The curtain falls on the WEC’s most popular season in a long time. The Hypercar regulations have the potential to earn the same historic reputation enjoyed by the Group Cs, remembered as a golden era for endurance racing. The new success of the endurance world championship is not sudden, but rather the result of careful planning. There is no shortage of alarm bells, a warning of precarious popularity if the convergence tools are not corrected soon.
Common platform
The abundance of leading brands is the realization of a dream for enthusiasts, who never tire of repeating the list. 2023 sees giants of the caliber of Toyota, Ferrari, Peugeot, Porsche and Cadillac, accompanied by the scream of Vanwall’s naturally aspirated V8 and Jim Glickenhaus’s Italian-American adventure. Next season the world championship will welcome BMW, Alpine, Lamborghini and Isotta Fraschiniwhile for the future there is the interest expressed by Acura-WTR and the official announcement of the arrival of Aston Martin in 2025 with the Valkyrie.
The success is the result of a carefully planned strategy to guarantee the houses a greater return on investment, acting both on expenses and on profit. The new regulations ensure cost containment, also making it economically possible to sell the cars to private teams. The only one at the moment to have set up a rich customer program is Porsche. The convincing performances of the private 963s, especially the Hertz-Jota which briefly led the way at Le Mans and fought for the podium in Bahrain, demonstrate how despite their sophistication the cars can be managed competitively even by non-official teams.
Another reason for popularity is the doubling of media exposure for some brands, with the possibility of making the same project profitable even outside the WEC in IMSA events. The creation of a common basis for endurance competitions constitutes one fundamental condition for the popularity of the discipline, as already demonstrated by the success of the GT3 platform. It is no coincidence that the latter will take over in 2024 in place of the retired GTEs, now limited in their existence to ACO competitions and in which the manufacturers would hardly have continued to invest. The only negative aspect of the WEC’s wave of success is the lack of places on the grid, leading to the suppression of the equally popular Lmp2.
Performance Cap
Cost containment is one of the pillars in planning for the new era of WEC. The Hypercar and LMDh regulations are based on the imposition of performance windows: minimum aerodynamic resistance; maximum limit on aerodynamic load; compliance with a power curve for the engine. Even without explicitly implementing a Cost Cap, the performance cap indirectly translates into a reduction in expenses.
By putting a brake on performance, manufacturers no longer have any reason to invest huge resources in sophisticated solutions, as the capped benefits for everyone. Expenses decrease thanks also to the imposition of a simplified suspension geometry (with overlapping triangles), the prohibition of a specific aerodynamic package for Le Mans and a minimum weight of 75 kilos for the transmission. The costs necessary to update the car over the years also decrease, with a limit of 5 tokens that can be spent on modifications over the five-year homologation cycle. At the same time, to protect balance on the track, the manufacturers are granted freedom to intervene for reliability reasons or in the event of a significant and proven performance delay from their opponents.
The 2023 season demonstrates that the “Performance Cap”, while preventing teams from developing maximum performance, does not deprive the public of engineering competition. If anything, the project priorities change, no longer focused on the maximum power of the power unit and aerodynamic efficiency. What makes the difference are rather balance, widening of the optimal operating windows, aerodynamic stability to external conditions and the ability to travel for as long as possible close to maximum potential. All qualities present in every motorsport discipline, but which with Hypercars are put at the center of the competition.
BoP under discussion
The Hypercar-LMDh convergence is among the reasons for the relaunch of the premier endurance class, but it would not have been possible without the use of the BoP. The Balance of Performance is an indispensable tool for coexistence of rear-wheel drive and all-wheel drive cars, as well as with different levels of electrification. For 2023 the FIA and ACO are developing a new, more predictive approach by taking advantage of the virtual simulations conducted in advance together with the partner AVL.
Yet, organizers continue to resort to post-analysis of race times, without distinguishing the actual reasons behind the performance differences. It continues to be necessary the prevention of sandbagging, i.e. the risk that participants may hide their potential to enjoy more favorable parameters. In 2023 ACO tries to get around the problem by publishing the BoP tables months in advance, valid for the following three-four races. However, although it was driven by good intentions, the decision backfires on the organisers, who, even in the face of obvious imbalances, cannot correct their aim for entire months. However, this does not prevent breaking the rule on the eve of Le Mans, triggering new controversies.
In the renewed Balance of Performance method, some flaws and inconsistencies still persist, deserving of dedicated investigation. Meanwhile, FIA and ACO promise a simplification of the process for the 2024 season, announcing a more meritocratic approach. The main shortcoming of the current BoP, however, is not technical. Rather, there is a lack of transparency, with the failure to publish a method with the guidelines for defining the BoP, which is accompanied by the ban on the participating teams from expressing comments on it, preventing the debate and the search for a more effective method .
Toyota, inevitable domination
The instability and lack of transparency of the Balance of Performance harm Toyota first and foremost. In the comparison with Ferrari, before their opponents, the world champions benefit from the change to the BoP made after Le Mans, which however is insufficient to explain the success of the Japanese brand on its own. The second half of the calendar sees tracks more congenial to the merits of the GR010, but that’s undeniable the personal growth work carried out by Toyota.
By compensating for variations in the BoP from one season to the next, the reigning champions are making significant progress in 2023. At Sebring the GR010 is 3 seconds faster in qualifying than the previous season, improving its time at Monza by 1 second and at Fuji by 2 seconds. It is proof that experience has weight and that, despite the WEC’s newfound popularity in 2023, it was it is unrealistic to hope for a balance of values on the field since the first year.
Toyota demonstrates how updates and work on set-ups allow it to shave heavy seconds off the clock. It is the confirmation of a platform which, despite the controlled performances and the Balance of Performance, However, it leaves room for meritocracy. Something that Ferrari had already had the opportunity to experiment with the 488 GTE, as he told FormulaPassion the technical director Ferdinando Cannizzo: “With that car we started to look from afar at what times we were running in the championship in 2016, normalizing the Balance of Performance a bit. Then comparing the times we set last year, we improved by around 6 seconds per lap. Evolution exists and it is possible.”
Opponents wanted
The growth expressed by Toyota from 2022 to 2023 is a reason for optimism for its opponents, aware of the margins to progress themselves and close the gap. If the domination of the world champions seemed inevitable, Ferrari emerges as the second force overall. The 499P wins the historic victory in the Centenary of Le Mans, one of the most exciting editions since the beginning of the millennium. The 24 hours of 2023 becomes a spot for the spectacle that the WEC will be able to offer with a balanced BoP and when the teams are at the best of their possibilities, a finish line that could be closer than one imagines.
#Hypercar #golden #era #WEC #planned #success