Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the #7 Toyota. The LMP2 battle saw late drama and the #31 Team WRT Oreca-Gibson of Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi won the class. Ferrari swept the GTE classes with the #51 AF Corse Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Côme Ledogar winning GTE-Pro and the #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Niklas Nielsen, François Perrodo and Alessio Rovera winning GTE-Am.
Elsewhere in the world, Iowa is back on the IndyCar schedule. Michael Andretti might be buying into a Formula One team. Formula One will not be going to Japan. Maverick Viñales has officially parted with Yamaha and will not return for the manufacture in the 2021 season. Meanwhile, MotoGP has dropped Malaysia due to the pandemic. The World Touring Car Cup has completed revised its final portion of the season and will not leave Europe... unless you don't consider Sochi apart of Europe. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.
Scheduling Convergence
Hypercar's first Le Mans is in the books, and we are on the verge of an exciting period for global sports car racing.
While only five cars, one of which is a grandfathered LMP1 machine, from three manufactures, one of which is a boutique automobile manufacture, competed in the top class this year, in the coming years we could see an explosion of cars in the top class thanks to global convergence between the FIA World Endurance Championship's Hypercar class and IMSA's soon to be introduced Le Mans Daytona h class.
IMSA's LMDh class will debut at the 2023 24 Hours of Daytona. Acura, Audi, BMW and Porsche have already confirmed programs. There are expectations Cadillac, Ford and possibly even Lamborghini will enter the class. Hypercar has already snatched Toyota and Glickenhaus, but Peugeot and ByKolles have announced projects for next year. Alpine could be announcing a dedicated Hypercar entry soon and we know Ferrari will be back in 2023.
In less than two years, we could have anywhere from eight to 12 manufactures competing for the overall victory at Le Mans. This year's smallest class with only five cars could conceivably balloon to 20 entries or more and potentially be the largest on the grid. Le Mans could be prototypes only with the LMH/LMDh class on top and LMP2 for Pro-Am entries.
There are a few things that will have to be ironed out as the two classes are two entirely different sets of technical regulations, but for the first time in a long time, the same cars will be able to compete for overall victories at the 24 Hours of Daytona and 24 Hours of Le Mans. One car will be able to compete for the endurance racing Triple Crown and run Sebring as well. This has not been the case in the 21st century.
It is an exciting change considering where sports car racing has been for the last two-plus decades. While the LMP1 class was a normal sight in the American Le Mans Series, by the end of the 2000s, it was off the grid and exclusive to the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup and its successor FIA World Endurance Championship. Audi's latest LMP1 beast went from native to North America to a rare exhibition. Toyota and Porsche were only one-time guests to the United States. The Grand-Am and ALMS merger has been glorious for North American sports car racing but having LMP1 participation limited to one round never felt sufficient.
They are two different classes, but they are effectively one. There can be cross-championship mingling we have not seen in the WEC-era. The only problem is we have no guarantee that will be the case.
We will likely see LMDh manufactures fill the grid at Le Mans, but will the reverse happen at Daytona? Will Toyota and Ferrari spend January in Florida?
There will likely be a few manufactures that do run split programs and have one or two cars in IMSA and one or two cars in WEC, similar to what Ford and Porsche had done recently with their GT programs. But a prototype program is different. Hypercar is more affordable than LMP1, but it is still an expensive program. The world championship is the objective for these manufactures, and we could see the world championship schedule change in the next few years. This year is only six rounds, and 2022 will be the same, but that is partially because of the pandemic. WEC will likely look to get back to eight rounds by 2023.
With WEC likely to expand back to eight rounds, will any of the Hypercar programs have the resources to add another 24-hour race or a 12-hour race to their schedule? Will Hypercar programs form an additional full-time program for IMSA? Toyota and Ferrari have not signed up for IMSA. Peugeot does not sell cars in the United States, though it could rebadge its upcoming 9X8 Hypercar for IMSA. Dodge branding is one possibility.
There will be LMH-LMDh convergence, but could schedule convergence come along with that?
There are always going to be two championships and there will be a limit to each. No program will be able to do all 18-20 rounds between the two championships. There will likely be a few calendar conflicts that would make running both championships impossible.
But can the two championships protect the big events?
Le Mans is Le Mans. That will be fine. But can Daytona and Sebring be boosted?
The issue is we cannot have the two championships run congruently. We did that before with the American Le Mans Series and Intercontinental Le Mans Cup/WEC at the Sebring in 2011 and 2012. There were nine classes on the track. The podium ceremonies took almost two hours. We cannot repeat that.
Thinking about a solution, I wonder if Daytona and Sebring could count toward the world championship, along with the other six or eight WEC races, but only the top six or eight events go toward a driver and entries score, and Daytona and Sebring would only be for LMH and LMP2. This would create an incentive for the manufactures to participate at Daytona and Sebring, but also allow teams to decide not to race if they didn't have the budget. It would not affect a team's championship hopes by skipping because a team's worst two or three results would be dropped.
As for limiting it to LMH and LMP2, these are still IMSA races, and IMSA needs to look out for its grid. WEC's GT class will be moving to a GT3-based regulations in 2024, but we cannot marry two fields of 35-plus cars. LMP2 is already on the 24 Hours of Daytona grid, but that race does not count toward the full IMSA championship. Some IMSA LMP2 teams skip Daytona. The WEC LMP2 entries could participate and not shuffle out any IMSA teams.
Looking at the Daytona entry list for this year, there were seven DPi entries, ten LMP2 entries and 19 GTD entries, a total of 36 cars. There will be more GTD entries with the creation of GTD-Pro, but there is room to play with. Let's say there are six more GTD entries, an increase to 20 cars in the LMH/LMDh class and an additional eight LMP2 entries, the grid would be on the high side at 63 entries, but there were 67 entries in the 2014 24 Hours of Daytona. The entry list did dip to between 50 and 55 entries from 2015 through 2018, and that might be a more realistic total if these were IMSA/WEC combination races.
Sebring could accommodate the extra teams as it has the new second pit lane, which was built for the Super Sebring weekend and the 1,000-mile WEC race.
The 36 Hours of Florida could be the opening rounds for the WEC season on the prototype side. The teams could show up in Florida in January and stay through the middle of March before returning to Europe for the first European round at Spa-Francorchamps at the beginning of May. It would also give WEC the American presence without struggling to have its own event. Instead of trying to do something on its own, WEC could benefit from being on American's biggest sports car stage.
It would likely mean the end for Super Sebring, or Super Sebring evolves and while the LMH and LMP2 cars run the 12 Hours of Sebring, the WEC GT teams could have their own GT-only endurance race. I don't think it would have to be 1,000 miles or six hours, but a four-hour race on Friday evening with 16-20 WEC GT cars would be a good companion event and still make it a Super Sebring weekend.
While coming up with these hypotheticals, it is important to remember sports car racing is still evolving. We are not sure what the next generation LMP2 car will look like or if there will even be a next generation LMP2 car. LMH/LMDh might become so popular that LMP2 is no longer relevant and there is just a Pro/Am class for LMDh cars. WEC is adopting GT3, but it will likely be only amateur teams. The door has opened for many manufactures who could not compete in WEC previously.
It is a crazy time, but it is thrilling for sports car racing. The next five years look destined to be something special.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Josef Newgarden and Le Mans, but did you know...
David Malukas swept the Indy Lights races from Gateway. Braden Eves won the Indy Pro 2000 race.
Ryan Blaney won the NASCAR Cup race from Michigan, his second victory of the season. A.J. Allmendinger won the Grand National Series race, his third victory of the season. Sheldon Creed won the Truck race from Gateway, his second victory of the season.
Kelvin van der Linde and Alex Albon split the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters races from the Nürburgring.
Scott Redding won the first two World Superbike races from Navarra and Toprak Razgatlioglu won the third race. Razgatlioglu and Jonathan Rea are tied for the championship leader with six rounds remaining. Dominique Aegerter swept the World Supersport races and has won eight of the last nine races.
The #23 NISMO Nissan of Tsugio Matsuda and Ronnie Quintarelli won the Super GT race from Suzuka. The #244 Max Racing Toyota Supra of Atsushi Miyake and Yuki Tsutsumi won in GT300.
Gilles Magnus and Santiago Urrutia split the World Touring Car Cup races from the Hungaroring.
Coming Up This Weekend
Formula One is back from break with the Belgian Grand Prix from Spa-Francorchamps.
MotoGP swings into Silverstone.
NASCAR concludes its regular season at Daytona.
Indy Pro 2000 and U.S. F2000 visit New Jersey Motorsports Park, in a rare Road to Indy standalone event.
Super Formula returns from its extended Olympic break at Motegi.
GT World Challenge America is at Road America.
GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup is at Brands Hatch.
