The sports car seasons have just ended, but they will begin soon as the 2023-24 Asian Le Mans Series begins in ten days from Sepang. With the next season so close to starting, we must review what happened in 2023 and all the seasons that have since closed. It was an exciting year as the LMDh class made its debut in WEC and IMSA. It was also a sad season as the GTE class bid adieu in the world championship. How did these predictions turn out? Well...
World Endurance Championship
1. Toyota will not finish on the podium at Le Mans
Wrong!
This was always an ambitious prediction, hoping the new wave of Hypercar and LMDh cars would bring an abundance of competition and Toyota would have some rough days, including at Le Mans. Well, Toyota never had that much adversity. It did have the #7 Toyota retire from Le Mans due to an accident, but the #8 Toyota finished second and on the lead lap. It was the second best car in the race.
Cadillac was third and fourth, but didn't really have the pace to beat Toyota. The only hope was a mechanical issue. That didn't happen and Toyota remained on the Le Mans podium for another year.
2. At least three different manufacturers win overall
Wrong!
This one did not quite happen, and was not that close. Toyota won six of seven races. Ferrari's Le Mans triumph will be remember, but no other manufacturer was close. Cadillac had respectable pace, but not race winning pace. Porsche was slower than Cadillac. Peugeot is behind despite the program have more track time than the other three mentioned.
Either way, Toyota was the best. If anything, Ferrari maybe should have had one or two more victories, but that is it. Perhaps 2024 sees a little more variety on the top step of the podium.
3. At least eight drivers with Formula One experience score a class victory
Wrong!
This was close, and fell disappointingly short.
We got one in the first race of the season at Sebring with Kamui Kobayashi.
We got halfway there in the second race at Portimão when Sébastien Buemi and Brandon Hartley won overall and Giedo van der Garde won in LMP2. Van der Garde only won because he was a substitute at United Autosport because Tom Blomqvist had IMSA responsibilities at Long Beach.That is four in two races. Good pace.
We hit five when Robert Kubica won in LMP2 at the third round at Spa-Francorchamps.
Antonio Giovinazzi made it six with his victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In four races, we hit six and needed two more in the final three races.
Pietro Fittipaldi made it seven in five races when he won at Monza in LMP2.
However, we didn't get one more Formula One-experienced driver to win in the final two races. This despite having the likes of André Lotterer, Paul di Resta, Jean-Éric Vergne, Will Stevens, Stoffel Vandoorne, Jacques Villeneuve, Gianmaria Bruni and Daniil Kvyat competing at some point.
4. An overall winner will have a double-digit odd-number
Correct!
Hey! We got one! It was the #51 Ferrari of Antonio Giovinazzi, Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado winning at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. We went 50 races between double-digit odd-number winning car numbers in WEC, from Shanghai 2015 to Le Mans 2023.
IMSA
5. At least one manufacturer in GTP does not win a race
Wrong!
If it wasn't for one post-race technical infraction at Watkins Glen, this prediction would have been correct, because if the #6 Porsche was above board then the #25 BMW would not have inherited the Watkins Glen victory, meaning BMW would not have won a race in 2023.
To be fair, BMW was much more competitive than we expected, especially after the first race of the season. BMW already had two runner-up finishes prior to that Watkins Glen victory.
6. No team in any of the classes has more than three runner-up finishes
Wrong!
It felt like there was no way this one would happen again. No way! Then Vasser Sullivan had one of the most consistent seasons in IMSA history and the #14 Lexus of Ben Barnicoat and Jack Hawksworth finished runner-up not once, not twice, not three times but five times as the #14 Lexus had nine podium finishes in 11 races.
7. There will be a winning driver in the Indianapolis race that has won at Indianapolis before
Correct!
And you would never guess who fulfilled this prediction! It wasn't a past Indianapolis 500 winner or a past United States Grand Prix winner. There were none in this race. It wasn't a past Brickyard 400 winner. Again, none in this race. There were a few past winners from first time Grand-Am/IMSA raced on the IMS road course, but none of those won.
So who was it?
Daniel Juncadella, who won the 2022 Indianapolis 8 Hour! In 2023, Juncadella won with Jules Gounon in the #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG. Who would have thought of all the drivers, Juncadella would have been the one?
8. Italian manufacturers combine for at least four class victories
Wrong!
I am not even going to get technical and count the Dallara-built Cadillac V-Series.R in GTP because that was not in the spirit of this prediction. I was talking about Ferrari and Lamborghini, and they won once, with a surprise winner nonetheless.
Who had the only Lamborghini victory as being the #78 Forte Racing Powered by US RaceTronics of Misha Goikhberg, Patrick Liddy and Loris Spinelli in GTD at Petit Le Mans?
Risi Competizione was second at Watkins Glen in GTD Pro with the #62 Ferrari. That was the closest a Ferrari got to a victory in 2023. Lamborghini was second at Indianapolis in GTD with the same #78 Forte Racing entry.
European Le Mans Series
9. The GTE Class will have a repeat winner before LMP2 and LMP3
Wrong!
Not including the LMP2 Pro-Am subclass, the first repeat winner was the #17 Cool Racing Ligier-Nissan of Adrien Chila, Alex García and Marcos Siebert in LMP3, which was victories in the season opener at Barcelona and the third round at Aragón.
GTE had two repeat winners, the #77 Proton Competition Porsche won the second round at Circuit Paul Ricard and the penultimate round at Portimão. The #16 Proton Competition Porsche won the bookends to the season at Barcelona and Portimão.
10. There will be an Iberian winner in one of the Iberian races
Wrong!
Not only was this wrong and there were no Iberian winners in any of the FOUR Iberian races, one more than originally scheduled after the Imola round was lost due to pit and paddock renovations and Portimão was made a doubleheader, but there wasn't even a Spaniard that competed in ELMS this year.
There were a few Portuguese drivers. Miguel Cristóvão was runner-up at the season opener in Barcelona. That is as close as we got.
Miscellaneous
11. The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters champion will be a non-German from continental Europe
Correct!
It was Austria's Thomas Preining! The first non-German champion from continental Europe since Mattias Ekström in 2007. The good news is if Preining fell short, there were a few other drivers on the doorstep to fulfill this prediction. Italian Mirko Bortolotti was second and Swiss Ricardo Feller was third. The top German driver was René Rast in fifth.
12. No Belgian will in the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup championship
Correct!
Speaking of Feller, Ricardo Feller was the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup co-champion along with Sammarinese Mattia Drudi. The #40 Tresor Orange1 Audi won four of ten races and finished on the podium seven times. In second was the #88 AKKodis ASP Team Mercedes-AMG of Swiss-Italian Raffaele Marciello and Russian-bor Timur Boguslavskiy, 19 points behind Feller and Drudi. The all-Belgian duo and 2022 champions of Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts were third in the #32 Team WRT BMW, 23 points back.
Not great. Four out of 12. If I was a baseball player, .333 is a great season, but this isn't baseball and one out of three is quite bad.
