The hype train for the future of world endurance racing is gaining steam as details from the latest meetings between car manufacturers and the FIA/ACO emerge.
As recently as this week, Toyota went on record strongly implying they have every intention and are actively planning to participate in the upcoming 2018-19 ‘Super Season,’ and beyond. However, at the last race in the 6 Hours of Fuji, the constructor was coy, failing to reveal any plans on their future in endurance racing.
So what changed?
It would appear LMP1 regulations for 2020 and beyond are beginning to take come into focus and if the rumors are true, the product could be MEGA!
It is believed among those manufacturers who sent representatives to these meetings were; McLaren, Aston Martin, Toyota, Ford, Nissan, Renault, BMW, and a little automaker from a tiny Italian town called Maranello. Ferrari.
No wonder why Toyota have changed their tune.
The basic outline for the 2020 LMP1 regulations is to incorporate some elements of IMSA’s DPi regulations and enhance/fine tune into a formula that makes sense for a World Endurance Championship.
Pictured: Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR
One representative from a manufacturer in attendance commented off-record the cars should look closer to the GT1 cars of the late 90’s rather than the current LMP1’s of the 2010’s.
If you will remember, when the FIA/ACO adopted the GT1 regulations of the late 90’s we were gifted some of the most visually stunning racing cars to have ever been produced. The McLaren F1, Toyota GT-One, Mercedes CLK GTR, and the Nissan R390 GT1.
The race products of the manufacturer models were supposedly upgraded street legal cars if you follow the spirit of the regulations in the late 90’s. Arguably the street versions were the first ‘hypercars’ the world had seen. In actuality, these cars were designed with one intention, to race and win at Le Mans.
Pictured: Toyota GT-One at Le Mans 1999.
Engineers took some liberty with regulations on an extreme level. Perhaps the best example of this is with the Toyota GT-One. The regulations required space for luggage, and in order to pass scrutineering, Toyota engineers argued if they removed their fuel tank under the hood area, there would be space for a bag.
Right… carry on.
Most importantly, what these rumored regulations are said to incorporate, which has been missing from top-level endurance racing since the GT1 era, is allowing more freedom for the manufacturers to implement design cues from their road cars. Some of the success of IMSA’s DPi category has been attributed to the ability of manufacturers to use aero packages styled in a way that when you look at their prototype, the average fan can recognize the car as belonging to a certain brand.
If you were to look at a stripped bare carbon Toyota TS050 today, without any prior knowledge, there is no way someone could argue it is Toyota definitively. Instead, using the same hypothetical scenario, if you were looking at a bare carbon Mazda RT-24 DPi the nose design is a giveaway as to the marque of the car.
Pictured: Mercedes CLR
In those executive level board room meetings, this is a big bullet point when selling the marketability of LMP1 racing. A bullet point that might bring more beautiful beasts to Le Mans. If the FIA/ACO get this ‘GT Proto’ concept of LMP1 right, we could see an influx of constructors to the WEC at unprecedented levels.
An announcement is expected sometime in late December.
Well… I certainly know what’s at the top of my Christmas list.
Stay tuned!
fcwinemixer 