two cars rule. Do they want to create a second F1 grid ? I'm not interested. Privater make the Championship more fun and interesting to watch. I prefer 20 different teams rather than 10 factory teams.
they want to prevent manufacturers from doing what Cadillac is doing this year i guess – fielding one car for the entire season to be granted spots for the 24H Le Mans, where they field more cars. The new rule is just forcing manufacturers to commit to the entire season with more that a rudimentary one-car effort.
I see the issue, by re-reading articles I understand that you can still join the non-manufacturer WEC with one car. So yea, the real big issue is space in the pit-lane.
I think they just want more manufacturers to Hypercar, but it risks killing the other classes. Hypercar is great, but LMP2 & LMGT3 were brilliant this year. It would be a shame to lose them.
Time will tell. I hope the new rule don't backfire as the hypercar class/WEC is really on the rise.
I just hope they keep a space for privater or small team like Isotta that can run a car in the top class without the big wallet of money.
I lots of drivers that a was following have graduated in Hypercar so it make me less interested in LMP2 sadly. LMGT3 was still interesting but hard to follow with the broadcasting.
how can they possibly kill gt3? there are a million boring gt3 series out there which will go on just fine, at most they will run some seasons without gt3's in wec, but the class will be just fine
Downvote me if you want. However, I don’t think more customer cars coming if WEC rules wasn’t changed.
Most Hypercar automakers still don’t really consider to offer their cars to customer teams, not all are like Porsche. It isn’t just about market decision, it’s also about the financial, resources, and manpower. Many Hypercar automakers are really unwilling to offer the cars for that costs.
Caddy is running two Wayne Taylor IMSA cars and one Action Express car, which might mean AXR is a customer team or factory supported depending on your view.
And we are not hearing about potential buyers throwing themselves at Porsche to buy more cars either (specifically consider they seem about to lose the JOTA entries)
with jota becoming cadillac new factory team, likely only af corse #83 and proton #99 will be next private entries, unless proton may get a second full season car or unpredictable stuff like united getting a former jota 963.
A 963 is 2.5mln € worth, and the purchase is only when a team starts spending money considering how expensive can be use that kind of car (ask jota who had to buy a new tub last week-end). Excluding united, I can't see any other lmp2 team with enough budget for that.
IMSA could definitely support more than 10 Hypercars, I think that's the first overflow. Imsa's also more willing to make garage space and have grids above 40 cars.
Chip Ganassi and MSR would be prime candidates to run the extra Porsches. Which would probably lead to 11-13 full time entries and 13-15 Endurance Cup races
Im curious to know what Group C was like back in the day. I wasn’t around back then it would be great if someone could explain . From my understanding there was a large number of customers teams (maybe even before group C?)
Where there any rules/regulations based on number of entries? Did they even have a GT3 type class or was it all “hypercars”?
Then choose two of hypercar, lmp2, and gt3. Those will be the cars in WEC, the other will be removed.
There's not enough pit space for a robust 3 classes if each manu is required to field two works cars AND there's privateers.
i think this is as bad of a decision as imsa splitting p2/s and dpi's. i think this will backfire massively, in 3-4 years. when these manufactuers leave, which they alwasy do, what cars are gonna be availible? if puegeot ended its program, those cars would be retired. who is gonna replace them? nobody cuz porsche stopped selling cars.
The only way to accept full customer competition would be to let gt3 goes and there is not enough customer to justify that. Or manufacturer actually interested by customer program.
gt cars are grid fillers, especially gt3 cars.
gt3 cars are what a series use as a last resort when they struggle with entries.
there are so many boring gt3 series out there, WEC doesn't need to be one of them
GT manufacturers have enough with other events.
If there are that many interest on Hypercars they all win.
One thing about having a client programs it's too make money out of it
After careful consideration, I've come to the conclusion that we need to invent WEC 2, this time with blackjack and hookers
WEC 2: Hybrid Hypercar Boogaloo
Well if Asian Le Mans and European Le Mans get to host Hypercars, not only will the viewing figures go up, but it means Porsche and who ever is willing to sell customer cars will benefit. We might even see cars like Isotta get a couple of sales.
Nobody is willing to spend an absurd amount of money to race glorified LMP2's in regional championships with microscopic viewerships and crowds compared to WEC.
Cough IMSA cough IMSA
IMSA is an exception and everyone knows it, ELMS and AsLMS are fully Pro-Am and that's simply because Pro-Am is all they can sustain.
Adding Hypercar to these series will give teams a chance to compete for Le Mans spaces at a lower cost and the bonus for the series is that viewing figures will go up. I WOULD 100% watch AsLMS and ELMS if Hypercar was added. Maybe ACO let's them run Pro/am line ups and then there could be a 2nd class hypercar class like LMP2/LMP2 Pro/am. I can definitely see a market for teams entering a single Hyper car in said series. Teams like APR, United, maybe IE at a push. As bad as it sounds maybe even that 99 Racing team Mazepin is with.
Aren't viewing figures for those series basically irrelevant for commercial purposes? Attendance is almost always pitiful and the streams are free on YouTube with at most 20k viewers, but it doesn't matter because what sustains these series are gentleman drivers racing for fun. I don't see how that changes if said gentleman drivers just buy some Porsche 963s or Ferrari 499Ps instead of Oreca 07s. If anything they'll be more sought after because of the brands. People buy GT3s instead of, say, TCRs because they want to drive a McLaren or a Mercedes AMG, not a Hyundai Elantra.
streams are free on youtube....except in the US OF A
>I don't see how that changes if said gentleman drivers just buy some Porsche 963s or Ferrari 499Ps instead of Oreca 07s. You expect bronze drivers to race LMH cars??
Keating drove the 85 Porsche at Daytona this year, so yes.
The entirety of motorsport except for F1, NASCAR and NASCAR don’t rely on viewership or butts in the seats for their income. They get it from rich guys paying for their seats, pay for test sessions and pay even more for factory technical support. This is supplemented by other rich guys paying for hospitality and vip treatment for their corporate buddies in the name of sponsorship.
So we're in agreement then: absolutely no way AsLMS would be able to sustain a LMH class with Pro drivers only.
Some people would be willing to spend with the prize for winning ELMS, a auto Le Mans entry
Isn't that what IMSA is?
Fact of the matter is the FIA would have to start turning away GT3 entries if they want to keep up with customer teams in Hypercar. The only way Porsche could even replace Jota next season would be if IF pulls out, leaving two spots on the grid. Otherwise it will be two Penskes and one Proton only. Anybody else looking into customer entries might as well not even consider it unless they’re strictly selling to IMSA, there simply isn’t enough room.
This is the exact reason the Asian Le Mans series could get a Hypercar class. Customer Porsches running around.
Isn’t it all European teams over there too?
AsLMS isn’t as big as ELMS, so it makes sense why ACO considering to add Hypercar class in there. However, adding Hypercar class still won’t change many European teams coming this series.
Could lure Honda/Acura and Toyota to make their cars available to customers too
just forget ot see toyota in private hands, about honda is unlikely too
I think WEC needs to keep pushing the grid numbers higher or at least try. There are tracks that can support increased number. WEC in 2012 had higher grid numbers at tracks with 64 cars at Sebring and 42 at Spa and even going back to the Le Mans Series days Imola and Silverstone supported 49 and Road Atlanta supported 56 in 2011. I understand shipping costs and wanting to remain in contract with current tracks but an endurance series should not be capped at 40, especially a world championship. Every other major endurance series can and will support more cars than 40
biggest issue are garage facilties of tracks... with >40cars lots of them should be placed in backdoor garages (the outer garages that are usually reserved to f3 and porsche supercur teams during f1 races) that would make a big mess to deal with during the race
It’s the live pitlane and mandatory attachment to a garage that is the problem.
It’s not a track issue it’s how the live pit lane works. Sebring has a smaller pit straight than most tracks WEC goes to but because they make use of the space properly there’s 1.5X the cars starting there.
Right but maybe we should be going to tracks where it can fully support the demand of an endurance series. Plenty of tracks can Monza, Nurburgring, Imola, Silverstone, Sebring, Spa shit even Valencia has hosted over 40. Going to tracks that don’t have the space is limiting the series
I’m saying they can run the same tracks if they change how the pit lane operates.
Would Hypercar entries always take priority over GT entries though? Considering the 2 car GT rule.
i my mind yes. gt's in WEC are 2 things, 1. grid fillers for when we can't get enough other cars. 2. Moving chicanes to keep the hypercar drivers alert. there are a million boring gt3 series out there, it would suck to hamper one of the 2 grids of lmh/lmdh cars(imsa and wec), just facilitate yet another boring gt3 series
Wow this is a bad take, GT will always have a presence at Le Mans and in the past 6 or so years been the best racing on the grid. Not having a pro class for GT3 is disappointing but making the whole grid prototypes is a disgusting idea
Was Group C disgusting? GT is there to fill the grid 'cause Le Mans almost died after 1992. That's all
GT has only not been a part of Le Mans from 86 to 92. Removing GT in favor of Group C, which was excellent at the time, is one of the many decisions that led to the downfall of endurance racing in the 90s and 28 entries in 1991
The downfall was called by Balestre's shit stirring.
gt racing i dont mind, but gt3 can fuck right off
Spa had 60 entries in 2011. Road Atlanta had 58 but the track was only homologated for 53 cars so they had to turn away some cars including the LMPC pole sitter
60 Car Hypercar Grid, let's go.
Bring back pre-qualifying. Top 60 cars gets into the race!
I want mix of manufacturer and privateers in hypercar. But also bring back top racing in GT3 as the likes of GTE.
The people saying GT3 should be dropped for more hyper are insane. Hypercars are really fun to watch but I'd say over half the fun is actually because there's another class of cars running with them. I even told my friends watching LeMans that the real fun begins when the hypercars start to make it to the GT3 field. I also just love me some GT3 action and was a bit disappointed in the lack of coverage for them this year.
This, the 2 class system and the chess match of using the traffic makes the series so great
Agreed, I love GT3 and wouldn’t want to see them pushed aside.
you have 10 million different boring gt3 series in the world, this is one of only 2 places to see lmh/lmdh cars. you can watch other gt3 racing, we can't watch other hypercar racing
I don't get the two cars rule. Do they want to create a second F1 grid ? I'm not interested. Privater make the Championship more fun and interesting to watch. I prefer 20 different teams rather than 10 factory teams.
they want to prevent manufacturers from doing what Cadillac is doing this year i guess – fielding one car for the entire season to be granted spots for the 24H Le Mans, where they field more cars. The new rule is just forcing manufacturers to commit to the entire season with more that a rudimentary one-car effort.
I see the issue, by re-reading articles I understand that you can still join the non-manufacturer WEC with one car. So yea, the real big issue is space in the pit-lane.
I think they just want more manufacturers to Hypercar, but it risks killing the other classes. Hypercar is great, but LMP2 & LMGT3 were brilliant this year. It would be a shame to lose them.
Time will tell. I hope the new rule don't backfire as the hypercar class/WEC is really on the rise. I just hope they keep a space for privater or small team like Isotta that can run a car in the top class without the big wallet of money. I lots of drivers that a was following have graduated in Hypercar so it make me less interested in LMP2 sadly. LMGT3 was still interesting but hard to follow with the broadcasting.
how can they possibly kill gt3? there are a million boring gt3 series out there which will go on just fine, at most they will run some seasons without gt3's in wec, but the class will be just fine
I meant in WEC & Le Mans, should have been clearer. I’m just fearful that it will become a Hypercar series, which would be a shame.
Downvote me if you want. However, I don’t think more customer cars coming if WEC rules wasn’t changed. Most Hypercar automakers still don’t really consider to offer their cars to customer teams, not all are like Porsche. It isn’t just about market decision, it’s also about the financial, resources, and manpower. Many Hypercar automakers are really unwilling to offer the cars for that costs.
I mean at the moment the only 2 I can see selling customer cars is BMW and Isotta. Maybe (big maybe) if Vanwall 2.0 is decent and allowed, maybe them.
I could also see Cadillac selling customer cars starting in 2026.
Caddy is running two Wayne Taylor IMSA cars and one Action Express car, which might mean AXR is a customer team or factory supported depending on your view.
And we are not hearing about potential buyers throwing themselves at Porsche to buy more cars either (specifically consider they seem about to lose the JOTA entries)
with jota becoming cadillac new factory team, likely only af corse #83 and proton #99 will be next private entries, unless proton may get a second full season car or unpredictable stuff like united getting a former jota 963. A 963 is 2.5mln € worth, and the purchase is only when a team starts spending money considering how expensive can be use that kind of car (ask jota who had to buy a new tub last week-end). Excluding united, I can't see any other lmp2 team with enough budget for that.
Come to IMSA we want you
IMSA could definitely support more than 10 Hypercars, I think that's the first overflow. Imsa's also more willing to make garage space and have grids above 40 cars.
Chip Ganassi and MSR would be prime candidates to run the extra Porsches. Which would probably lead to 11-13 full time entries and 13-15 Endurance Cup races
Believe it or not, chip ganassi and MSR are both main candidates for the Acuras
Im curious to know what Group C was like back in the day. I wasn’t around back then it would be great if someone could explain . From my understanding there was a large number of customers teams (maybe even before group C?) Where there any rules/regulations based on number of entries? Did they even have a GT3 type class or was it all “hypercars”?
Sounds like the ACO just needs to do real qualifying. Anyone can show up and try to get in, but only the fastest x times actually make the show.
It's not the 80's anymore
Then choose two of hypercar, lmp2, and gt3. Those will be the cars in WEC, the other will be removed. There's not enough pit space for a robust 3 classes if each manu is required to field two works cars AND there's privateers.
i think this is as bad of a decision as imsa splitting p2/s and dpi's. i think this will backfire massively, in 3-4 years. when these manufactuers leave, which they alwasy do, what cars are gonna be availible? if puegeot ended its program, those cars would be retired. who is gonna replace them? nobody cuz porsche stopped selling cars.
Well, they're not wrong. There ARE too many Porsche customer cars.
Drop lmp2 from le mans, add new class hypercar privateer, keep GT
The only way to accept full customer competition would be to let gt3 goes and there is not enough customer to justify that. Or manufacturer actually interested by customer program.
To be honest I would not care if they let GT go. They almost have no follow in the TV anyway
hell no recent le mans coverage just outright sucked, because they cared more about close ups from the faces of pit crews instead of LMGT3
gt cars are grid fillers, especially gt3 cars. gt3 cars are what a series use as a last resort when they struggle with entries. there are so many boring gt3 series out there, WEC doesn't need to be one of them
Would be insane to take away multiclass racing.
"Multiclass racing" takes its origins in filling the grid. Before 1993 the grid was full of prototypes
It will be weird for sure but with that many Hypercars there will be slow ones as well
Too much manufacturer involvement..
GT manufacturers have enough with other events. If there are that many interest on Hypercars they all win. One thing about having a client programs it's too make money out of it
No, I like my mobile chicanes
I agree to an extent, but they need to keep a framework for GTs for when the current hypercar golden era ends
They should just cut the GT grid to like 12 cars (which would give some OEMs only 1 entry)