United Autosports is set to join the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in 2024, with a pair of LMP2 class ORECA 07 Gibsons for the full season.
The Anglo-American team, which has been competing in the FIA WEC’s LMP2 category since 2019, has opted to place its headline 2024 prototype racing programme in IMSA due to the incoming changes in the WEC’s class structure.
From next season LMP2 has been dropped from the World Championship due to a combination of growth in the Hypercar field and the introduction of the LMGT3 class, which is likely to be oversubscribed.
Co-owners Richard Dean and McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown had been working tirelessly to find a solution that would allow the team to stay in the FIA WEC for 2024. However, no Hypercar class programme has come together for next season, and the timeframe to build an LMGT3 programme, with no certainty on an entry at this stage, is very short. This has led to Dean and Brown making this decision, which they feel is in the best interests of the team.
“We are going to step away and race in IMSA and see how the marketplace in the WEC develops in both Hypercar and LMGT3,” Dean explained to DSC.
Its 2024 IMSA programme is set to be run out of a brand new, larger facility in the USA, which will replace its current space in West Palm Beach Florida. And United is already in talks with a number of drivers for this effort.
This will not be the team’s first foray into the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Back in 2018 it competed in three of the Michelin Endurance Cup rounds with the Ligier JS P217 platform. That year its Rolex 24 effort was spearheaded by Fernando Alonso and Lando Norris. A more recent programme saw the team field an ORECA at select IMSA rounds in 2021 and 2022.
This new IMSA full-season campaign will run alongside continued ELMS and Asian Le Mans Series programmes in 2024. Dean says the team is as keen as its ever been to continue supporting the prototype classes in ACO-rules racing outside of the FIA WEC going forward.
“LMP2 is definitely still appealing to us,” Dean told DSC. “When you are an aspiring Hypercar team like we are, it’s the best place to be in terms of relevance if you want to make that step. It’s the obvious training ground.
“From a business perspective, these are still amazing cars to drive, there is a lot of desire from drivers to drive them. The fact that the ACO will keep accepting LMP2 entries at the Le Mans 24 Hours is a hugely attractive reason to stay in the category.
“Even if we are successful in building a Hypercar team, I like to think we would still stay in LMP2. It’s a college for people who want to race in prototypes.
“We love LMP2, we are going to stay in it. The ELMS and Asian Le Mans Series are strong and the ORECA is an incredible car for the money.”
An in-depth interview with Richard Dean, featuring more information on the team’s plans going forward, can be found HERE.
