Ahead of the first major sportscar race of the season at Daytona, DSC is taking a look at everything new for 2024. Here is the first part of the rundown, covering the Alpine A424 to LMGT3.
Alpine returns to the top class in the FIA WEC after a year back in the LMP2 class. But instead of the grandfathered LMP1 car they fielded in the first two seasons of the Hypercar class it is back with a pair of brand new Oreca-based Alpine A424 Hypercars, built to the LMDH ruleset.
The cars look good and have an interesting driver squad too, with a blend of youth and experience including big-name signing Mick Schumacher, but, beyond that there are plenty of ‘known knowns’ on the pace front with Nico Lapierre and Matthieu Vaxiviere joined by Ferdi Habsburg, Paul Loup Chatin and Charles Milesi. If the car has pace, they’ll find it!
Alpine will debut the new car at the WEC season opener in Qatar.
Whilst the race debut of the Aston Martin Valkyrie hypercar is not due until 2025, we’ll soon get to see the car in its race car form.
The Valkyrie will need significant changes to get the super slippery car into the Hypercar performance window, so close attention from the fanbase and the opposition will be the order of the day when we finally get shots of the car in testing.
Aston Martin does though have new product on track and racing in 2023: The updated version of its successful Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3, which has attracted plenty of customer interest and will feature in pretty much all of the major international championships in 2024.
With bodywork updates to reflect the forthcoming look of the new vantage and the opportunity taken for a thorough revision of the car’s systems and ergonomics, AMR/ Prodrive appears to have done a very good job of changing a car that was attracting little enthusiasm from paying drivers, to a seemingly hot ticket!
Whilst the new 2024 Aston Martin GT3 is a very effective new wrapper on the existing chassis design, it’s ‘little sister’ Aston Martin Vantage GT4 is a whole new car for 2024 and beyond built around the platform of the new Vantage.
Again, customer interest is understood to be very healthy.
The 2024 FIA WEC season sees the return of BMW for the first time since the retirement from competition of the M8 GTE.
And, with Team WRT, BMW returns with entries in both WEC classes, a pair of M Hybrid V8 Hypercars and two M4 GT3s in the debuting LM GT3 class.
Corvette returns too after a victorious and championship-winning 2023 campaign with the C8.R in GTE Am. It will be represented though, by a new customer team, TF Sport and its pair of brand-new Z06 GT3.R contenders in LMGT3.
Nyck de Vries returns to sportscar racing after a brief, and none-too-happy sojourn in Formula One.
And he arrives as Toyota Gazoo Racing refreshes it effort, with new colours, a new (acting) technical director and all in response to a much, much stronger challenge for honours as the growing pack in Hypercar.
The rapid Dutchman replaces Pechito Lopez in the #7 GR010 as a full-season teammate for Kamui Kobayashi and Mike Conway.
2024 sees a new look logo and a new look grid for the European Le Mans Series, with a power boost to its huge LMP2 grid, a boost too for the numbers in the LMP2 ‘Pro’ lead class and, of course, the arrival of LM GT3.
If the past few years have been anything to go by, the racing this season will be stellar!
Ford is back in GT racing with a bang in 2024. The new Ford Mustang GT3 looks and sounds like a potent beast and will do battle in factory and customer hands around the world.
As the Blue Oval’s first top-line GT car since the Ford GT was retired, it has very big boots to fill, and it will do so by taking on a more varied field in both IMSA’s top GT class and in the WEC than ever before.
And, alongside the new GT3, we’ll see a new Ford Mustang GT4, and single-make Dark Horse R this year too.
As numbers boom in the junior GT category there are real prospects for a commercial breakthrough, and Ford Performance want to be part of that market growth!
Ginetta is pushing hard to be back in the GT4 game at the sharp end too with the Evo version of its V8-powered G56 GT4.
After effectively kickstarting the category once its G50 was accepted, it’s high time the Garforth-based concern was back in the running, and the new car looks the part!
Super GT’s first ever top-class car based on a ‘sedan’ debuts in 2024 with the Honda Civic Type R GT500.
The new car replaces the Honda NSX GT with 5 cars set to do battle with the opposition from Honda and Toyota
Isotta Fraschini is an addition to the WEC’s Hypercar grid this coming season. The car – conceived and built by Michelotto – is now set to be campaigned by Duqueine Team.
The Tipo 6 Competizione lacks for nothing in ambition, accompanied to the marketplace by both track-only and road-legal ‘Pista’ and ‘Stradale’ sisters.
With a full LMH hybrid spec, there’s a mountain to climb against some of the biggest names in the automotive and motorsport industries. The minnows though will surely be fan favourites!
The WEC class win at Bahrain’s season finale was a global headline for the Iron Dames and there will doubtless be many more eyes on them in 2024 as it makes a third switch in as many seasons from Porsche to Lamborghini in WEC competition (though the team did race the Lamborghini last year in GT World Challenge and in IMSA).
A big surprise for everyone at Spa last year when the calendar for the 2024 GT World Challenge Europe was announced as that the season finale was not going to be in Europe, but in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The plan is for the field to be transported – including their race tracks – on a roll-on roll-off ferry from Europe. The transport package is set to be flexible enough to allow teams to leave their trucks and cars in the region for the now traditional Middle East winter calendar.
It’s a gamble, but if the teams bite then it might have a big payoff for several other races and series…
Jenson Button has been clear about an interest in getting back into endurance racing. His adventure in the Garage 56 NASCAR Camaro clearly did nothing to douse those flames.
With Petit Le Mans in the JDC Miller Porsche under his belt, the Rolex 24 in a WTR Acura and a full season of FIA WEC in a Hertz Team Jota Porsche to come there’s going to be plenty of opportunity to see him in action.
Kelvin van de Linde moves from Audi to Lexus in 2024, a move that few predicted (but then few predicted Lexus, and fewer still predicted Akkodis ASP to run them!)
The hungry, ambitious South African will be hoping that the RC F GT3 proves to be as competitive in the WEC it has been in IMSA in recent seasons!
Ben Keating will, once again, race at the Rolex 24 in two different cars in two different classes this year, but this time he becomes the first Bronze-rated driver to compete in a current top-level prototype. He joins the JDC Miller squad aboard its Porsche 963 alongside his full-season commitment in a United Autosports Oreca in LMP2.
He did the same a couple of years ago in DPi, but the GTPs are a new challenge – this could just be a very important run if the Texan can show that a non-Pro can deal with the challenges of a new-spec car. Who knows what doors that might open in the future?
Lamborghini is back in a top-class sports prototype for the first time since Group C with the lovely looking SC63, a car apiece in the FIA WEC and, post-Daytona the Michelin Endurance Cup with a potential pair at Le Mans.
Add in the LMGT3 Huracans and we have a multi class, multi car smackdown in prospect Ferrari vs Lamborghini!
LMGT3 is the new face of production-based racing in the FIA WEC (and the ELMS) – the multi-marque field adding new brands to the World Championship and the biggest variety so far seen in GT racing in the WEC.
With the unique closed-loop torque meter system monitoring a WEC-specific BoP here’ hoping it’s the racing and not the mathematics that makes the headlines.
