Pierre Fillon, the President of the ACO and Richard Mille, the President of the FIA Endurance Commission spoke to the media in the wake of this morning’s annual ACO Press Conference and answered some key questions surrounding the plan to replace GTE with GT3 cars in the FIA WEC and at the Le Mans 24 Hours from 2024 onwards.
There was no detail on the class structure or performance level of the GT3 cars in the conference this morning. This is because the decision appears to be in an embryonic stage. What is clear though, is that the ACO and FIA are moving in a Pro-Am only direction for GT racing in the FIA WEC, without a Pro class dominated by factory teams. No final decisions on the structure have been made though, and that is clear from the answers provided to the key questions surrounding this matter today.
“At this stage it is a bit premature,” Mille said when asked about the general plans for GT3. “It’s the same objective as we had for the Hypercar – it must be cost-saving. One of the biggest parameters to handle is that we shall be looking at a category where the manufacturers cannot enter officially because you have the Hypercar and we want to have good battles, so one of the main topics is to prevent the manufacturers from entering the category. That’s the spirit of what LM has always been with GTs.”
A single GT3 class, with no Pro-Am entries wouldn’t worry the likes of Porsche and Ferrari, that are set to step up to the top class in 2023. This would however, go against the wishes of Corvette, which currently competes in IMSA’s GTLM class and is working on competing in GTD Pro next season with its C8 platform, as it would prevent it from competing at Le Mans going forward as a factory team.
When asked specifically what the move to GT3 would mean for Corvette Racing, Fillon said: “They can come to Le Mans, with three drivers, amateur drivers.” But neither he or Mille were able to confirm whether or not Corvette would be able to enter the category under their current factory team guise.
“Again,” Mille said, “we’re at an early stage, we need to keep the spirit. We know what the platform will be, but from this platform, we’ll have to work on the developments.”
On the other side to this, a single GT3 class in the WEC is not fully confirmed, as Mille wouldn’t rule out a second GT category to mirror IMSA’s GTD and GTD Pro structure for the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship after this season.
“At this stage no (we can’t rule out a Pro class), but we have a clear idea of what the platform will come from. This is the main issue, but again, we need to work on the objectives,” he said.
“Today GTE is very costly. This is something we don’t want. We had the same approach with Hypercars, because we know where we’re coming from in terms of budget. And this is why we could conclude with our American friends, because we have the same objectives.
“We have to be politically correct. Motor racing in the recent past was considered not very politically correct, so we have to show the way, as we explained this morning, with the fuel etc., and again, with the budget.”
As for the performance level of the GT3 cars in the WEC, Fillon did confirm that there would be a drive to keep costs low. A GT3 class in the FIA WEC featuring heavily modified GT3 cars is therefore unlikely.
“It has to be marginal, low cost and, one more time, it’s not decided,” Fillon explained. “Maybe it will be exactly GT3? We’re working on the basis of GT3. We’ll have the answer by the end of the year, because we need to discuss this with the [FIA} Endurance Commission and to validate this by the World Motor Sport Council.”
