IMSA delays LMDH introduction
The full introduction of the LMDH category in the IMSA Sportscar Championship in North America has been pushed back by a year until the start of 2023. The US organiser revealed the delay ahead of last weekend’s Le Mans 24 Hours – in a roundabout way.
The new top class of the IMSA series announced back in January was planned to replace the existing Daytona Prototype international category for 2022. Now, IMSA boss John Doonan is saying that he is expecting some examples of the new breed of Lmp2-based machinery to be racing in the series over the course of 2022. At that same time he suggested that the lifecycle of the DPI formula will probably have to be extended.
Doonan wasn’t more specific than that, only saying that “the market will decide”.
“It has always been our intention to start in 2022, but obviously
COVID has presented its challenges,” he said. “It is technically possible that someone could run [an LMDH] in 2022: you could see some cars in 2022, but not in a full championship. If we need to bridge the gap, we would extend the current Dpis.”
IMSA has yet to divulge how the new cars would be incorporated into the series to run against the Dpis.
No manufacturers have so far announced LMDH programmes in IMSA, but Doonan said that there is “significant interest” in the category and that it has a “clear, tangible and bright future”. He insisted that
IMSA was still expecting “multiple manufacturers” with LMDH machinery on the grid for the opening round of the 2023 season at Daytona.
It is unlikely that an LMDH car, based on the new breed of P2 due to come on stream in 2023, could be ready for the Daytona 24 Hours in January 2022. French constructor ORECA, one of four to be licensed to produce LMP2 chassis, believes it is already too late.
ORECA boss Hugues de Chaunac explained that it will take 16 to 18 months to develop an LMDH. “We cannot rush and have a car ready for the start of 2022 because of the homologation, which fixes the specification,” he said. “We could have a car in the middle of 2022 or September – it is depending on the decision of whether an OEM comes.”
Le Mans organiser and WEC promoter the Automobile Club de l’ouest is confident that over the course of 2022 it will have cars on the grid built to the new LMDH regulations it helped formulate.
ACO president Pierre Fillon said he could not be sure if this would happen “before Le Mans or after Le Mans”.
The ACO has announced that its top class will be known simply as Hypercar from next year. It will incorporate LMH and grandfathered LMP1 machinery next year, and then LMH and LMDH cars from 2022.