IMSA commits to Le Mans Hypercars
A Toyota Le Mans Hypercar pounding around the banking at the Daytona 24 Hours some time in the middle of the decade could become a reality. LMH machinery will be allowed to race in the IMSA Sportscar Championship from the get-go of the new LMDH category in 2023.
The final strand in the process of convergence that began with the announcement of the Lmp2-based LMDH class straddling the IMSA series in North America and the World Endurance Championship in January 2020 was put in place last week. A series of rule changes – and ways of monitoring performance – have been put in place to ensure equality between the two types of cars.
The move was described by Pierre Fillon, president of WEC promoter the Automobile Club de l’ouest, as a “landmark agreement”. “This major announcement stems from our ambition to forge a common future for endurance racing,” he said. “The manufacturers dreamed of being able to participate in the greatest endurance races in the world with the same model of car: this will now be reality.”
IMSA boss John Doonan suggested the move has “the potential to revolutionise prototype sportscar racing all over the world”.
It remains unclear whether opening up IMSA to LMH will lead to an influx of WEC manufacturers competing against Porsche, Audi, Acura and BMW, the four manufacturers signed up to LMDH so far.
Toyota expressed an interest in competing in the biggest IMSA races on last week’s announcement.
“We’re passionate about endurance racing and we have made no secret of our wish to take on the challenge of some of the classic races in the USA at some point,” said Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe team director Rob Leupen. “The Daytona 24 Hours, for example, is a legendary event and, when the circumstances allow, we would be excited to participate with our GR010 HYBRID.”
Glickenhaus has been more forthright in its ambitions to race the new Pipo-engined 007LMH in the big IMSA races. “I want to do Daytona and I want to do Sebring and maybe Petit Le Mans [at Road Atlanta],” said marque founder Jim Glickenhaus earlier this year. “I’m more interested in those races than I am in going to Bahrain, Japan or wherever to race in the WEC:
I don’t sell [road] cars there, but I do in America.”
Ferrari hasn’t outlined its position as yet, though it is a long-time player in North American sportscar racing and the USA is the Italian manufacturer’s biggest market. Peugeot has stated that it is fully focused on the WEC as a manufacturer that for the moment at least doesn’t sell cars in North America.
The idea of a race like Daytona, the traditional IMSA series opener, becoming a round of the WEC hasn’t been dismissed by the ACO. Fillon said that it was
“on the radar”, though he insisted that the “devil will be in the detail”.
The ability of LMH machinery to go up against the LMDH cars in IMSA has been the subject of debate since the so-called convergence announcement 18 months ago. There has been a fear that the four-wheel-drive capability of an LMH car with a front-axle hybrid system such as the Toyota would offer a significant advantage over the rear-drive LMDH hybrids.
The so-called ‘120 rule’, the speed in km/h below which hybrid power cannot be deployed, has been moved from the technical rules to become a Balance of Performance tool. What this means has yet to be fully explained, but it appears that the minimums for hybrid activation – the wet-weather speed was set at 140km/h (90mph) for the first two rounds of the 2021 WEC – will shift from circuit to circuit.
The advantages of running a hybrid system at the front have also been limited, while control software will restrict the ability of the rear-axle hybrid system on the LMDHS to work as traction control. The tyre widths for the cars have also been confirmed. All-wheel-drive cars will run 14in front and rear, while 2WD machinery, LMH or LMDH, will run 13.5in and 15in front and rear.
There will also be cross-fertilisation of windtunnel testing between the two rulesets. LMHS, which are homologated in the Sauber tunnel in Switzerland, will also be tested in the Windshear facility in North Carolina used for the LMDHS, and vice versa.
The 2021 WEC will climax with a double-header in Bahrain after the cancellation of the Fuji round set for September. The WEC has been forced to forgo its trip to Japan in light of continuing entry restrictions into the country. The fifth round of the six-event season will now take place at the Bahrain International Circuit as part of the championship’s first double-header in the nine seasons since its relaunch in 2012. The first of the two races, a six-hour event, will take place on 30 October, while the existing eight-hour finale has been brought forward from 20 November to 6 November.