The third set of 2022 predictions will be sports car racing. This upcoming season has plenty to be excited about. New teams, new classes, new cars and this is just the beginning of the wave, as 2023 will see the introduction of the LMDh class, unifying the top classes for IMSA and the FIA World Endurance Championship.
We have 12 predictions, four for each IMSA, WEC and the European Le Mans Series.
IMSA
1. Chip Ganassi Racing will lead the Cadillac teams in victories
Ganassi returned to IMSA's top class in 2021 and it won at Belle Isle, but that was the team's only victory. Renger van der Zande finished fourth in the championship on his own after Kevin Magnussen missed the Petit Le Mans finale due to COVID-19.
Ganassi did have three runner-up finishes, the Watkins Glen sprint, Laguna Seca and Long Beach, and the team was a contender at Daytona before two late tire punctures.
In 2022, Ganassi will have two cars. van der Zande is back, but Sébastien Bourdais, Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn will join as full-time drivers. Double the cars, and with three world-class drivers, Ganassi should be the Ganassi of old.
As for the other Cadillac teams, Action Express Racing has lost Felipe Nasr and Tristan Nunez will join Pipo Derani in the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac. JDC-Miller Motorsports only won once in 2021, Sebring, and Tristan Vautier will have Richard Westbrook as his co-driver.
Regardless of how Ganassi pieces together its lineups, I think it has the two strong Cadillac teams. Derani is a good driver, but Nunez is not Nasr. Ganassi should win multiple races, but any fewer than four victories will be a little disappointing.
2. European-based teams get at least four victories
IMSA is receiving more European participants and not just for Daytona, but the full season.
Danish High Class racing and Dutch Racing Team Nederland will be full-time in LMP2. United Autosports will field an LMP2 entry for the endurance races. In GT Daytona, Cetilar Racing will run a Ferrari for the endurance races.
G-Drive Racing, T3 Motorsport and Aston Martin Racing are other European teams that will be at Daytona, G-Drive in LMP2 and the other two in GTD.
This prediction lives on the LMP2 class. Racing Team Nederland is a good program, and Giedo van der Garde and Frits van Eerd have been successful in WEC competition. High Class Racing looked good at Daytona last year. United Autosports could sweep the four endurance races and no one would be surprised. United Autosports should win at least once.
There are seven LMP2 races in 2022. PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports, DragonSpeed and Era Motorsports will still represent the United States in LMP2. Those teams are going to be competitive and likely win a few races. This prediction might require some help in the GT divisions.
3. At least five different cars win in GTD-Pro
With GT Le Mans and the GTE-spec cars gone, and the GT3-spec GTD-Pro class taking over, we will see some different cars competing against one another.
Corvette will still be around, but be down to one full-time car, as it will contest a GTE-Pro entry in the FIA World Endurance Championship (more on that in a moment). Pfaff Motorsports will field a GTD-Pro Porsche. Lexus will have a GTD-Pro entry. Heart of Racing will have an Aston Martin in GTD-Pro. BMW Team RLL has two full-time BMWs set for GTD-Pro. TR3 Motorsports has a Lamborghini entered for Daytona in GTD-Pro.
Between Corvette, Porsche, Lexus, Aston Martin and BMW, we at least have five manufactures committed to full-time in GTD-Pro. We could see some different teams pop in during the season and bring different manufactures into the class. It would not be a surprise if each of the five full-time manufactures win at least once. Aston Martin is the biggest question mark, but I think Heart of Racing will get on the board once.
4. At least nine drivers will have an IMSA start and a NASCAR Cup Series start
With all the talk of NASCAR's new car having more similarities than ever with a sports car, many have speculated more Cup drivers will run sports car races to get used to the feel and possibly help them with the new car.
However, as the 24 Hours of Daytona approaches, and with a lack of Cup driver one-offs announced, this predictions looks less likely of being true.
In 2021, six drivers made at least one NASCAR Cup start and one start in IMSA: A.J. Allmendinger, Austin Dillon, Chase Elliott, Andy Lally, Kyle Tilley and Cody Ware.
Four of those drivers are NASCAR regulars who only ran the 24 Hours of Daytona and the other two are IMSA drivers who were NASCAR road ringers.
I am skeptical NASCAR drivers are going to run Laguna Seca or Mid-Ohio or Road America, a month after Cup has already raced at Road America, for more "practice." It is Daytona or bust for the Cup guys, and so far none are signed up.
As for the IMSA drivers, the new car could make them more desirable for road courses. The only problem is the only team employing road course ringers is Rick Ware Racing, which will likely put Cody Ware in one of its cars. If four or five Cup guys end up in Daytona then I think we could get four or five IMSA drivers in a Cup race at some point in 2022.
FIA World Endurance Championship
5. Toyota's winning streak does not reach 12 races
If Toyota's winning streak reaches 12 races, that means it will win the first three races of 2022 and that would include its fifth consecutive 24 Hours of Le Mans victories. It would be the fourth time a manufacture won Le Mans five consecutive times.
Toyota could still win Le Mans and not have its streak reach 12 races. That would mean another team winning at Sebring and/or Spa-Francorchamps.
Entering the Hypercar fight is Peugeot, returning to top prototype competition since 2011. Alpine will have its grandfathered LMP1 car for another season, and it had a few close calls at victory in 2021 but fell short. Glickenhaus could be around after running only three races in 2021 and calling it a season after Le Mans.
It is hard to see Toyota losing, and Peugeot has already lowered expectations, but crazy things can happen in motorsports. The Hypercar class has yet to see a track like Sebring. The Toyotas overcame mechanical issues at Monza and Le Mans to win. Sebring could be the backbreaker and allow someone else to take victory. Peugeot might have better speed than it expects and could pull out a victory at Spa-Francorchamps or possibly win Le Mans on its return.
WEC needs competition in the Hypercar class. An early Toyota defeat would be great for the series.
6. There will be no consecutive race winners in LMP2
In 2021, Team WRT closed out the season with three consecutive victories. In the 2019-20 season, United Autosports won four consecutive races at one point.
After all these consecutive winners, I think there will be six races in 2022 and there will not be one team winning consecutive races. A team or two will likely win multiple races, but those will not be successive. It is hard to expect, but I think the competition in LMP2 makes it more likely.
Team WRT won three on the spin to end 2021. United Autosports won twice, and Jota won once. United Autosports will have two cars in 2022. Team Penske is reportedly joining the class. AF Corse is fielding a car. G-Drive Racing is returning.
There are too many good teams to think one team can go on a run of dominance.
7. Corvette wins multiple races
We are finally getting a Corvette running the world championship, and it should spice up what was a tag-team match between the AF Corse Ferraris and factory Porsches.
There are only six races, three manufactures and Corvette is the lone entry flying solo. Not to mention the Corvette will now be included in the Balance of Performance adjustments for the entire season. It will be a challenge for Corvette, and it will be running the car for the United States, but with the team's entire focus on this one car for WEC, I think Corvette will get results. I don't think it will be down in fifth for all six races. It is Corvette after all. The team will be competitive.
Corvette wouldn't be doing this if it didn't think it could win races and possibly the championship. AF Corse and Porsche were coming to blows at the end of 2021. Those two might not be distracted enough by one another to allow Corvette is jump in and take over.
8. GTE-Am will have at least two teams break 100 points scored
Last year, the #83 AF Corse Ferrari won the GTE-Am championship with 150 off the back of four victories, including at Le Mans and the 8 Hours of Bahrain. The #83 Ferrari won the championship by 60.5 points over the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin.
In 2019-20, six teams scored at least 100 points, but that was an eight-race championship. Last year and 2022 are only six-race championships.
But 100 points isn't that hard to break, and at least two teams should clear that mark. Dempsey-Proton Racing started slow in 2021. If the #77 Porsche doesn't retire from the first two races, it likely would have scored an additional 21 points and reach 100 points.
The GTE-Am field is still being sorted out for the 2022 season. The 2021 champions, Nicklas Nielsen, Alessio Rovera and François Perrodo, are moving to LMP2 with AF Corse. I doubt a team will dominate like the #83 Ferrari did in 2021. The points should be more spread out, increasing the likelihood two, three or maybe four teams hit triple figures.
European Le Mans Series
9. The pole-sitter will win at least two races
The 2021 European Le Mans Series season had an oddity. The pole-sitter didn't do well.
In 2021, the pole-sitter won once, the #26 G-Drive Aurus-Gibson at Circuit Paul Ricard. It was the only time the pole-sitter finished on the podium. The year before that, the pole-sitter won three times, was on the podium four times and its worst finish was fourth.
But 2020 was also an anomaly for the pole-sitter. The pole-sitter won once in 2019, didn't even finish on the podium in 2018, didn't win in 2017 and only had one podium finish that season and won twice in 2016.
It is weird. It is an endurance series with each race lasting four hours, but for the qualifying results to be such disconnected from the race results is surprising.
10. At least three races will not have a French winner in LMP3
In 2021, every LMP3 winner in ELMS had at least one French driver.
Nicolas Maulini won the first two races, Jean-Philippe Dayrault won the third race, Mathieu de Barbuat won the next two races and Adam Eteki won the finale.
There will be a step back. One nationality represented in each class winner over an entire season is incredible in a regional championship. The European Le Mans Series will see it shaken up in 2022.
11. At least four races will not have a German winner in LMP3
The French were great in LMP3, but the Germans did not do too bad either, with at least one German driver in every LMP3 winner.
Niklas Krütten won the first two races, Laurents Hörr won the next three races on his way to taking the LMP3 class championship, and Martin Hippe won the finale.
The Franco-German dominance will not continue for a second consecutive season, and I think there will be less German success there French.
12. There is at least one winner from the North American continent
Five continents had a driver win in ELMS last year.
There were 25 European winners across the three classes. Chinese Ye Yifei won three times with Team WRT. Argentine Franco Colapinto won once with G-Drive Racing. Australian James Allen won with Panis Racing. South Africa had two winners. David Perel won in GTE and Jonathan Aberdein won in LMP2.
The one continent left out was North America. Sorry, Antarctica, we are only talking about the inhabited continents, and I don't see many penguins becoming race car drivers. There were plenty of North American drivers that ran in the series, 14 to be specific, but none won.
There have been North American winners before. Mexican Memo Rojas has twice been ELMS champion and he drove for Duqueine Team in 2021, with his best finish being second at Spa-Francorchamps. American Will Owen won for United Autosports in 2020. Canadians John Farano and Garett Grist won in LMP3 before. Americans John Falb and Sean Rayhall were LMP3 champions in 2017.
North American success is not rare, but to be completely absent in 2021 was uncommon based on other recent years.
Somebody from the North American continent will win in 2022. I don't know who it will be or in what class, but it will happen.
NASCAR and Formula One predictions are already known. Next up will be motorcycle racing.
