The 2022 sports car season was always meant to be a transition year. Big things are on the horizon, and a historic shift is about to happen. But there was still plenty of exciting races taking place this year. Many top teams went at it and put on some incredible races. Another a dozen predictions were made over the top three multi-class sports car series in the world. Let's see how they stood up after 26 races and over 148 hours of racing.
IMSA
1. Chip Ganassi Racing will lead the Cadillac teams in victories
Correct!
Chip Ganassi Racing won three races in 2022, Long Beach, Belle Isle and Mosport. Cadillac won three races in 2022, Long Beach, Belle Isle and Mosport.
Chip Ganassi Racing led the Cadillac teams in victories because it was the only Cadillac team to win a race in 2022.
Action Express Racing had no victories for the first time since 2013. The #31 Cadillac was runner-up at Road Atlanta with Pipo Derani and Olivier Pla. The team had five podium finishes. JDC-Miller Motorsports was third, second and third in the first three races, but the #5 Cadillac didn't get on the podium after the opening three races.
2. European-based teams get at least four victories
Wrong!
Only one European-based teams won a race. It was the #47 Cetillar Racing Ferrari at the 12 Hours of a Sebring in GTD with Antonio Fuoco, Roberto Lacorte and Giorgio Sernagitotto.
We had no European-based winners in LMP2 despite High Class Racing, Racing Team Nederland and United Autosports running a few rounds. AF Corse didn't win despite competing in the endurance races. Every winner was an American team or a Canada's Pfaff Motorsports, which won five of ten GTD-Pro races.
3. At least five different cars win in GTD-Pro
Wrong!
Although, there were five different cars that won in GTD-Pro, we aren't going to count the 24 Hours of Daytona qualifying race. That wasn't in the spirit of the prediction. We are talking about championship races, and only four cars won in GTD-Pro.
Porsche won five times, Lexus and Aston Martin won twice and Corvette won once.
Lamborghini didn't win despite winning the 24 Hours of Daytona qualifying race with TR3 Racing. TR3 Racing was second at Sebring, but that was to Corvette in Corvette's only victory of the season. Even if Lamborghini got on the board in the 12-hour race, we would still be on four winning manufactures.
BMW improved over the course of the BMW M4 GT3's first season, but the closes it got was second at Petit Le Mans. Mercedes-AMG didn't get on the board despite running most of the season with WeatherTech Racing. Acura only made one GTD-Pro start at Sebring.
It didn't quite work out on this one.
4. At least nine drivers will have an IMSA start and a NASCAR Cup Series start
Wrong!
Only four drivers competed in IMSA's top division and NASCAR's top division in 2022.
Those drivers?
Austin Cindric, Mike Rockenfeller, Kyle Tilley, Andy Lally.
That's it. That's the list.
No Kyle Busch. No Chase Elliott. No Austin Dillon or Cody Ware. No Kyle Larson. No Ryan Eversley. No Spencer Pumpelly. No Conor Daly. No Joey Logano. No James Davison. No Joey Hand.
The usual suspects that would dabble in each didn't dabble as much as we have seen. With the introduction of the new car in the Cup Series combined with the lack of practice time around Cup events, I thought we would see drivers do a little more.
This prediction was in trouble from day one at the 24 Hours of Daytona. The only Cup guy to enter was Cindric in a GTD-Pro entry for Proton Competition. This was going to rely on road course drivers getting calls to run in one of the six road course races. With the new car, we didn't see many one-offs at the road courses.
After Daytona, it was clear we weren't going to see the Cup drivers pull through. Ryan Blaney wasn't going to run at Lime Rock Park. Justin Haley wasn't going to find himself competing at Laguna Seca. Nobody was going to run Petit Le Mans the day before Talladega.
I cannot say this fell short when it didn't even reach half the predicted number of drivers.
FIA World Endurance Championship
5. Toyota's winning streak does not reach 12 races
Correct!
Toyota entered the 2022 season with nine consecutive victories in the world championship. Three more and it would have started the season three-for-three and won every race through the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Well, the 2022 season started with a bit of surprise. Toyota stumbled in Sebring and Alpine was there to scoop up its first victory in the Hypercar class. For good measure, Alpine also won the fourth round of the season at Monza.
6. There will be no consecutive race winners in LMP2
Wrong!
This went wrong in the final race. Entering the Bahrain finale, the LMP2 winners had been, in order, the #23 United Autosport Oreca, the #31 Team WRT Oreca, the #38 Jota Oreca, the #41 RealTeam by WRT Oreca and the #31 Team WRT Oreca.
All I needed for some team other than the #31 Oreca to win.
What happened?
The #31 Team WRT Oreca wins the finale, its second consecutive victory.
Damn!
7. Corvette wins multiple races
Wrong!
Corvette's first season in WEC saw it win only once, the Monza round. The #64 Corvette was runner-up twice, Sebring and Bahrain, but it just couldn't get that other victory. It was fifth out of the five full-time entires, but only 33 points covered the five teams.
The other four full-time entries finished the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which pays double points. The #64 Corvette did not finish, so it scored no points. If it had finished and been fifth out of the five races, it would have scored 20 more points and the five teams would have finished within 13 points of one another.
It is sad it took this long for Corvette to have a full-time WEC entry. This was the final season for the GTE-Pro class, and next year will only have the GTE-AM class before a new "GT3 Premium" class takes over in 2024. Corvette will run a car next year with Ben Keating and Nicky Catsburg. Hopefully it will see a little more success.
8. GTE-Am will have at least two teams break 100 points scored
Correct!
And this one was clinched even before the season finale. Entering Bahrain, the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin had 123 points and the #98 Northwest AMR Aston Martin had 103 points.
After the finale, TF Sport had 141 points and took the championship while Northwest AMR ended up on 118 points.
European Le Mans Series
9. The pole-sitter will win at least two races
Wrong!
Incredibly, the pole-sitter didn't even win a race in the ELMS this season.
The #31 TDS Racing x Vaillante Oreca started on pole position at Circuit Paul Ricard and Monza, but its best finish all season was tenth. The #88 AF Corse entry took the top spot at Imola, but finished 14th. Panis Racing's #65 Oreca was the closest pole-sitter to victory, finishing second in Barcelona from the leading grid position. The #37 Cool Racing Oreca and #34 Racing Team Turkey Oreca were fifth and sixth respectively after starting on pole position at Spa-Francorchamps and Portimão respectively.
That means since 2016, the pole-sitter has only won seven of 35 races, a winning percentage of 20%. To make it even more peculiar, the pole-sitter has only finished on the podium twice over the last two seasons, 12 races, after finishing on the podium in four of five races held in 2020.
10. At least three races will not have a French winner in LMP3
Correct!
There were no French winners in LMP3.
In fact, there were only two occasions where French drivers won all ELMS season. At Monza, the #28 IDEC Sport Oreca won overall with its all-French lineup of Paul-Loup Chatin, Paul Lafargue and Patrick Pilet. The only other time a French driver won was in the finale when Doriane Pin won in GTE with the #83 Iron Lynx Ferrari and co-drivers Sarah Bovy and Michelle Gatting.
11. At least four races will not have a German winner in LMP3
Correct!
There were no German winners in LMP3 either.
Who won in LMP3?
Two Americans (Maurice Smith (twice) and Charles Crews (thrice)).
Two Brits (Andrew Bentley and Mike Benham (twice)).
A Portuguese (Guilherme Oliveira (thrice)).
A Chilean (Nico Pino (thrice)).
A Dane (Malthe Jakobsen (twice)).
And a Dutchman (Kay van Berlo).
There were two German winners this season in ELMS, both in GTE. Pierre Ehret won at Circuit Paul Ricard with Rinaldi Racing, and Christian Ried won in Barcelona with Proton Competition.
12. There is at least one winner from the North American continent
Correct!
After not having one North American driver win a single ELMS race in 2021, how does 2022 start? With two North American winners!
American Maurice Smith won in LMP3 while Memo Gidley, in a one-off filling the Rinaldi Racing seat, won in GTE.
They weren't even the only American winners this season as we had three other American drivers win this year. We know about Charles Crews in LMP3, but Conrad Grunewald won in GTE at Spa-Francorchamps and Juan Manuel Correa was a member of the overall winning Prema Racing entry in the Portimão season finale.
Six out of 12! A late flurry of correct predictions from the ELMS season got this to 50%. Nothing to brag about. A few of these were close. It could have been better. It could have been worse. Accept it for what it is.
