The rule change that wasn’t…

New rules on driver gradings in LMP2 for the World Endurance Championship were revealed last week – only for the announcement that followed the latest meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council to turn out to be incorrect.

Existing regulations that mandate just one silver or bronze-rated driver in each P2 line-up will remain unchanged, whereas the WMSC bulletin suggested that from next year either two silvers or a bronze would be mandated. A

WEC spokesperson confirmed that the announcement was “premature” and that “there is more news to come”.

It appears certain that there isn’t going to be any change, though an amateur class or trophy will be instigated for next year’s WEC and the sister European Le Mans Series based, it seems, on the configuration of the line-ups stated last week.

What exactly happened at the

WMSC isn’t entirely clear, but the

WEC organisation has been pushing for a mandatory bronze for some time. The proposal was voted down by the teams for a second time at the Spa round in August, at which point the silver-silver idea was raised. The idea gathered some support and was then put to the ELMS P2 teams ahead of last weekend’s Monza round and was rejected on an email vote.

Maintaining the status quo makes sense, according to Richard Dean, whose United Autosports squad added the ELMS crown in Italy on Sunday to its WEC P2 title. “Limiting the driver permutations would limit the market, and limiting your potential pool of customers is not good for any business,” he explained. “Putting all the pieces of the jigsaw together is hard enough. It doesn’t look like there is anything wrong with a class that had 24 cars at Le Mans this year.”

New rules, including the introduction of an amateur trophy, should be firmed up at the next WMSC in December.