We had a 24-hour race. Wayne Taylor Racing won again, this time with Acura. Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque, combatants four years, teammates now, each picked up their second 24 Hours of Daytona victory. Alexander Rossi and Hélio Castroneves won the race for the first time and became the 14th and 15th drivers to win the Indianapolis 500 and the 24 Hours of Daytona. GTLM botched the start. LMP3 did not repeat Prototype Challenge's worst days. Mazda MX-5 Cup continues to be a gem of a series. Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus is employing fabulous drivers for its Hypercar program. Shane van Gisbergen will be able to get back to Australia. Formula One revealed some start times. Ed Jones will return to IndyCar full-time and Dale Coyne Racing will have his second driver announced this week, likely on Wednesday. Formula E released a revised schedule. However, we will stick to sports cars and IMSA's decision involving its top GT class. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.
The Evolving GT World
IMSA's ever evolving class structure will see another change in 2022.
With only three full-time teams and one manufacture (Corvette) committed to the GT Le Mans class, meant for GTE machinery, IMSA will scuttle the FIA World Endurance Championship compatible class after the 2021 season. In its place will be a professional GT3 class known as GT Daytona Pro. GTD in its current pro-am form will become GTD-Am.
Something had to be done and dropping GTLM is ripping off the bandage, which was going to be inevitable.
The entire GTE regulations are on its last legs. If you thought three full-time teams in GTLM are bad, there are only four full-time teams committed to the GTE-Pro class for the 2021 WEC season, two Ferraris and two Porsches. GTE-Am still drew a healthy 13 car grid in the initial entry list, while the GT class in the European Le Mans Series drew nine cars last season. The Pro-Am component of GTE remains attractive, but the professional end, the ten-tenths end of the spectrum is a financial drain.
Aston Martin called it quits on its full-time WEC program after the 2020 season ended. BMW scaled back to the IMSA endurance races only for 2021. Porsche completely pulled out of IMSA's GTLM class. Ford stuck to its four-year plan with the GT program from 2015 to 2019. In IMSA's case, switching out GTE for a GT3 pro class sets up to be a net gain.
It gives the manufactures a cheaper option. BMW could continue in IMSA with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing at a discount. Corvette will have to develop a GT3-car, but it does open the brand up to customer programs. It opens an entire class to customer programs, something GTLM/GTE-Pro has lacked for the better part of the last decade.
We should see increased competition in IMSA's top GT class. The door opens to current GTD teams and GTD-only manufactures having their own set of professional drivers capable of going toe-to-toe with GTLM's best. Lamborghini brings over about a dozen drivers each year to the 24 Hours of Daytona and finds grand success. The brand also has strong seasons in SRO GT World Challenge competition. Lexus arguably already has a GTD-Pro worthy lineup in Jack Hawksworth and Aaron Telitz. Porsche took all its top factory drivers and spread them around GTD this year. This change allows Laurens Vanthoor and Earl Bamber to reunite.
While a half-dozen cars in GTLM is not a bad grid for Daytona, this change could see the top GT class in IMSA double for 2022 and the likes of Lexus, Lamborghini, Mercedes-AMG and even Acura battle with Corvette and BMW while Porsche would rejoin that fight. McLaren could be in there as well. It could all happen without being a detriment to GTD-Am. GTD-Am will lose some professionals, but most of those teams will still be there. Turner Motorsport will still be there. Paul Miller Racing will still be there.
We could see Kyle Busch return to the Lexus program and have Denny Hamlin be his co-driver in an all-professional lineup. Honda could form an all-IndyCar all-star lineup in an Acura NSX GT3 with say Takuma Sato, Ryan Hunter-Reay and James Hinchcliffe if they wanted. If Honda wanted to field a car for its best Super GT drivers, it could do that as well. We could see an all-NASCAR driver Corvette. These were all improbable options with IMSA's current GT structure.
It is ok to have a little trepidation with this change. The IMSA class will no longer be in lockstep with Le Mans, but the ACO invites GT3 champions as well. The Asian Le Mans Series GT class is GT3 spec and that champion gets a shot at Le Mans. That team has to find a GTE car, but the invitation is still there. That will be more difficult in the United States. Corvette will likely keep its GTE program going for Le Mans purposes, but that GTD-Pro invite would be worthless to the likes of Lexus, Acura, Mercedes-AMG, McLaren and Audi teams.
Le Mans and WEC will also face its own GT reckoning soon. The easiest decision would be some evolution to GT3-specs, though there are plenty of GT3 endurance series out there to choose from already.
Before the IMSA announcement, I was hoping for some kind of GTE merger between IMSA and WEC, where both series saw their common issue and bonded for the good of both. I was hoping that at least the four IMSA endurance races, Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen and Petit Le Mans, would be count toward a united GT World Championship along with the rest of the WEC schedule. I was hoping the two series could create a nine-or-ten-round championship and require entries to run at least two IMSA endurance races, at least two WEC races and have the best six results count toward the overall championship.
My thought process was it would force the Ferraris and the Porsches to compete in at least two IMSA races if not all of them. It would force Corvette to compete at least one WEC race other than Le Mans. If smarter heads prevailed, the series would allow BMW back in to compete for the championships and all of a sudden, we would see at least eight GTLM cars at the four IMSA endurance events and maybe increased competition in the WEC season.
Though a potential solution, this IMSA/WEC co-sanctioned GT championship would still not draw any new manufactures in. It would gloss over the fractures that have been spreading for the last few years. Those had to be addressed and, instead of pushing that conversation back another two or three years, IMSA's decision forces the conversation to happen now.
GTD-Pro might not be the perfect solution, and we might need an alternate form of GT regulations for IMSA and WEC but keeping up GTE in its current form is not the answer. It is 2021. The entire automotive landscape is changing. GM just announced it will be all-electric come 2035. Where does that leave Corvette? Volkswagen Group is shooting to be all-electric by the middle of this decade. What does that mean for Porsche? By the end of this decade, we will probably be grappling with an all-electric GT class or at least a hybrid GT class. Whatever solution we come up with today will have to be adjusted real soon. Why not tackle it now or at least prepare for it?
Evolution does not stop, and GT racing might be entering its most difficult phase.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Wayne Taylor Racing, but did you know...
The #18 Era Motorsport Oreca-Nissan of Ryan Dalziel, Paul-Loup Chatin, Kyle Tilley and Dwight Merriman won the LMP2 class at the 24 Hours of Daytona.
The #74 Riley Motorsports Ligier-Nissan of Spencer Pigot, Oliver Askew, Scott Andrews and Gar Robinson won in LMP3.
The #3 Corvette of Jordan Taylor, Antonio García and Nicky Catsburg won in GTLM.
The #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG of Maro Engel, Indy Dontje, Phillip Ellis and Russell Ward won in GTD.
Ken Roczen won the Supercross race from Indianapolis.
Matthew Payne swept the Toyota Racing Series races from Hampton Downs.
Coming Up This Weekend
Supercross has two races from Indianapolis, one on Tuesday and one on Saturday.
