2023 WEC

Doc Austin

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Still a good effort to even be that close. Another reason we need to have more privateers.

I'm only checking in on it from time to time. I have to work today so I'll watch it tonight.
 
FLRacingFan

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Haven’t gotten to see much of this but it looks like Ferrari 50 will be chasing down Toyota 7 for the win here in the final stint. Peugeot 93 trying to hold onto the final podium spot.
 
FLRacingFan

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Doc Austin said:
Peugeot has really turned it around.
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Yeah, those guys deserve a ton of credit. They got it turned around in a big way and quickly. Up through Spa I thought the program was so terrible it may be in trouble, but they came to race at Le Mans and Monza. Pace has improved, cars are much more reliable. Good to see it pay off with their first podium back.



 
FLRacingFan

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Also, how about Corvette wrapping up the GTE-Am title with two races to go. I expected they would be the heavy favorites this season and they haven’t set a foot wrong. Pure dominance.
 
Kiante

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Glickenhaus may disappear after this season:

Goetz not bringing the BWT funding to LeMans was a killer. Hopefully, Jim can find additional funding, but idk at this point.
 
Doc Austin

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If Glick can't get the car upgraded he may as well stay home anyway. They've got a year on it and reliability is good. The car is good, the team is good, and the drivers are mega. All they need to contend is to find some speed.

We can never afford to lose a privateer, especially a good one.
 
FLRacingFan

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Kiante said:
Glickenhaus may disappear after this season:

Goetz not bringing the BWT funding to LeMans was a killer. Hopefully, Jim can find additional funding, but idk at this point.
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I wonder why the Götz/BWT signing fell through. I feel like that would’ve been big, BWT are big motorsport spenders these days.

If this is the end, they had a respectable run. Reliable, especially at Le Mans, where it payed off in good results.
 
Doc Austin

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FLRacingFan said:
Best gallery I’ve seen:



It looks mean, like a Lamborghini should. Good to see they’ll have both cars on the grid at Le Mans but hopefully they expand the programs in 2025. It’d be tough with one car in each series.
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I hope them make plenty available to privaters.
 
FLRacingFan

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Doc Austin said:
I hope them make plenty available to privaters.
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Not in the cards in the near term, unfortunately.

While ruling out additional customers, Sanna indicated that more SC63s could be fielded by Lamborghini Iron Lynx in 2025, building off next year’s program.

“Maybe we could evaluate an additional car in the WEC or more commitment in IMSA because both championships are very important for us,” he said.

“It’s always linked to the budget, as you can imagine, and the capability to support the program in a proper way.
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2x WEC and 1x IMSA full season would be nice though.
 
FLRacingFan

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Doc Austin said:
I believe all those cars are spoken for, aren't they?
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I don’t believe so, unless the contracts have been signed and not announced yet.

In IMSA we’ll have two at Road America with JDC and then Proton making their series debut. Last week at Monza we had two with JOTA and then Proton’s debut there.

There are rumblings Proton want two more cars, one for each series, and then JOTA want one more to do a second WEC entry with alongside some IMSA endurance appearances. If those all come to fruition there’s one more left for next season for someone else to buy. But, officially, those four chassis are all unaccounted for right now.

Graham Goodwin said Multimatic have produced almost 30 Porsche chassis by now but I would guess a decent number of those are just tubs at the moment. A decent number of test chassis and show cars too I think. But they are out there.
 
Doc Austin

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Most of you haven't suffered for the last 50 years waiting for sportscars to put it back together, but now it is. Having seen the GT40, 908s, 917s, Lola T70 coupes, Alfa T33s and Matras run, I can say right now is going to replace those as the golden years. The golden age is here right now, and no sign it's going to slow down.

Where we are going to have to be careful is making sure there are enough cars available. If there is anywhere they can improve what we have now, it's more cars, and more cars in the hands of privateers. In the group C days, it was all Group C and C2 cars, with GTs having their own separate series. I'de love to see us get back to that with GTP/LMDh and P2.
 
FLRacingFan

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Supposedly Glickenhaus are not on the entry list for Fuji. I haven’t found it yet, but there were others in the know who said so. The series’s ship to Japan was scheduled to leave yesterday so I I imagine it’s all set in stone. So the question is now whether they can find funding to be ready for another campaign next year, with some testing in the meantime. They missed out on that last offseason.

It’s a bit disappointing, but they’ve had an overall successful program no matter what happens from now on. I’ll say I’ve seen a number of people (not here) upset about both that and Lambo’s initial program maybe not being as robust as they expected, but I have to emphasize that we have to enjoy now while it lasts. Sports car racing is exceptionally cyclical and, at the top level, heavily influenced by whatever the biggest boards of directors and the automotive industry at large feel like the hot new thing is. In five or six years they may very well have moved on to hydrogen or something - Toyota already debuted a hydrogen prototype concept at Le Mans last month. So enjoy what you can when you can. This is a massive moment for the sport right now.
 
Doc Austin

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FLRacingFan

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LMGT3 will be a tight squeeze next season. The current 38-car season-long entry list could drop to 34 or 36 as the series switches back to air freight with Qatar Airways. The capacity of the 747-8Fs, the biggest in the fleet, mean a GT3 manufacturer or two could be on the outside looking in (Hypercar makes will receive first priority).

What Will The FIA WEC’s LMGT3 Class Look Like? (Updated)

What Will The FIA WEC’s LMGT3 Class Look Like? (Updated)
www.dailysportscar.com www.dailysportscar.com
 
Doc Austin

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FLRacingFan said:
LMGT3 will be a tight squeeze next season. The current 38-car season-long entry list could drop to 34 or 36 as the series switches back to air freight with Qatar Airways. The capacity of the 747-8Fs, the biggest in the fleet, mean a GT3 manufacturer or two could be on the outside looking in (Hypercar makes will receive first priority).

What Will The FIA WEC’s LMGT3 Class Look Like? (Updated)

What Will The FIA WEC’s LMGT3 Class Look Like? (Updated)
www.dailysportscar.com www.dailysportscar.com
Click to expand...
34 cars is a pretty decent field of GT cars.
 
FLRacingFan

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Doc Austin said:
34 cars is a pretty decent field of GT cars.
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34 would be the full grid so with 18-20 Hypercars you only have space for 14-16 GT3s.

Corvette, BMW, Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini will for sure be selected since they have Hypercar programs. That leaves two or three to choose from Honda, McLaren, Audi, Aston Martin, Ford. There are rumors of a couple of Lexuses being rummaged out that would take up another selection (Toyota) if the plan comes together, and that squeezes down to one or two more.

There will be some very disappointed players when the entry list comes out next January.
 
Doc Austin

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FLRacingFan said:
34 would be the full grid so with 18-20 Hypercars you only have space for 14-16 GT3s.
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This is almost getting to be too big to be manageable. If the growth isn't contained, eventually the only answer is to split the GTs off into their own series and let them headline their own events. That's how they did it in the 90s.

The only problem with that would be we currently wouldn't have enough hypercars to run alone.
FLRacingFan said:
There will be some very disappointed players when the entry list comes out next January.
Click to expand...
At the risk of repeating myself, I hate to see any good team get turned away.
 
FLRacingFan

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Doc Austin said:
This is almost getting to be too big to be manageable. If the growth isn't contained, eventually the only answer is to split the GTs off into their own series and let them headline their own events. That's how they did it in the 90s.

The only problem with that would be we currently wouldn't have enough hypercars to run alone.

At the risk of repeating myself, I hate to see any good team get turned away.
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I doubt there is any way the WEC GT field could race uncoupled from the prototype field. The logistics and financing for a separate pro-am GT world championship doesn’t really work. GTWC Europe and the Intercontinental GT Challenge already exist as top-flight international GT series, and those are really the successors to what used to be the FIA GT Championship. Those are probably about as big as modern GT series can get without being unwieldy.

My guess is they’ll pick Aston Martin and Ford since those are the most serious efforts of the bunch, and they both have WEC heritage working in their favor.
 
Doc Austin

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Something to look forward to is Fuji. Not only did Ferrari give Toyota all they could handle at Monza, but now Peugeot is in the fight too. Toyota is still probably going to be the benchmark, but the difference is they no longer have an open goal. Hopefully we won't get the usual Fuji deluge and fog and we can get a good race.

The opening races were not very competitive because the Ferrari was brand new and underdeveloped, and Peugeot was lost, but now both are fast enough to make a race out of it. My only concern is the LMDh cars seem to be a step behind. Those cars are so well developed the lack of speed isn't coming from the cars. It's coming from the BOP, but it's so close a 20lb break would probably put them in the fight. I don't know how they come up with the numbers, but the Hypercars seem to be balanced against each other pretty well, and the LMDh seem reasonably balanced to each other. WEC just need to balance the LMDh field against the hypercar field a little better and then we will be there.

So far, the Hypercars have dominated the races, with the LMHd not quite able to keep up on raw pace. As well as WEC had demonstrated they can balance the cars, I think they can balance the entire prototype field with just a little tweak.
 
FLRacingFan

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The A424 was testing at Paul Ricard yesterday, and sounds quite a bit better for a turbo V6 than I expected.





Lamborghini were also there but apparently the SC63 was crashed at one point. Hopefully not a big one because a smaller program like that doesn’t need a big setback.
 
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