The 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship will welcome a 38-car full-season entry.
HyperCar – 13 Cars
Headlining the entry is a much boosted HyperCar class.
13 cars are listed for the full season with new entries from Ferrari AF Corse with a pair of new Ferrari 499 P, Porsche Penske Motorsport with two factory-entered Porsche 963 and Cadillac Racing with a new Cadillac V-LMDH.
Also added is the thus far controversial Vanwall effort, entered under the Floyd Vanwall Racing Team banner with the car dubbed as a Vanwall Vandervell 680, the ACO and FIA apparently satisfied that the legal issues surrounding the naming of the team/ car and the outfit’s status as a car manufacturer have been fulfilled.
Tom Dillmann, Esteban Guerrieri and 1997 F1 World Champion and 2008 Le Mans 24 Hours runner-up Jacques Villeneuve.
Listed too for the full season are a pair of privately operated Porsche 963s from Hertz Team Jota and Proton Competition, the two cars set to join the Championship on delivery of their cars, currently set for an April date yet to be confirmed. Gianmaria Bruni is the only currently named driver for the Proton car, the previously confirmed Yifei Ye is listed for Jota’s #38.
The newcomers will join returning efforts from Toyota Gazoo Racing (2 x GR010), Peugeot Sport (2 x 9X8) and Glickenhaus Racing (1 x SCG007), perhaps surprisingly Porsche factory driver Romain Dumas is listed in the #708.
All told that gives a top class field that has more than doubled from the peak entry in 2022 (6 cars at Monza).
Missing from the full season list is the Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6 Competizione, the car, entered by Vector Sport, presumably felt to be not yet ready for World Championship competition. There is positive news though from both the team and manufacturers. More later this morning we understand.
Whilst not listed, here there is the certainty of a boosted entry for the class for the centenary 24 Hours of Le Mans with an additional Cadillac from Action Express Racing already confirmed, and with a third Cadillac likely to see a requested entry too.
Glickenhaus Racing have publicly declared that they will submit a second entry for Le Mans too.
LMP2 – 11 Cars
LMP2, following the removal of the LMP2 Pro-Am class from the WEC this coming season, still welcomes a healthy 11 car class.
2020 Champions United Autosports return with a two car effort, Filipe Albuquerque and Phil Hanson are so far confirmed for the #22. Josh Pierson, Tom Blomqvist and Oliver Jarvis for the #23.
So too do 2021 Champions WRT ahead of their move to Hypercar with BMW in 2024. Sean Gelael and Rui Andrade are the two named drivers in their #31 and #41 Orecas.
2022 ELMS Champions Prema Team double up in the WEC to two cars this year. As confirmed yesterday, Juan-Manuel Correa is confirmed in the #9, Doriane Pin in the #63 .
And 2016 and 2018-19 LMP2 Champions Signatech Alpine return to the class, again with two cars, entered as Alpine Elf Team as a bridging programme between their Hypercar programmes, they are set to step back up to the top class in 2024 with a pair of Oreca-chassied Alpine LMDH cars.
Mathieu Vaxiviere is named in the #35 car for 2023, Andre Negrao in the #36.
2022 FIA WEC Champions JOTA field a single full season Oreca with the crew announced last week : David Heinemeier Hansson, Pietro Fittipaldi and Oliver Rasmussen.
Vector Sport will field a single LMP2 car too for the season, Ryan Cullen the driver thus far listed.
And Polish squad Inter Europol Competition return with a single car, Jakub (Cuba) Smiechowski and Fabio Scherer are currently listed there.
GTE AM – 14 Cars
The final year of GTE competition sees only the Pro-Am GTE Am class in play and a strong 14 car entry has been assembled with plenty of variety.
The field is composed of three Aston Martins, a single Corvette, four Ferraris and six Porsches.
The Aston Martins are all single-car entries with the return of the #98 Northwest AMR effort from Paul Dalla Lana, the Canadian the sole named driver thus far.
ORT by TF field the #25 Aston Martin for Omani racer Ahmad Al Harthy, Michael Dinan from the USA and Charlie Eastwood.
TF Sport will also have a hand in the #777 D’Station Racing Aston Martin for the returning Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fuji with young Brit Casper Stevenson set to make his EC debut with the squad.
The solo Corvette is entered by the factory team as the #33 for Ben Keating (who retains that number from his title-winning TF Sport Aston Martin last year), Nicky Catsburg is not listed as yet on the official entry but is known to be the nominated full Pro driver.
AF Corse field a trio of Ferrari 488 GTE Evos:
The #21 returns for a second WEC season with Stefano Costantini, Simon Mann and Ulysse de Pauw;
Long-time WEC contender Thomas Flohr is back in his #54 car too, joined once again by Francesco Castellacci;
And there’s an #83 Ferrari too, entered under ‘Richard Mille AF Corse’ with Luis Perez Companc listed, this the effort that might see Lilou Wadoux added for the season.
And there’s a single car for Kessel Racing, this the #57 Car Guy effort for Takeshi Kimura who will be joined in 2023 by Scott Huffaker and Ferrari factory man Daniel Serra.
Porsche’s six representatives in the class are spread across a number of teams too:
There is a single car entry for Project 1 – AO, PJ Hyett and Gunnar Jeannette back for the full season after a one-off last year in the #56.
One car as well is fielded again by GR Racing, the #86 currently listing just team owner/ driver Mike Wainwright.
Proton Competition have a hand in all of the rest.
Team Owner and FIA WEC ‘Mr Ever Present’ Christian Ried is listed aboard the #77 as a Dempsey Proton entry.
The sister #88 is listed as Proton Competition and has Harry Tincknell listed at present. DSC expects that Michael Fassbender may well eventually be named in this car.
And, as exclusively revealed by DSC in October last year, Proton will also assist the #60 Iron Lynx entered Porsche (Claudio Schiavoni listed) and the #85 Iron Dames effort with Sarah Bovy, Michelle Gatting and Rahel Frey all listed, the Iron Lynx team bridging the gap to an integration into planet Lamborghini with a final GTE season before GT3 – and Hypercar – come on stream for the WEC next season.
FIA WEC 2023 Provisional Full Season Entry List >>
Pierre Fillon, President of the Automobile Club de l’Ouest: “The FIA World Endurance Championship is about to embark on one of its most thrilling seasons ever. Seven manufacturers are lining up on the 13-car Hypercar grid. The season comprises the 24 Hours of Le Mans Centenary, eagerly awaited by motorsports fans all over the world. See you at Sebring on 11 March for the Prologue to this fantastic season.”
Richard Mille, FIA Endurance Commission President: “The sheer number of entries across the field underlines the growth and appeal of the FIA World Endurance Championship year on year. The Hypercar class has reached the point that we envisaged in the early days of developing this concept, with 13 entries from seven different automotive brands. The LMP2 class continues to be a highly-competitive platform, while the move to a single GT class is a step in the right direction that lays the right foundations for the future of GT racing in the world’s premier endurance series. I’m convinced that 2023 will mark the beginning of a new golden era in the history of the FIA WEC.”
Frédéric Lequien, CEO of the FIA World Endurance Championship: “It is truly fantastic to see the WEC and sportscar racing overall going from strength to strength. I’d like to take this opportunity to offer a very warm welcome to our friends at Cadillac, Ferrari, Porsche and Vanwall who join our Hypercar class this year, it’s a huge honour to have so many global car manufacturers committing to the WEC and putting their trust in our championship. It’s also very encouraging to see strong entries in LMP2 as well as a record LMGTE Am field too, the WEC is shaping up for its best season to date.”
