With the 2023 FIA WEC season finale right around the corner, the start of the 2024 season is also on the horizon, with a fresh two-class structure and 36 full-season entries set to do battle at eight race meetings around the world.
Garage space and space restrictions when air freighting cars have reduced the size of the field for the upcoming season, from the 38 on the list this season. This means some difficult decisions will need to be made.
However, with Cadillac confirming that it will race with a single car next year and Proton unlikely to field a second 963 for the full campaign, the picture is becoming clearer. DSC believes the field is now almost completely set, with 18 Hypercars and 18 LMGT3 cars set to make up the grid for Season 12.
In Hypercar, Toyota, Ferrari, Peugeot, Porsche will all return with their two-car programmes, alongside Cadillac which will again enter a single V-Series.R.
Beyond that, of the 2023 crop, HERTZ Team JOTA will expand to two Porsche 963s, and like Proton, take on a full-season campaign. That’s 12 before taking into account the new teams that are set to boost the car count.
In the LMDh camp, Alpine (Signatech) and BMW (with WRT) will bring two new cars each, while Lamborghini will race a single SC63, which is slated to make its global race debut at Qatar before its partial-season IMSA Endurance Cup campaign gets underway.
Making it 18 is most likely to be Vector Sport, which will run a single prototype from the LMH ruleset, an Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6 LMH Competizione, following the car’s extensive and well-documented test programme that is still ongoing ahead of its homologation. Of note, the final homologation for the car will now take place after Bahrain, meaning the planned appearance at the Rookie Test for the car is now off the table.
So who is on the outside looking in, with the second Cadillac Racing entry shelved?
Glickenhaus will not return with the 007. The car, which served the championship loyally through the Hypercar class’ embryonic phase, hasn’t been seen since Monza and will not race again, the team citing a lack of funds for development as the reason for its withdrawal.
The Floyd Vanwall effort’s chances of a 2024 return appear to be wafer thin too. While not entirely out of the picture yet, the Colin Kolles-run effort may already be out of time after just one season with its challenger.
There are many factors working against the team being awarded space on the grid. Putting aside the fact that the Vandervell 680 has been uncompetitive and unreliable all season long, the promised road car, is nowhere to be seen.
The team’s announcement of (what appeared to be a Hyundai-based) performance EV shows no signs of life, despite assurances of first sales in Q3 of this year. The road-going version of the Hypercar has not been seen either. The early pictures and video of a prototype car clearly featured the race car with replacement body panels.
Handing the Floyd-backed team an entry will also likely prevent the LMGT3 grid from featuring an even number of cars, meaning a major OEM would be forced to have its two-car effort slashed in half to accommodate the Austrian-flagged privateer.
Add to that the fact that away from the race track the trademark dispute concerning the Vanwall name continues to rumble on. In the current climate where both categories are oversubscribed, it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that Vanwall’s chances of lining up on the grid in Qatar, with a full-season entry in hand, are fading.
What about a second Isotta Fraschini entry, which DSC believes has been explored by both Duqueine Team and Emil Frey Racing? The credibility of the effort, which features support and technical nous from Michelotto and a promising test programme, is enough to warrant a single entry being handed to the revived Italian make in its first year. But DSC’s sources suggest that a second entry is highly unlikely to be granted in 2024 at least.
Two cars would make things complicated with the numbers game and an LMGT3 class based around a two-cars-per-manufacturer policy. This strongly favours an even number of Hypercars. The selection committee has surprised us in the past, but at this stage, DSC believes the cap has been set at 36 rather than 37, a number they could stretch to in extremis.
This is because the strength and depth in numbers at play here allows the championship organisers to turn potential full-season cars away from the top class, something they haven’t had the luxury of in years past. The reality is if a second Isotta was accepted, and for that matter, a car from Vanwall, it would cut the LMGT3 field to 16. That would cost a major OEM with WEC heritage, or a loyal team representing a significant blue chip marque, its programme.
On the subject of LMGT3, after months of speculation and boardroom chess games behind the scenes involving customer teams, it appears to be settled.
Of the manufacturers that have a Hypercar programme, AF Corse will bring a pair of Ferrari 296 GT3s, Iron Lynx will race with Huracan GT3 EVOs, WRT is preparing two BMW M4 GT3s, Manthey has been nominated to run 992-spec Porsches, TF is GM’s team for the new Corvette Z06 GT3.R and current Mercedes team ASP is understood to be the organisation entrusted to run with Lexus RC F GT3s on behalf of Toyota.
That’s 12 cars, leaving six spaces, for three manufacturers, if the entry cap is 36 and there are 18 cars in the top class.
Of the manufacturers in play, the priority that is known to be handed to teams that have shown loyalty to the WEC will likely allow Aston Martin with Prodrive, Proton Competition with Ford and United Autosports with McLaren to take up the remaining spots.
What do these efforts look like?
Proton is already testing the Mustang and was snapped up by Ford as a flagship customer before Le Mans. Prodrive’s two-car effort with the new-for-2024 Vantage AMR looks set to be at least in part run by Heart of Racing which is the key partner of the revived Valkyrie Hypercar programme. Finally, United Autosports and its longstanding programmes across the ACO’s suite of series gave it the edge over the three other teams in play for the 720S GT3 EVO programme.
That leaves four credible teams and manufacturers most likely disappointed.
Team Saintéloc is keen to take Audi Sport back to Le Mans, and so far has committed to the Asian Le Mans Series to try and get there. While the R8 LMS GT3 EVO II has been developed to incorporate the mandated closed-loop torque meters, the Audi board’s scaling back of its customer programme at the end of the year is working against it.
GMB Motorsport’s hopes of a single-car programme with the Honda NSX look to have fallen short too, while a pair of Mercedes AMG GT3s (potentially 2 x 1 car teams with GetSpeed understood to be one) also seem set to miss out.
The only other manufacturer that continues to surface in paddock conversations is Bentley, a single-car entry has been mooted with potential involvement from a current ACO rules team. But this is almost certainly a non-starter. Bentley being a part of the WEC with a GT3 car next year has always been a long shot, with the factory no longer supporting the Continental GT3 to a level that would interest the ACO and FIA.
Images courtesy of BMW, Frozenspeed & Isotta Fraschini
