When all the titles are settled on Sunday at Monza, and we head into the winter, the biggest talking point as we shift focus to the 2027 FIA WEC campaign will be the finalisation of the 2030 Hypercar regulations.
The target for a long time now has been for the full set of rules to be finalised by the end of this calendar year, to allow the manufacturers in play a long enough runway to put together budgets, go through the sign-off process and develop and test a new car before the start of the 2030 season.
But there have been murmurs for a while that 2030 is at risk of becoming unrealistic for the new rules (centred on a shift to a single platform) to debut. The time it has taken to debate and draft the regulations, and the key points still being discussed, make the timeframe challenging, even though, according to Ferrari’s head of endurance race cars, Ferdinando Cannizzo, “some principles have been agreed already.”
Ferrari, the 2025 World Hypercar Manufacturers’ Champion and three-time Le Mans winner during the current era, is a key player in the talks, as expected, and is keen to outline its position as we enter this critical phase.
When asked if the target date of 2030 is still achievable today at Monza, Antonello Coletta, Ferrari’s global endurance and corse clienti programme head, responded: “I hope so!”
“The target is to decide in a few months because we need to start with a new project in the second part of next year,” he continued. “After that will be complicated. If we start at the end of 2027 or the start of 2028, we will need to jump to 2031. The target of the manufacturers, the federation and the promoter is to define the final rules in the first months of next year.”
If we are to see this new formula, outlined and presented at Le Mans in June, debut on time and succeed in extending the current so-called ‘platinum era’, it will need to come together quickly in the winter months. But as Coletta went on to explain, there are still critical areas being debated.
Perhaps the biggest is the future of Balance of Performance in the formula. Though never stated explicitly, when the framework was released, the general belief among the rulemakers was that it would still form part of the rules alongside a move to freeze development on the cars (unless directly linked to reliability, safety, or a significant performance deficit) for five years, to contain costs.
But Coletta believes a future solution could still be found for the formula which would negate the need for BoP, or at least significantly reduce its role.
“Now we are around the table, all together to define a unique platform,” he said. “With a unique platform, we can write the rules very clearly, and the final goal should be for us to delay the BoP.
We need to have marginal intervention, not a lot
“If you remember, the BOP was born with different platforms: four-wheel drive, two-wheel drive, LMDh, LMH. But if we have a unique platform, I think that you can have a very, very good chance and reposition the championship around the table with a meritocracy, without discussion every day about the BoP, mystery BoP, and so on.
“Of course, around the table there are manufacturers, and many manufacturers have different ideas. The idea for Ferrari is to have a unique platform with strong rules, with a chance to make the car with our efforts.”
Clearly, there are many factors to consider if such a change were made, including how compatible it would be with a ruleset featuring heavy restrictions or a freeze on updates, and the option to utilise common parts and chassis.
“The discussion is very complicated,” Coletta continued. “But today we have BoP up and down. If we have a little percentile of intervention, then it should be a solution. We need to have marginal intervention, not a lot.
“If we consider new rules without BoP, but with very strong rules and you define that you can modify the car, I don’t know, one time a season, then you put this cost into your business plan, and the situation is completely clear. The difference is if you leave the door completely open, and in this case the costs would explode. But if rules are very close and you have the possibility to improve the car in little parts, the situation will be clear.”
The June announcement also stated that each car would be rear-wheel drive and hybrid-powered. But this is an element that Ferrari, like Toyota, is still pushing back on, as its preference would be to maintain a four-wheel drive concept.
“When you are around the table, you need to battle for some ideas, you need to examine,” Coletta said. “Our idea is that endurance gives a good chance to test some parts of the car and put the good ideas into a road car. Today, in road cars, four-wheel-drive hybrids are probably the future. But it will be complicated to maintain the four-wheel drive.
“This is our idea because all the street cars head in this direction, but when you are around the table you need to lose some issues and gain other ones. An important consideration is that it’s not more expensive to have four-wheel drive. The difference in the end is very little.”
Either way, to arrive at a final set of regulations in the early months of 2027, ahead of a likely full reveal at Le Mans in June, will require all the players around the table to reach a compromise.
Each manufacturer has its own priorities on budget levels, technological complexity and relevance, brand identity in car design, and how the formula is governed.
That’s before we get into board-level debates over the optics of signing off new programmes and new cars at such a volatile time for the automotive industry, particularly in Europe. The costs of every tweak, change, and decision on the rules will be in the spotlight and discussed at length.
For Ferrari, its principal red line continues to centre on its ability to develop its own bespoke chassis.
“The idea for Ferrari is to have a unique platform with a chance to make the car with our efforts, not to share the gearbox, electronics, some parts,” Coletta explained. “If other manufacturers have been able to share mechanical parts, why not? We prefer to put our horse on the front of a car if the car is a Ferrari. We have to have a chance to make the car.
“Ferrari’s views may be different from other manufacturers’ views, but in the end it’s time to sit down around a table, discuss it together, find a good agreement and understand each other. We need to understand which is the best compromise or trade-off. Clearly, something which will be affordable that will allow manufacturers to develop cars is something we should take care of, and we need to be ambitious and brave enough to understand which technology to develop for the future.”
Images courtesy of DPPI and Ferrari
