Double Le Mans-winning LMP2 team Inter Europol Competition is still eyeing a move into the FIA WEC’s Hypercar class.
The Polish outfit, which is now widely considered an LMP2 super team following its stunning class win at the Centenary Le Mans race in 2023, has been pushing hard behind the scenes to grow and eventually become a factory service provider.
Any future move into Hypercar though, according to Inter Europol’s team manager, Sascha Fassbender, would need to come with a full factory deal.
“The ambition of the team is clearly to move into Hypercar with LMDh,” he told DSC. “We will only do it as a manufacturer, as I don’t see a privateer financing it in the WEC. If you want to participate there, the only goal should be to win.
“Maybe it’s possible with private budgets, but I can’t find the person so far who wants to finance it. There’s so much technology and development included that you can only be successful with a manufacturer.”
This stance, in turn, means that Inter Europol is not actively seeking a move into the Asian Le Mans Series’ forthcoming Hypercar class, and is not one of the teams which HRC USA recently teased has been enquiring about taking an Acura ARX-06 to the series.
“We don’t have a Hypercar, and buying one to bring to Asian Le Mans, is tough,” Fassbender added. “It’s not just buying a car and driving it. Operating it needs a lot more effort, and I don’t see that if I were to buy a Hypercar now, I could deliver the quality compared to JOTA, for instance. It would be like an amateur football team playing against Chelsea.”
The team is also not looking into putting together a package to enter the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s GTP class, expanding its current North American presence.
“It’s a business in the end,” he added. “But as much as I love IMSA races, the way we operate in IMSA (in LMP2), we couldn’t operate a GTP car, we’d have to change our operation, build a facility.”
Notably, Fassbender says he and the team came close to a deal to take the Acura/HRC brand and the ARX-06 LMDh to the world championship for 2027. But it fell through at the 11th hour, leaving the team back at square one before the Sebring 12 Hours.
“On the Acura topic, it was very, very close to happening,” Fassbender said. “The rumours published were all true (about WEC). It was written that there would be a decision made at Sebring, even that was true.
“I don’t know where the information came from, but it was the truth. We worked out the paperwork; everything was done, but a decision within Honda stopped the project. The follow-up was them stepping out of IMSA. It would have been Acura by Inter Europol, or Inter Europol by Acura.
“There was a lot of hard work needed. We discussed the project, but it was not in our hands. You can do the maximum effort to make it happen, but it was out of our hands. It would have been for 2027, so I had a full year to set up the team, and it would have been a separate department within Inter Europol.
“For 2027, I now don’t see it (IE entering Hypercar). If something comes on the market, it would be earliest for 2028. It’s not something you can do in six months.”
DSC approached HRC USA for a comment on this, as when rumours and subsequent reports of a potential Hypercar programme for Honda surfaced back in January, it denied that it was a real prospect. As it turned out, it was working towards announcing its IMSA GTP “pause” at that time.
In response, David Salters, the President of Honda Racing Corporation USA, said: “Like all motorsports decisions, we carefully consider many factors including business objectives and global strategy before making final choices.
“We talk to different teams and explore different options and challenges for our associates on what’s best for our racing future. However, we do not discuss any of these closed-door conversations publicly.
“What we can talk about is what you see on the race track with our current teams with whom we have great relationships and a lot of success.”
Images courtesy of Andrew Hall & Jack Webster
