2023 WEC

Doc Austin said:

IIRC, WEC said there would be no BOP adjustment for leMans, but there it is anyway. I think we will probably be lots of BOP discord as the Lemans weekend unfolds. I would not be even slightly surprised if we see a lot of griping.

Aside from that what this mean is we will probably get a better race. This won't be much consolation for the teams on the short end, but at least whomever wins will probably have to earn it. My guess is Toyota will still find a way to be fastest and unless they have a lot of problems they will probably be in contention. They are just too far ahead, but I hope this doesn't cripple them.

The good news for IMSA fans is the GTP (or LMDh) will probably be in the fight. I generally don't keep up with BOP adjustments, but these ones see to be a step in the right direction. We won't know for sure until they race the things, but it at least appears WEC is trying to be fair. It's hardly been fair the opening races with Toyota running away with it, but hopefully this will address that and we'll have a righteous battle on our hands.
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I’m not sure I like the idea of throwing their promise out the window and making a unilateral adjustment. Toyota being at the maximum weight is also quite a big swing. If it weren’t for Vanwall and Glickenhaus it wouldn’t be the case, but oh well I guess. Those two kinda throw off the metrics of the whole class.

Kobayashi said the weight will cost them 1.2 seconds per lap. Hopefully this means everyone is on roughly equal ground now. I do think the adjustments between Porsche, Cadillac, and Ferrari make sense but I’m not sure Toyota should be heavier than Ferrari.
 
FLRacingFan said:
I’m not sure I like the idea of throwing their promise out the window and making a unilateral adjustment.
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I've given up trying to figure the French out. Can you imagine how upset Toyota must be?

FLRacingFan said:
Toyota being at the maximum weight is also quite a big swing. If it weren’t for Vanwall and Glickenhaus it wouldn’t be the case, but oh well I guess. Those two kinda throw off the metrics of the whole class.
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My biggest worry was they wouldn't be able to keep a competitive balance between the LMH and LMDh cars. Ferrari could match Toyota on speed, but the LMDH cars lacked pace. Let's hope they have it spot on for Lemans and we get an epic race.
 
Lots of announcements today. Besides the Qatar add, COTA takes the U.S. slot, Interlagos return, and Imola replaces Monza - supposedly Monza has some renovations next year.

Feb. 24-25 — Prologue (Qatar)
March 2 — Qatar 1812km
April 21 — 6 Hours of Imola
May 11 — 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps
June 15-16 — 24 Hours of Le Mans
July 14 — 6 Hours of São Paulo
Sept. 1 — Lone Star Le Mans (COTA)
Sept. 15 — 6 Hours of Fuji
Nov. 2 — 8 Hours of Bahrain

sportscar365.com

COTA, Interlagos Return on 2024 WEC Schedule – Sportscar365

New venues in Qatar, Italy, U.S., Brazil in expanded eight-race calendar…
sportscar365.com sportscar365.com

Multimatic will run the Mustang GT3 factory effort in IMSA GTD Pro next year, longtime Porsche runners Proton will run the two-car WEC LMGT3 customer program.



Alpine have shown their 2024 LMDh:

 
Doc Austin said:
I have to wonder why they didn't badge the engine as an Alpine?
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I don’t think they’ve named the engine yet, Mecachrome is just their build partner. Hopefully it’s a big development from the folks at Viry if it’s based off of the V634 that powers F2 and F3. It sounds like it is, so there’ll be a lot of work to do to make it endurance-ready.

What can you tell us about the engine?


We have teamed up with Mecachrome for the powertrain. Mecachrome has experience in Endurance racing and we conducted several studies and tests starting in June 2022. It enabled us to analyse its advantages and disadvantages so that our teams of Formula 1 engineers could draw up specifications, define the architecture and calibrate it for the desired performance range. The engineers at Viry were very much involved, sharing their capabilities, resources and methods with us to improve power, reliability and materials. In simple terms, it's a 3.4-litre single-turbo V6. We'll be the only ones with this configuration.
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Doc Austin said:
More Alpine: https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/motorsports/alpine-a424-β-debuts-to-mark-brand-s-return-to-top-tier-endurance-racing/ar-AA1ckqKb?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=8b39898dc2ce453bb9c051dbde5abf67&ei=54#image=AA1ckCHN|2
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Compared to its ORECA sister, Acura, I think it looks noticeably different for the most part. Maybe a similar shape at the leading edge of the nose, but overall a good job of making it distinct. Seen some people complaining about them looking the same but I don’t see it.

 
Graham Goodwin teased a new Hypercar program from a major manufacturer that would be a “surprise”, potentially to break in the next few days. If we’re doing wildass guesses I’ll say Mercedes.

 
So the surprise is that the Valkyrie may race after all, starting in 2025, as a privately-funded effort. Can’t say I saw that coming. Would be badass to hear that V12 out there.

 
This looks good on a proto.



Lineup is Gimmi Bruni / Neel Jani / Harry Tincknell. Lots of experience there.
 
I like the color schemes on the privateer team's 963 a lot more than Penske's. This one looks like it really shows off the car's lines.
 
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TF Sport will switch from Aston Martin to run the all-new Z06 GT3.R in the new LMGT3 class next year.

 
My fearless prediction is the Jota 963 will be the car to watch this weekend. They ran well at Spa, and they ran superbly at Lemans. They just need to put an entire race together.
 
Doc Austin said:
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BMW will also run the 20th installment of the Art Car project at Le Mans next year.

sportscar365.com

BMW to Race 20th Art Car at 2024 Le Mans – Sportscar365

BMW Art Car returns for next year's 24 Hours of Le Mans...
sportscar365.com sportscar365.com

www.bmw.com

The history of BMW’s legendary Art Cars | BMW.com

BMW Art Cars – three words that evoke the legendary link-up of car icons such as the BMW M1 and the BMW Z1, with world-famous artists like Roy Lichtenstein and Jeff Koons. Read on to see who designed which BMW model, how, and why.
www.bmw.com www.bmw.com
 
The problem with schemes like the BMW GTP is they are so complex and so asymmetrical they can actually hide the cars lines. It's almost like some of the test schemes you see.
 
A few surprises at Monza.......and the best one is Jota's 963 Lemans form has not dropped off. Something good is going on with that team because they have been super fast all year. They had a charging race at Spa, and were running away with LeMans when they got caught out on the wet track. After FP1, they sit 0.006 behind the LeMans winning Ferrari. That's so close qualifying may as well be a wash between those two.

There are now 13 hypercars with the new Proton finally showing up. The top 9 are covered by a second, so maybe WEC has the BOP right.

P2 has nine cars, but you can expect a savage battle from them. The entire class is covered by slightly less than a second so there's no way to make a prediction and anybody can win.

With Ferrari rolling into Monza as the LeMans champions, that place is going to be nuts.



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Seems pretty condensed so far…barring the Pugs. Didn’t expect to see them both a second back. Glickenhaus P5 is good to see.
 
FLRacingFan said:
Seems pretty condensed so far…barring the Pugs. Didn’t expect to see them both a second back.
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Yeah, they had a great run at LeMans, so that's a surprise. Maybe they are working on race pace.

Glickenhaus P5 is good to see.
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Glick was running away with this race last year until they blew up. Maybe that car just likes this circuit.

I'm going to pull for the Jota. We need a privateer to win a few races.
 
Toyota pick up the pace in FP2. The Caddy also made a stride to go P4 within four tenths of the quickest time.

 
Here's where I offer an apology to WEC and it's fans for previously ragging on the series. WEC was super bad last year. It wasn't worth watching, but it's spicey as hell now.

Toyota is still the benchmark, but it's no longer an open goal for them. Let's hope we get a knock, down drag out affair.
 
Kamui just barely pips Fuoco for pole, top 7 in Hypercar were covered by 0.422. Robert Kubica also got his first WEC pole in LMP2, Dames top in GTE.

Race is 6:30 AM ET - 12:30 PM tomorrow



 
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