The Sporting regulations for the 2022 European Le Mans Series and Michelin Le Mans Cup have been issued with a handful of significant changes.
Le Mans Cup Race Distance
In sporting terms the biggest shift comes in the Le Mans Cup where the decision has been taken to reduce the race lengths from 2 hours to 1 hour and 50 minutes.
This change allows the race organisers to dispense with the second mandatory fuel stop introduced when the 2020-spec LMP3 cars were found not to be reliably capable of making the race distance on a single stop with their increased capacity and more powerful 5.6 litre V8 engines.
The change sees the minimum driving time in the Le Mans Cup reduced for each driver to 45 minutes with the lost race time added to the Bronze Driver test session.
Pre-Event Testing
Another change seen as significant by several teams is a change in the regulations for both Series with regard to pre-event testing at race venues.
This was previously barred in the ELMS and Le Mans cup for seven days prior to a race meeting at the same venue. That has now been increased to 30 days, it is believed as an intended cost cutting measure – multiple teams though are concerned about the loss of a revenue stream as a result.
ELMS Points System
The points system for the ELMS has been tweaked too – The 2022 season will see the withdrawal of the 0.5 point issued for any class finisher outside a top 10.
Any driver completing less than 40 minutes will now not be eligible for points in that race.
Driver Rankings
And there is a ‘catch-all’ regulation pertaining to driver rankings that sees the Championship organisers reserve the right to adjust driver rankings upwards – or to impose other sporting measures to deal with any rankings issues.
“In accordance with Article 1.12 of the categorisation regulations, the ELMS Committee reserves the right to give derogations at its entire discretion (only upgrade) to drivers – or to take any sporting measure in that spirit, such as time penalty added in the pit lane.”
