FIA confirms hypercar design for Le Mans
"Freedom of design for brands based on a 'Hypercar' concept" is coming from 2020...
With a dearth of LMP1 entrants following the departure of Porsche and Audi, the World Endurance Championship was desperately in need of some good news. Sure, the GTE field has been better than ever in recent times, with a host of diverse and exciting sportscars, but the premier division is looking a little bare.
Fortunately that looks set to change with the FIA today confirming its 2020 WEC regulations will allow hypercars to enter the competition. It's part of a plan to reduce P1 budgets to a quarter of where they currently sit, the various manufacturers will be allowed "freedom of design" based on what the FIA is calling "a 'Hypercar' concept." While it apparently doesn't mean race versions of the cars of that ilk that are imminent - AMG Project One, Aston Valkyrie, Senna GTR, Brabham BT62 - it should be designs that are more closely linked to the road cars. When you consider the success of GT3 and GT3-style racing, that can't be a bad thing. Hopefully a more prominent role in motorsport could encourage more manufactuers to create similar cars: the Holy Trinity replacements, whatever Koenigsegg might conjure up next, and a potential Pagani replacement for the Zonda R.
The FIA says that more details about the 2020 Technical Regulations will be released at Le Mans next week, with a plan to encourage more female drivers into the WEC as well. Stay tuned...
Furthermore, the World Motor Sport Council decisions have also detailed that WRX will go electric from 2020. The FIA Electric World Rallycross Championship will stick to the same championship format as is currently used, but with four-wheel drive 'Silhouette-type' cars (with chassis from Oreca) and motors to Formula E spec. At the moment that means two motors from Williams for a total of 500kW along with "some restrictions aimed at controlling costs and development."
While the use of electric powertrains from one supplier and a control chassis for rallycross may ruffle a few feathers, it's worth remembering what Sebastien Loeb said about the move just a couple of weeks ago when PH interviewed him: "We don't dream about electric cars, but if the future for all cars is to be electric then it's normal that we'd make the swap. And in this case I think Rallycross is the best series to do it because it's very short, you have a lot of power, very fast cars and an intense fight, so I hope the spectators will still enjoy it without the noise. I think it will be important to find a way to make it a show, but for sure the performance will be there."
That's the opinion of Loeb then, but what about you? Will electric powertrains improve the spectacle of World Rallycross? And what about the change to WEC regs? Is the move to hypercars the shot in the arm that the series needs? Motorsport looks set to change pretty drastically over the next few years, that's for certain!
There are ten cars from six teams running in LMP1 this year. OK only one manufacturer, but still more cars than I think there has been in the last five or so years (stands back ready to be corrected...).
Even when we had Audi, Porsche and Toyota a few years ago they only had two cars each, and possibly one or two Rebellions.
However, a race featuring all those hypercars would be pretty great. Can't see how it would necessarily be cheaper to run those hypercars round though.
The difference then was that eight cars were in the fight for the lead. This year that won't be the case.
I kinda thought it might go this way with the amount of hypercars multiplying by the month, why not just race them? And it seems someone else thought so too.
Obviously the GT1 LM series went the way of LMP1 with manufacturer overspending until it became "impossible" for teams to afford it. But still, making these hypercars, that haven't exactly been relevant to a lot of people, more interesting/viable through racing makes it all that bit more interesting.
If they want to advance electric technology, the FIA needs to run a constructors’ championship like F1 for electric cars - have Nissan, GM, Tesla, Jaguar and VAG racing each other, with vehicles that can act as prototypes and test platforms for their road car efforts.
Formula E isn’t F1 for electric cars, it’s Formula Ford for electric cars, but with a big marketing budget to attract some named drivers.
Le Mans HyperCar idea sounds awesome though, can’t wait to see these proposals.
the race is Toyota's to lose, I don't see any real challenge coming from any of the other teams, only Toyota's reliability is at question in this one... this is why LMP1 class has lost its appeal for a lot of us.
so this would add a very cool class of cars to the mix, LMP1 still needs a revision or shake up to me, or just removed altogether, i'd prefere to see it stay but only if they can have 6-8 cars all with a genuine challenge else, the 6 other cars may as well be in their own class as clearly the hybrid has an advantage if it doesn't brake down.
These will NOT be the 'hypercars' that the writer suggests - rather they will be full racing prototypes with hypercar styling cues
On the other hand, unless the FIA want to scrap LMP2 from the WEC, this newly revived GT1 style class needs to be just as fast as lmp1 is now, and if it gets the like of ferrari, mclaren, aston, merc all interested based on their halo cars, yes please!
Then again, it also probably means the end of le-mans for toyota
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