It’s a brand new season, which starts at a brand new venue for the World Endurance Championship and features a brand-new look with a much-enhanced Hypercar class and just one additional category, a deep and varied field for the world debut of LMGT3.
We’ll get to the GT3s in due course. First up let’s take a look at no fewer than 19 cars in the deep and high-quality top class.
Cadillac Racing
#2: V-Series.R – Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn & Sebastien Bourdais
Cadillac returns with a very familiar-looking package across the car, livery, driving line-up and service provider. Major updates to the V-Series.R will have to wait until next year, with the major attention going on understanding how to get the best out of the current package in Year 2.
The biggest change is in the team’s strategy for its driver crew. With Richard Westbrook leaving Chip Ganassi Racing at the end of 2023, Cadillac has opted to race with the returning duo of Alex Lynn and Earl Bamber for the full season, assisted by guest stars for the longer races. Cadillac is the only team to make this strategic choice.
IMSA GTP full-timer Sebastien Bourdais joins the team for the opener at Qatar, while IndyCar star Alex Palou is confirmed for the Le Mans 24 Hours in June following his Rolex 24 drive with CGR back in January.
While the V-Series.R holds the title for best-sounding Hypercar, securing the FIA WEC Teams and Drivers titles remains the aim. Last year the team enjoyed most of its success early in the season, with the highlight being an overall podium at Le Mans. The car is kind on its tyres and the team behind the scenes took great strides operationally. The only major downside is the team lacking the benefits of running a second car.
Nevertheless, the V-Series.R, which scored a clean sweep of IMSA GTP titles last season, is more than capable of competing at the sharp end of the field if the platform BoP brings the LMDh cars into the mix throughout the season. If it does, then Cadillac is finely poised for a strong campaign.
Porsche Penske Motorsport
#5: 963 – Matt Campbell, Michael Christensen & Frederic Makoweicki
#6: 963 – Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer & Laurens Vanthoor
It’s safe to say that the Porsche Penske Motorsport team heads into the 2024 season with far more confidence than it did for the 963’s debut season. The IMSA team’s Rolex 24 Hours overall win provided proof that the 963, and the factory team, have taken great strides since the programme’s debut.
In the FIA WEC last year, Porsche Penske often flattered to deceive, with JOTA and Proton on more than one occasion showing more promise. Aside from an eye-catching run at the front at Fuji, the team will have been stung by the rapid progress of the privateers.
In terms of updates to the 963, this year the focus is on reliability improvements rather than performance. Small software updates were implemented for the Rolex 24 and appeared to make an immediate impact, but the best is yet to come, with a planned crankshaft upgrade for later in the season promising real progress. The timeframe for it is not yet clear.
As for the drivers, there’s one change to report for this season, with Dane Cameron returning to IMSA, switching places with Matt Campbell in the #5 with Michael Christensen and Fred Makoweicki. Even with this change, it remains a very strong sextet.
Toyota Gazoo Racing
#7: GR010 HYBRID – Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi & Nyck de Vries
#8: GR010 HYBRID – Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley & Ryo Hirakawa
Last year Toyota brought an overhauled GR010 HYBRID to the WEC. This year, following a mostly dominant title-winning campaign with it, the major changes for 2024 come in the form of personnel tweaks and a new livery.
Heading into 2024 the GR010 HYBRID, in its fourth season, remains the best car in this field. It will look radically different from the outside, with its new all-black livery, but up close you need a keen eye to spot the differences.
“Changes for performance are limited to a fixed number of ‘jokers’ during a car’s homologation period, and these require agreement from the governing body,” explains TGR WEC chassis project leader John Litjens.
“We carefully consider how to use the ‘jokers’ in order to continuously improve reliability, drivability, serviceability and of course performance within the context of a Balance of Performance. Based on the 2023 data, we did not see any obvious performance weak point so we have focused our efforts on reliability.”
As a result, the car features a change in headlights – reverting back to the 2022-spec solution after drivers complained of issues with glare last season – and “updates to the anti-roll bar and smaller components, sensors and heat protection.”
The driver line-up and management have also been tweaked. In the driver roster, Jose Maria Lopez moves to AKKODIS ASP’s Lexus programme, making way for Nyck De Vries, who returns to the WEC after a stint in Formula One. Then on the pit wall, longtime technical director Pascal Vasselon has been replaced by David Floury.
Toyota rarely makes changes in this area, so it will be interesting to follow how quickly De Vries and Floury adapt to their new roles.
The big question mark for Toyota is whether or not the competition has closed the gap substantially. The team is trying to keep its expectations in check here in Qatar and has stressed that repeating its 2023 record of six wins in seven races will be a tall order.
It believes that it will be tough to win the season opener with the BoP dealing a 9kg weight increase and 4kw power reduction compared to the end of last season.
“Last year we didn’t win the biggest race,” Floury points out. “I don’t think we are the favourite.”
Isotta Fraschini
#11: Tipo6-C – Antonio Serravalle, Carl Wattana Bennett & Jean-Karl Vernay
With Vanwall and Glickenhaus gone, a new underdog has emerged: Isotta Fraschini.
The prospects for Isotta’s debut season in the FIA WEC are genuinely hard to read. The revived Italian manufacturer’s Tipo6-C has undergone a lengthy test programme, supported by the experts at Michelotto. It’s a car that looks the part from afar, but once the lights go out and the racing begins, is unlikely to be on the pace – at least not immediately.
This is in part because of the team’s level of resource compared to the other factories in this company, but mainly due to its driver selection. All three drivers are new to Hypercar and in the case of Serravalle and Wattana Bennett the FIA WEC too. The lack of experience and testing time for the newest signings will work against Isotta’s chances of surprise results at a time when multiple teams are getting to grips with new machinery.
However, the addition of the highly-experienced Duqueine Team to the programme late in the day should help the team operationally and Balance of Performance changes could see the team on the pace once it has race experience under its belt.
At the Prologue, the team’s performance was as expected, up and down, due to the frequent need to problem-solve and learn new processes. The car has shown flashes of speed though, the car clocking competitive numbers in the trap speed column on the timing screens.
HERTZ Team JOTA
#12: 963 – Will Stevens, Callum Ilott & Norman Nato
#38: 963 – Jenson Button, Phil Hanson & Oliver Rasmussen
HERTZ Team JOTA brings high ambition to the 2024 season, after showing promise throughout its partial campaign in 2023 and head-turning pace at this week’s Prologue.
The big change here is the addition of a second car, which brings with it a new-look driver roster. With Yifei Ye now at Ferrari competing against it in the privateer ranks and Antonio Felix Da Costa focusing on Formula E, Oliver Rasmussen, Phil Hanson, Jenson Button, Callum Ilott and Norman Nato join the only returnee Will Stevens.
The addition of Button is arguably the highest-profile news story here, especially as he intends to focus on a full-time FIA WEC programme for multiple seasons. But the remaining newcomers all look set to impress. Illot and Hanson in particular should be ones to watch.
Illot brings with him high-level single-seater experience from stints in F2 and IndyCar, while Hanson is a longtime LMP2 specialist who is eager to impress as he steps into the top class of both IMSA and the WEC.
Operationally, adding a second Porsche into the mix will be no easy task, but JOTA proved to be operationally sound in 2023 and feedback given to DSC from the team’s test in Bahrain with all six drivers last month was a positive one.
The race for the Hypercar Teams World Cup title for privateers title is set to be more hotly contested this year with the addition of the second JOTA Porsche and the AF Corse 499P. Based on last year’s performances, JOTA should be considered a favourite for the 2024 crown.
BMW M Team WRT
#15: M Hybrid V8 – Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello & Marco Wittmann
#20: M Hybrid V8 – Sheldon Van Der Linde, Robin Frijns & Rene Rast
BMW makes its very first appearance in the top class in the FIA WEC with a pair of M Hybrid V8 LMDH Hypercars fielded by Team WRT.
The car already has a season of IMSA competition for the effort to build upon and whilst that will cover off some of the required gap filling to the 2023 class contingent, nobody involved will in any way be underestimating the task ahead.
BMW has cast deep into its talent pool for this effort and has cast that net further too in attracting other exciting talent to the campaign.
It’s pretty much impossible to see a weak link here and whilst the team does have no fewer than three WEC ‘Rookies’, when you consider that those three include a pair of DTM Champions (van der Linde and Wittmann) and a talent as truly exciting as Raffaele Marciello then perhaps we should look elsewhere for weak points!
Add in serial major race winner Dries Vanthoor, the mercurial Robin Frijns and the still stellar talents of Rene rast and this is as star-studded a two-car team as exists anywhere in this entry.
Expect the BMWs to take some time to find the ultimate pace – but to get there faster than most!
Alpine Endurance Team
#35: A424 – Paul-Loup Chatin, Ferdinand Habsburg & Charles Milesi
#36: A424 – Nicolas Lapierre, Mick Schumacher & Matthieu Vaxiviere
The Alpine story in the FIA WEC continues with the brand new A424 a very exciting next chapter.
After success in LMP2 and a bridging programme with the ex-Rebellion LMP1 in 2021 and 2022 that saw the marque score a pair of overall race wins, there are high hopes for the new two-car effort with a car that makes its global debut here this weekend.
Signatech team Owner Philippe Sinault has been a huge supporter of the FIA WEC and has long cultivated the Alpine marque – there will be few prouder than he coming into the start of the 2024 season.
The A424 utilises the same ORECA chassis ‘spine’ as the already successful Acura LMDH and it would be fair to say that much comment has been made of Alpine’s engine choice, a totally revamped version of Mecachrome’s turbo V6 that gives the exhaust note an edge, and provides a talking point over whether reliability might be an Achilles heel.
On the driver front, it’s a mix of familiar faces in Alpine and other sportscar competitions and a big-name newcomer.
Nico Lapierre is still a driver of the very highest quality and he anchors the #36 with fellow Sportscar title winner Matthieu Vaxivière, the pair made a trio with the introduction of Mick Schumacher, the ex-Haas F1 racer still involved in single seaters as Mercedes AMG’s nominated reserve driver (Jules Gounon would step in at Alpine if the call came from Toto Wolff).
Schumacher then has two high-quality yardsticks to judge himself against and to be judged against.
The sister #35 sees three established talents in LMP2 combine, all three with their first Hypercar shots.
Ferdi Habsburg arrives with the 2021 WEC LMP2 title (and a Le Mans class win) plus the 2022 ELMS title already on his CV. He’s got a big personality (and a very long name!), the former will come into play if resilience is required.
Paul Loup Chatin remains one of the most highly rated of the LMP2 pack and correctly gets a Hypercar shot – He scored one of his pair of overall LMP2 title wins with Alpine a decade ago.
And Charles Milesi adds youth to the mix, he shared the WEC title and Le Mans class win with Habsburg in 2021 and will be hungry for more.
Expect bumps along the way but this effort could emerge as a fan favourite hard charging outfit.
Ferrari AF Corse
#50: 499P – Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina & Nicklas Nielsen
#51: 499P – Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado & Antonio Giovanazzi
Is it too obvious at this point to assume that the biggest threat to Toyota’s title reign coming to an end will be Ferrari once again? Looking back, the 499P’s maiden season should be considered an enormous success. Yes, it only managed a single win, but that was the most important race of the season, a spectacular achievement for the AF Corse-run team in the first year of a top-class programme.
Its driver line-up is unchanged for 2024, as is its car. But a year of data gathering and an ambitious test programme in the Middle East over the off-season, which included a visit to Qatar for some running before the Prologue, surely puts the team in good shape.
Taking a wait-and-see approach to upgrades, it feels, is a smart move. This is because the form of the 499P ebbed and flowed throughout the 2023 season, making it hard to pinpoint specific areas to use ‘jokers’ to improve the car for its second year.
“For us, our car is ‘OK’,” the head of Ferrari Attività Sportive GT Antonello Coletta told DSC at the end of last season. “We had a chance to demonstrate in the first part of the season that the car is probably not the best car, but it is not a bad car.”
Lamborghini Iron Lynx
#63: SC63 – Mirko Bortolotti, Edoardo Mortara & Daniil Kvyat
Another brand new car making its global debut in Qatar, Lamborghini’s sharp-styled SC63 LMDH Hypercar arrives with high hopes but just a single-car effort (with a second added, currently for Le Mans only).
The car, currently uniquely built around a Ligier ‘spine’ looks great, and sounds great but will have a steep hill to climb towards ultimate competitiveness in this company. The Iron Lynx (Prema) outfit tasked with campaigning the factory effort has plenty of experience in developing machinery, and driver line-ups.
The driving trio might best be described as ‘intriguing’.
Danny Kvyat was rapid in F1, but perhaps needed more time to adapt to LMP2 where, in truth, the 2023 Prema Racing effort seemed to struggle. For Mirko Bortolotti, the same was true, with the added wrinkle of a season interrupted by GT3 commitments. Both though are very capable of bringing pace to this effort.
Mortara is very highly rated by his peers but was perhaps a surprise signing for this effort. The comparative form between this trio will be very interesting.
AF Corse
#83: 499P – Robert Kubica, Robert Shwartzman & Yifei Ye
One of the biggest off-season stories for the FIA WEC was the surprise emergence of a third Ferrari 499P for the full season. Initially, the idea for a customer car was teased at the Ferrari Finale Mondiali in October, before became clear at the Bahrain season finale that something very real was in the works.
In the end, what we have is a third 499P, decorated in an inverse livery to the factory cars, operated by AF Corse but privately funded.
The driver line-up is strong, with 2023 LMP2 champion Kubica teaming up with JOTA standout Ye and Shwartzman who enjoyed a successful run in the 499P in last year’s Bahrain Rookie Test.
While all three drivers are more than capable, testing time together as a trio has been limited, though they were on hand at Yas Marina for two long days of running before heading to Qatar.
The 499P, we know, is a strong package too which should enable this car to fight near the front from the off and battle for the Hypercar Teams World Cup against JOTA and Proton. The question is, if this car shines, and is in the hunt for overall wins and podiums, will it be allowed to beat the factory cars? It’s going to be an interesting dynamic…
Peugeot TotalEnergies
#93: 9X8 – Mikkel Jensen, Nico Muller & Jean-Eric Vergne
#94: 9X8 – Paul Di Resta, Loic Duval & Stoffel Vandoorne
2024 feels like a ‘make or break’ year for French constructor Peugeot in the FIA WEC. While there were flashes of pace and competitiveness in 2023, in particular at Le Mans, the first-generation 9X8 simply isn’t good enough to shine in this deep field. The team took strides with small improvements throughout the season, notably switching to a new gearshift activation system early in the campaign, and scored a podium at Monza, but it wasn’t enough to render the team a consistent threat.
Thankfully, the disappointment attached to the team’s lack of results in Year 2 of the programme has only fuelled the motivation of everyone involved. The team is set to bring a radically different 9X8 to the grid this year, featuring a heavily revised aero package and a change in tyre size.
Currently, the 9X8 uses 31cm wide tyres all around and will switch to the now-standard 29cm front, 34cm rear tyres for the formula.
“Most of the changes we’re making are just to accommodate the tyre dimensions,” technical director Olivier Jansonnie explains. “First, we need to move the weight distribution on the car. Our car was designed to run at a very forward weight distribution because of the 31-31 (cm) tyres.
“We’ve got to move it back somehow, which means we need to have some lighter parts on the car, move some ballast over to try to move the weight distribution and then obviously retune the aero balance on the car.
“That’s the second biggest part of the package, to try to get an aero balance on the car that matches the new tyre dimension. Everything is actually driven by the tyre choice we are making now.”
Unfortunately, the 2024 9X8 will not be ready for the meeting in Qatar. Instead, the debut is expected to come at Imola, though crucially before the Le Mans 24 Hours. Until then, the start of the season may be a case of clinging on and waiting for the cavalry to arrive…
Beyond the car there is one other notable change and that comes in the form of a new-looking driver squad. Stoffel Vandoorne joins full-time in place of Gustavo Menezes and Di Resta and Muller switch cars.
Proton Competition
#99: 963 – Harry Tincknell, Neel Jani & Julien Andlauer
Proton Competition was the second privateer Porsche squad to hit the WEC last year, found some pace but struggled with reliability in the WEC. It has, however, scored the first privateer podium of the new era, albeit in IMSA’s GTP class at Petit Le Mans.
This year the team returns for a full season in 2024, with just one (handsomely liveried) car despite initially planning for two – the team’s third chassis which will be used as a second car is expected to debut later in the season, post-Le Mans after the ending on the reserve list.
The driver line-up has been refreshed but remains impressive, with Tincknell and Jani returning. Gianmaria Bruni is focusing on IMSA now, making way for Julien Andlauer, following an impressive LMP2 test with the team late last year and an impressive Asian Le Mans campaign. While the transition to prototypes for Andlauer, who was one of the fastest GTE drivers in recent years, is not simple, he clearly has the talent to excel here.
Proton is a WEC ever-present, with international champions in its driving squad, but it remains to be seen whether its target will be competing for the World Cup title or taking factory scalps.
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