We are in an active time for sports car racing as we enter the new decade. We are in the final days of the LMP1 class before entering the unknown with the hypercar class. IMSA is trying to fit in with DPi and find a way to be connected to the ACO and FIA and make it possible for the top teams in North America to end up at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The European Le Mans Series seems to be doing just fine. The 2020 season will be interesting on many different levels. What should you keep an eye on?
1. IMSA: At least four cars have multiple overall victories in DPi
IMSA's top class is going to be going through a transition in 2019. The Nissan Onroak DPi is gone after CORE Autosport closed down its prototype program. Action Express Racing will be a single-car program. Juncos Racing's program is influx. Mazda is committed to the first two races with Team Joest but after that the team will not be on the grid unless another customer program steps up (*cough* Dyson Racing *cough*).
We could be down to six DPi entries after Sebring and they will be five really strong cars.
You would have the champions, the #6 Acura Team Penske of Dane Cameron and Juan Pablo Montoya with the sister car of Hélio Castroneves and Ricky Taylor.
Wayne Taylor Racing has Renger van der Zande and Ryan Briscoe in the #10 Cadillac. Action Express Racing keeps its Lusophone lineup of Pipo Derani and Felipe Nasr in the #31 Cadillac.
João Barbosa moves to JDC-Miller Motorsports and brings Sébastien Bourdais with him in the #5 Cadillac and the other JDC-Miller Cadillac will be Chris Miller and Juan Piedrahita.
I don't think one or two cars will dominate the championship. I think there will be a rotation of winners. Both Penske cars could win two races apiece. Wayne Taylor Racing is going to win more than it did in 2019. Derani and Nasr are going to win races and Barbosa and Bourdais can win races.
This is a class with likely only six entries but five legitimate championship contenders. The deduction in entries is a concern but for the 2020 season 80% of the class could end up with the championship. That will be fun to watch.
2. DragonSpeed easily wins the LMP2 championship
The good news for IMSA is there seems like there will be an LMP2 class worth watching in 2020.
Performance Tech Motorsports and PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports are returning and the class is expanding. DragonSpeed, Rick Ware Racing, Era Motorsport and Starworks have all announced programs for the 2020 season. After being dwarfed in comparison to every other class in 2019, LMP2 is going to be nearly the same size as DPi and GT Le Mans.
DragonSpeed is coming in with plenty of LMP2 experience from the European Le Mans Series and the FIA World Endurance Championship. That experience will come in handy. I think DragonSpeed is going to crush the competition. This is a foe Performance Tech and PR1/Mathiasen are not ready for. Rick Ware Racing is not going to stand a chance. Era Motorsport is a new team. DragonSpeed is on another level and it should be lifting the class championship trophy after Petit Le Mans but it will be locked up before the checkered flag at Road Atlanta.
When it comes to easily wins the LMP2 championship I mean it is either wrapped up at Laguna Seca or all the car has to do is start Petit Le Mans.
3. Corvette picks up multiple victories
The 2019 season was a dismal one for the Corvette factory effort. It was shutout of victories for the first time since the program's first season in 1999. It's most recent victory was Long Beach 2018.
A shakeup has occurred. Jan Magnussen has been released and Jordan Taylor has been brought in to join Antonio García. Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner will both return but you have to think the pressure will be on them.
It is not that Corvette is on some disastrous decline. Since its most recent victory, Corvette has had 17 podium finishes and nine of those were runner-up finishes.
I think the program is due for a turn around and Taylor will lift the program. I think the #3 Corvette of García and Taylor alone will get multiple victories.
4. There will be fewer consecutive winners in GTD than 2019
In the 2019 season, there were consecutive winners on three occasions. The #11 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini won the first two races at Daytona and Sebring. The #14 AIM Vasser Sullivan Lexus won at Mid-Ohio and Belle Isle. The #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche won at Lime Rock Park and Road America.
For a Pro-Am class with Balance of Performance that seems like a lot of consecutive race winners for one season. The GT Daytona class is full of capable winners and I think we will see a greater variety of winners. I think there could be one or two occasions when a team wins back-to-back races. There is going to be a team that gets it right for multiple races or wins one race on pure pace and the next on strategy but to think there could be teams that win consecutive races on three different occasions does not seem likely.
5. FIA World Endurance Championship: One more manufacture confirms a hypercar program
We have Toyota, Aston Martin, Peugeot and Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus confirmed for hypercar programs. Toyota and Aston Martin will be there for day one in 2020, Glickenhaus will come the year after that and Peugeot is scheduled for a 2022 debut.
I think they are going to have some company.
We seem to be heading toward DPi/Hypercar convergence. We could see Cadillac and Acura all of a sudden become eligible and then those two manufactures announcing a new car for this combined class for either 2021 or 2022. Convergence appears to be what could draw in McLaren, Porsche or other manufactures. It seems like one set of prototype regulations that covers IMSA and WEC will bring out more manufactures. There will be fewer headaches, less weighing the options of whether or not to run a world championship program or a domestic series and it will be the best for both sides.
I think 2020-21 is out of the realm of possibility for a program announced in the next few months. Any of these announced programs will be coming in the 2021-22 at the earliest. If convergence is agreed upon I think we will have a few announcements within the first few months. Even if convergence is not ironed out I think there is another manufacture out there that will see the new regulations and decide to dive into the pool.
Think of it this way: This upcoming Le Mans will be the final Le Mans before the hypercar introduction. Doesn't it make sense for the ACO and FIA to have a big announcement of another hypercar entry coming on at Le Mans? Doesn't it make sense for that manufacture to have a big display at Le Mans? Even if that car will not be ready for the 2020-21 season, don't you want to make waves and get the most attention?
6. There will be at least one LMP2 podium not to feature a French driver
At least one French driver has finished on the LMP2 podium in 22 consecutive races.
The last time a French driver was not on the LMP2 podium was Shanghai 2016 when the winners were Romain Rusinov, Alex Brundle and Will Stevens for G-Drive Racing, Extreme Speed Motorsports were runner-up finishers with Antonio Giovinazzi, Tom Blomqvist and Sean Gelael and the third-place finisher was RGR Sport by Morand with Ricardo González, Filipe Albuquerque and Bruno Senna.
To extend it further that Shanghai race is the only one since 2016 without a French driver on the LMP2 podium.
It sounds crazy to think that will stop especially when the LMP2 championship class leaders include Frenchman Gabriel Aubry.
The realistic podium for this prediction to be fulfilled would include the United Autosports entry, which has Albuquerque, Philip Hanson and Paul di Resta; Racing Team Nederland, which is an all-Dutch lineup with Giedo van der Garde, Frits van Eerd and Nyck de Vries; and Jota Sport with Anthony Davidson, António Félix da Costa and Roberto González.
That could happen and if doesn't happen in the final four races of the 2019-20 season we still have the first four races of the 2020-21 season and who knows what LMP2 will look like when that season starts.
7. The #92 Porsche finishes on the podium in less than half the GTE-Pro races in the 2020 calendar year
The #92 Porsche was on the podium in six of eight races in the 2018-19 season and has finished on the podium of three of the first four races in the 2019-20 season.
There are only six cars in this class, all you have to do is finish in the top half of the class and Michael Christensen and Kévin Estre have been phenomenal. It is hard to see how this duo will finish off the podium more times than not but there will be eight races in the 2020 calendar year. The #92 Porsche needs four podium finishes to crush this prediction. That seems easy. What team will keep the Porsche's regularly off the podium?
The #97 Aston Martin has finished third in all four races in the 2019-20 season. The #95 Aston Martin has won twice. Can Aston Martin keep up this pace? Can AF Corse right the ship and get back into the fight?
This prediction is a stretch but you have to take a risk with some of these.
8. At least three different entries win a race in GTE-Am
Through the first four races of the 2019-20 season there have been three different winners, the #83 AF Corse Ferrari, the #90 TF Sport Aston Martin and the #57 Team Project 1 Porsche.
Entries that have not won a race yet are the #54 AF Corse Ferrari, the defending champions the #56 Team Project 1 Porsche, the #77 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche, the #88 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche and the #98 Aston Martin. There are plenty of capable entries in GTE-Am. A few of them are going to win. There are only four races left in the 2019-20 season but three different winners and new winners at that in the final four races is not entirely improbable.
9. European Le Mans Series: There will be at least four different LMP2 winners, breaking the pattern
Here has been the pattern in the European Le Mans Series:
2013: Four different winners.
2014: Five different winners.
2015: Three different winners.
2016: Three different winners.
2017: Four different winners.
2018: Three different winners.
2019: Four different winners.
There have not been consecutive seasons with four different LMP2 winners or more since 2013 and 2014. The LMP2 class is going to have 16 to 18 entries in every race. There could be six different winners through six races. This class is going to have variety and there is not going to be one entry that dominates and wins three or four races.
10. British entries will combine for the most LMP3 victories among team nationalities
In 2019, there were seven British entries in the LMP3 class and those seven entries combined for one victory.
That is going to change. United Autosports typically fields two cars. Last year, one of the United Autosports entries had four podium finishes but did not get a victory. The only British victory in class came from 360 Racing.
Inter Europol Competition is going to be tough to beat. Eurointernational is the defending champions. However, I think it will come down to power in numbers and that favors the British teams.
11. At least one GTE winner does not feature an Italian driver
Every GTE winner in 2019 featured at least one Italian driver. I think that was an anomaly.
In 2018, the most frequent nationality to win in GTE was British, three times. In 2017, four of six GTE races had a British victor. In 2016, five of six GTE winners featured a British driver.
I do not think we are going to see the reverse and every race have a British winner in GTE but one nationality on the top step of the podium at the end of every race will not happen.
12. A whole number of points is the difference between first and second in each championship
The LMP3 was decided by 8.5 points in 2019. In 2018, the margins for each championship were 34.25 points for LMP2, 7.25 points in LMP3 and 7.5 points in GTE. The 2016 LMP3 championships was decided by 16.5 points.
The reason for the fractions is a finisher outside the top ten in class gets a half-point. In 2018, the Spa round was shortened due to weather and that led to half-points being awarded, meaning half of a half-point led to cars getting a quarter of a point.
I want one year where the margins are ten points, 12 points and three points. This prediction can still be fulfilled happen if a class champion has 112.5 points because the vice-champion could end up on 80.5 points and then the difference is 32 points.
Either the top two in each championship will end on whole numbers or both are going to end with a half-point somewhere in the season. This is a ridiculous prediction but it is something different to watch for in 2020.
We have completed four of five predictions. Feel free to look at the NASCAR, Formula One and Et Cetera predictions. Tomorrow, we end the year with IndyCar predictions.
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