Here is a rundown of what got me thinking...
It is now spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Sergio Pérez made it two victories in two races for Red Bull. Fastest lap kept Max Verstappen on top of the championship. Fernando Alonso was on the podium, lost a podium, and then back on the podium. McLaren is tenth of ten teams. The World Rally Championship will run a test event in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Atlanta was bad, and historical slow. Aaron Plessinger had a rough night. Sebring came down to an accident that resembled bowling more than a motor race. Scott McLaughlin, again, may be the best driver in the world. But it was the other series at Sebring that is on my mind…
Expanding the World Championship
Another FIA World Endurance Championship season commenced over the weekend, and as we are still in the early days of convergence with the Hypercar and LMDh spec cars competing against one another in the world championship while also having the possibility of competing against one another in IMSA, each championship is looking to make the most of this grand period.
Manufacturer involvement is at its greatest level in quite some time. The top class in WEC has never looked this deep and with cross-pollination possible, the technological barrier for competition in the historic endurance races is no longer there.
With this manufacturer growth, WEC is looking to capitalize on this period and it is working on returning to its pre-pandemic schedule length with eight or nine races. It has already been announced Qatar will be a new round on the 2024 schedule. A new track could be hosting the series in the United States next year. But WEC is looking for more than those minor changes. However, there is a constriction to WEC's growth.
It is the endurance part of the World Endurance Championship that is a difficult sell.
Six-hour races have been a part of motorsports for decades. It is the basic endurance race. Not as big of a commitment as a 12 or 24-hour race. It is long enough that it cannot be considered a sprint. It gives everyone plenty of racing, but it is almost a full-day commitment, especially if you are attending.
There is also greater financial cost in running six-hour races.
As WEC looks to expand, it must ask how does it want to do it?
The series has seven races for 2023. Qatar will be eight in 2024. The longest WEC schedule was nine races, but is adding one more race, one more country visited, really going to help increase the exposure and the audience for the series? If WEC wants a greater reach, it may have to consider slightly altering its format.
WEC CEO Frédéric Laquien admitted that WEC has to adapt for television and make the series more accessible for normal viewers.
A six-hour race is not friendly to viewers. It is difficult to get an average person to commit to watch anything for six hours let alone a sports car race. It is also not friendly for a broadcaster. No broadcaster wants to schedule six hours to an event where viewers will come and go, especially when there are shorter options and multiple events could fill that window while drawing more eyeballs.
There is a way for WEC to maintain its endurance roots and also expand while becoming more accessible to the average viewer.
Shorter races provide flexibility. WEC can keep its famed endurance races, but shorter events can allow for more races to take place in more countries and be friendlier to the television audience.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans isn't going anywhere. Neither is Spa-Francorchamps nor Fuji, and if Sebring and the series can work out a deal, the 1,000-mile race will remain, but the schedule could be broken up where half are traditional endurance races and another half would be sprint races.
Keep Le Mans, Spa-Francorchamps, Fuji, Sebring and Bahrain, but the series could strategically expand and have sprint races in each of these regions. Qatar is joining the schedule, but it could be a three-hour race instead of a full six-hour event. Paired with Bahrain, these races could be done in one trip, two weeks apart or so.
The same could happen with Fuji and another Asia-Pacific round. Fuji could take place and two weeks later WEC could run a three-hour race in Malaysia or South Korea or visit Australia for the first time. Sebring could be paired with a three-hour South American round in Brazil or Argentina. Monza and Portimão could each become three-hour races and, with the European base of the series, it could allow for another one or two three-hour races in other circuits such as Silverstone, Nürburgring, the Red Bull Ring or any of a number of circuits that haven't been in consideration.
Because of race lengths, WEC is likely never going to be a 18 or 20-race championship, but it could at least have 12 rounds, maybe even 14 rounds, especially if a few events are only three hours in length.
This can be more than an endurance championship but be a world sports car championship, like we saw in the 1970s and 1980s, which had a variety of race lengths. IMSA runs highly competitive two-hour and 45-minute races. WEC doesn't have to run exclusively six-hour races or longer to have an exciting series and showcase its highest level of competition. It can have both, and those three-hour races could be done in plenty of time that it doesn't dissuade a viewer from tuning in because of the length of the commitment.
What is better for WEC? Eight endurance races, all greater than six hours in length but only bringing the series to eight countries, or five endurance races, with another seven to eight three-hour events and at least a dozen countries visited?
Sprint races could fill the gaps that have long existed in the WEC schedule and create a better rhythm. When the 24 Hours of Le Mans ends on June 11 this year, there will be only three WEC races over the following 146 days. That is one race every 48.667 days! The entire seven-race calendar is spread over 233 days. That is a race every 33.285 days, basically one race a month.
Instead of that spread, WEC could run a race in the Americas in late March after Sebring. Portimão and Spa-Francorchamps could be the sprint/endurance pairing in April with Le Mans in June. After that there could be a European sprint swing during the summer with three or four races, and it could fill Formula One's summer break, giving WEC a chance to get some attention. There could be another Asia-Pacific round in late-September or early-October after Fuji. Qatar could be two weeks before Bahrain at the end of the calendar.
That would be 12 races over 233 days, a race every 19.41667 days. A more regular schedule would keep people's attention instead of disappearing for a month or more at a time, increasing the opportunity to be forgotten.
In terms of championship logistics and what to do with three-driver teams as two drivers will be more than enough for the sprint races, we can figure that out. Perhaps for Hypercar the sprint rounds would only count toward the manufacturers' championship that way the driver lineup doesn't really matter. For the pro-am categories, the championship are for the amateur anyway. The amateur competes in every round and then the professional can rotate. These things can be sorted in the wash.
Convergence has brought together one of the best sports car grids we have seen in decades. WEC has a chance to bring an exciting championship to many different people, but it will require slightly altering its format to make it happen. These changes are worth it for sports car racing, and it could bring this series to more people than it ever has in its first decade. WEC should not be afraid to change for the better.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Sergio Pérez, but did you know...
The #31 Whalen Engineering Cadillac of Pipo Derani, Alexander Sims and Jack Aitken won the 12 Hours of Sebring. The #8 Tower Motorsports Oreca-Gibson of Scott McLaughlin, Kyffin Simpson and John Farano won in LMP2. The #74 Riley Motorsports Ligier-Nissan of Felipe Fraga, Gar Robinson and Josh Burdon won in LMP3. The #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche of Klaus Bachler, Patrick Pilet and Laurens Vanthoor won in GTD Pro. The #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW of Bryan Sellers, Madison Snow and Corey Lewis won in GTD.
The #7 Toyota of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and José María López won the 1,000 Miles of Sebring. The #48 Hertz Team JOTA Oreca-Gibson of Will Steven’s, Ye Yifei and David Beckmann won in LMP2. The #33 Corvette of Ben Keating, Nicky Catsburg and Nico Varrone won in GTE Am.
Ayuma Iwasa (sprint) and Frederik Vesti (feature) split the Formula Two races from Jeddah.
Joey Logano won the NASCAR Cup race from Atlanta. Austin Hill won the Grand National Series race, his third victory of the season. Christian Eckes won the Truck race.
Sébastien Ogier won Rally Mexico, his second victory of the season, a record seventh Rally Mexico victory, and Ogier’s 57th career victory.
Chase Sexton won the Supercross race from Detroit, his second victory of the season, after Aaron Plessinger went down while leading on the penultimate lap.
Coming Up This Weekend
MotoGP opens its season in Portimão.
Formula E visits Brazil for the first time with a round in São Paulo.
NASCAR has an international contest in Austin.
Supercross returns to Seattle.
