Sports car racing is about to enter one of its most anticipated periods. In 2023, convergence will be here. The LMDh class will commence competition and an abundance of manufacturers will be eligible for overall victory at Le Mans. It has been decades since the two major 24-hour races could have the same machinery claim overall victory. In 2023, that will be possible and the 24 Hours of Daytona will be a historic pivot point.
But there will be races beyond Daytona and Le Mans, and this is a set of predictions spanning the sports car world.
World Endurance Championship
1. Toyota will not finish on the podium at Le Mans
Toyota has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans five consecutive times. It is the fifth time a manufacture has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans five times on the spin.
But that changes in 2023 and it changes in a big way. Toyota may have a head start in the Hypercar world, but it hasn't faced any stiff competition in half a decade. In 2023, who shows up? Peugeot will be back after it started halfway through the 2022 FIA World Endurance Championship season. Porsche will have two cars that Team Penske will operate. Ferrari is back, and there will be a Cadillac as well.
You would think Toyota should at least put a car in the top three, but that is not going to happen this year. It will be an eye-opener for Toyota. It will have to push harder than it has to since 2017. I think it gets pushed over the limit and another manufacturer or two enter in strong form.
2. At least three different manufacturers win overall
There will be six manufacturers in Hypercar in 2023. Toyota isn't going to win all the races. Peugeot was making strides at the end of 2022, but it didn't quite have full race pace yet. Porsche will pull out at least one or two victories. Ferrari could be good enough. Cadillac has been strong in IMSA prior to the LMDh car. Glickenhaus still exists and it won two pole positions last season, but couldn't take the fight to Toyota for victories.
With the influx of new manufacturers, some of these teams will win. I doubt it is all of them, but three, half in a seven-race season, that makes sense.
3. At least eight drivers with Formula One experience score a class victory
In 2022, six drivers with Formula One experience scored a class victory in WEC.
Paul di Resta was the first to do in LMP2 at Le Mans. Kamui Kobayashi, Sébastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley all scored overall victories. Will Stevens was a winner in LMP2. Do you remember that Gianmaria Bruni drove for Minardi in the 2004 Formula One season? Bruni did, and he won in WEC last year in the GTE Pro class.
With more manufacturers in Hypercar, plenty of talented drivers filling professional seats in LMP2, and who knows what GTE will look like in its final season, but WEC is full of Formula One experienced drivers. Kobayashi, Buemi and Hartley could all win again, they should win again. André Lotterer is back in WEC's top class driving for Porsche, and Lotterer has the 2014 Belgian Grand Prix on his résumé. Di Resta drives for Peugeot and Jean-Éric Vergne also drives for that program.
That is six drivers that could win, but Stevens will drive a Porsche for Jota. We still do not know the Ferrari drivers plus LMP2 seats still need to be filled. We know Giedo van der Garde will start at least two races for United Autosports when Tom Blomqvist has IMSA responsibilities.
There are plenty of Formula One drivers around, they are good drivers. At least eight will be WEC winners.
4. An overall winner will have a double-digit odd-number
This is oddly specific, but one thing I noticed when Alpine won at Sebring last March was it was the first time a double-digit car won overall in a WEC race since the 2015 season finale at Bahrain when the #18 Porsche won. That was over six years, 40 races since a double-digit car won overall.
We had a double-digit car win, but it was an even-numbered car. We had another six races without an double-digit odd-number winner. Who was the most recent double-digit odd-number winner? It was the #17 Porsche the race prior to the #18 Porsche at Shanghai.
There have been 47 races without a double-digit odd-number overall winner. At the moment, the only double-digit odd-number Hypercars we know will be the #51 Ferrari and the #93 Peugeot. That is it. We are putting money on one of those two winning overall.
IMSA
5. At least one manufacturer in GTP does not win a race
We will see four manufacturers in GTP this season. Acura and Cadillac will have Porsche and BMW join the top class in 2023. There is a lot of excitement, but this isn't a perfect world. One of these manufacturers must be last. It is likely one manufacturer will be last more than others.
It is a nine-round championship for GTP. All four could win, but I think one doesn't. Acura and BMW haven't completed 24-hour tests yet. Porsche and Cadillac appear to be the most prepared for the season. We are going to have eight full-time entries with another two customer Porsches joining some time during the season. Porsche is going to have 40% of the class at some point. The numbers are in its favor. If Porsche hits it could be a beat down. If it is a beat down, someone is going to lose out significantly.
6. No team in any of the classes has more than three runner-up finishes
Meyer Shank Racing won the Daytona Prototype international championship last year with five runner-up finishes. The #30 JR III Motorsports Ligier-Nissan in LMP3 had three runner-up finishes. The #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin won the GT Daytona championship with three runner-up finishes along with two victories.
It happened in three different classes. I don't think it happens once next year. There will be teams with two runner-up finishes. There will be teams that win multiple races, but nobody will have more than three runner-up finishes in any of the five classes.
7. There will be a winning driver in the Indianapolis race that has won at Indianapolis before
Mixed class sports car racing is returning to Indianapolis Motor Speedway this year for the first time since 2014. It is an anticipated race weekend and it will be a great weekend for a bunch of drivers who have never got to run at the historic track.
In the first round of Grand-Am/IMSA races at IMS, experienced was beneficial, even if it wasn't on the road course. Sébastien Bourdais won the inaugural Grand-Am race at Indianapolis in 2012 and he had a pair of Indianapolis 500 starts at the time. Max Papis won in GT in 2013. Christian Fittipaldi, 1995 Indianapolis 500 runner-up, won in 2014 while Jack Hawksworth won in Prototype Challenge after having led 31 laps and finishing seventh in the inaugural IndyCar Grand Prix of Indianapolis earlier that year.
All of those drivers had experience at Indianapolis, but none of them had won at Indianapolis prior to that. That will change. Somebody who has won at Indianapolis before will win again. I am not talking about an Indianapolis 500 winner. It could be anyone.
It could be Bourdais or Hawksworth winning again. It could be João Barbosa, who won in 2014 with Fittipaldi and who now competes in LMP3, winning again. It could be IMS Indy Lights winner Ed Jones, who will run in LMP2 with High Class Racing. It could be Sebastian Priaulx, who will be full-time in GTD in the AO Racing Team in 2023, and who won at Indianapolis in Porsche Carrera Cup North America in 2021. It could be Juan Pablo Montoya and whatever LMP2 program he jumps into this year. Who knows? There could be a surprise entrant. Someone will get another Indianapolis victory in 2023.
8. Italian manufacturers combine for at least four class victories
Last year, the only Italian victory was the Cetilar Racing Ferrari in GTD at Daytona. Italian makes will at least quadruple that output.
Iron Lynx will field a Lamborghini full-time in GTD Pro with Mirko Bortolotti and Andrea Caldarelli, a driver who has spanked the GT World Challenge America series in recent years. Iron Lynx will also field a Lamborghini in GTD as well as Iron Dames. NTE Sport and US RaceTronics also have Lamborghinis entered for Daytona.
AF Corse, Triarsi Competizione and Cetilar Racing will all enter Ferraris at Daytona.
Not all of these cars will be full-time. Some will only be endurance race entrants. Four is a hefty increase of victories. I think it will be possible.
European Le Mans Series
9. The GTE Class will have a repeat winner before LMP2 and LMP3
There were no repeat winners in GTE last year in ELMS. Meanwhile, Prema Racing won the first two races in LMP2 and Inter Europol Competition won twice in the first four races in LMP3. In 2021, Team WRT won the first two LMP2 races and Cool Racing won the first two LMP3 races while the first repeat GTE winner didn't come until the third race of the season when the #80 Iron Lynx Ferrari won for the second time.
LMP2 and LMP3 had repeat winners before GTE in 2020 as well. GTE hasn't had the first repeat winner in an ELMS season since 2014, the year prior to the introduction of the LMP3 class. It is bound to happen again. It will happen in 2023.
10. There will be an Iberian winner in one of the Iberian races
Half of the 2023 ELMS season will be on the Iberian peninsula with Barcelona opening the season before the series' first trip to Aragón in August and Portimão closing the season. Guilherme Oliveira was the only Iberian winner in 2022, but with two races in Spain, perhaps we will see a Spaniard or two compete in ELMS this year. With an increase of Iberian races I think we will see an increase of Iberian drivers. If that is a case, one will pull off a victory in their backyard.
Miscellaneous
11. The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters champion will be a non-German from continental Europe
The DTM has not had a continental European champion from a country other than Germany since Mattias Ekström won his second championship in 2007. Where have the champions come from since the Swede Ekström won the title?
Germany, Germany, Great Britain, Germany, Canada, Germany, Germany, Germany, Germany, Germany, Great Britain, Germany, Germany, Germany, South Africa.
Sheldon van der Linde became the second non-European champion in series history in 2022.
DTM is a German series by definition, but it has been more of a European championship with a German base since it was revived in 2000. Plenty of talented European drivers have com through the series, but none have taken the title. With GT3-specs for the series, it brings a different mix to the series.
Lucas Auer was only 12 points away from become the first continental European champion not from Germany this past season. Mirko Bortolotti was fourth in the championship with Thomas Preining in fifth, Nico Müller in seventh and Dennis Olsen in tenth. There were more non-German European drivers in the top ten of the championship than German drivers. There are fewer German drivers in the series. Only eight of 26 regulars in 2022 were from Germany. That is less than a third of the grid.
The 2023 grid hasn't really been in focus since DTM's future was only settled a few weeks ago when ADAC took over the series. The 2023 season opener isn't until the end of May anyway. We will see non-German Europeans in the series. One of them will be champion.
12. No Belgian will in the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup championship
Dries Vanthoor and Charles Werts has won the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup championship in three consecutive seasons. A Belgian driver has won the overall champion in this series in five of ten seasons.
Nothing lasts forever. There is a big change as the likes of Vanthoor and Weerts will now drive BMWs after Team WRT switched to the manufacturer from Audi. I don't necessarily Audi is the deciding factor, but we are bound to see something different. That will be no Belgians taking the overall title in 2023.
Three down, two to go. Check out the NASCAR and Formula One predictions. Two-wheel action is next.
