Welcome to Part 2 of DSC’s rundown on everything new for 2024, covering everything from the new-look Endurance Cup to WTR Andretti’s two-car GTP effort. If you missed out on Part 1, you can catch up with it HERE >>>
IMSA’s Michelin Endurance Cup expands to five races in 2023, with Indianapolis Motors Speedway set to join Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen and Road Atlanta on a revised IMSA calendar.
IMS will host the 6-hour TireRack Battle On The Bricks on 22 September!
There’s little doubt that Raffaelle Marciello is a very special talent. There is little doubt too that his arrival in Hypercar with BMW is being viewed by many as one of the most exciting additions to the driver roster for 2024.
‘Lello’ though is fully aware that this is a year of transition, with a new manufacturer/employer, a new team and a new car (albeit with a season of IMSA racing under the wheels). His approach to that little lot may well define his pathway forward.
New for 2024 is the Ford Mustang Challenge, featuring the Mustang Dark Horse R, sanctioned by IMSA but with a calendar that crosses from IMSA events to the FIA WEC at CoTA and then GT World Challenge/IGTC at Indianapolis.
What the series certainly shows is that Ford is very serious indeed at activating its Mustang product in as many areas of the sport as possible: GT3, GT4, NASCAR, Supercars and more – and now factory-sanctioned one-make racing.
After real struggles through the COVID period for SRO to sustain the Intercontinental GT Challenge, with logistical and calendar-related issues hitting grid sizes hard, 2024 should see the start of a recovery. Bathurst stays, the Spa 24 Hours has a centenary (see below), Indianapolis is being given time to regain its mojo, Kyalami has been parked (for now at least as an event that, at present, is a great idea but just too hard to execute well) and the Gulf 12 Hours seems to have served its purpose in sustaining the product.
The IGTC in 2024 though features another massive race event, as the ADAC Nurburgring 24 Hours joins the calendar for the first of what will be a multi-year deal.
The event is being respected, as such open tyre choice has always been a key appeal to the race and that will remain for the IGTC overlay on the event.
One of my pressroom colleagues is very fond of saying that the N24 is not an international race, but simply a “big race in Germany”. That may not be true at all, but it certainly may not be true from 2024 onwards!
Oliver Jarvis is back in IMSA in 2024, in GTD Pro with Pfaff Motorsport and it is always good to welcome a champion back, particularly when that champion still has the fire burning in his belly.
It’s going to be interesting to see how he adapts to GTD Pro, to the McLaren 720S GT3, and to dealing with traffic from a different perspective!
Red Bull may, or may not, give you wings – but one thing that definitely does is a failed aerodynamic concept.
Peugeot though deserves much credit for sticking with its programme – and whilst all we have seen so far is some grainy footage of a revised 9X8, one thing is clear: It isn’t just that Red Bull tastes like medicine for children – the 9X8 has sprouted rear wings!
2024 will see a fourth different country hosting the opening round of the FIA WEC, and, uniquely, it is doing so at a circuit that doesn’t begin with ‘S’.
Qatar‘s Lusail International Circuit is set to be home to the WEC season opener for four years after Sebring, Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps previously did the honours.
The 1000 Miles of Sebring is replaced by the Qatar 1812 km: 10 hours of racing to get the 2024 party started!
When you think of pure ‘star power’ in sportscar racing at present there are few to touch the broad public appeal of ‘The Doctor’. No, not Patrick Dempsey, though he does at least have one thing in common with Valentino Rossi – neither of them are real doctors!
MotoGP legend Rossi took some massive steps in his racing journey in 2023, an overall win in the GT World Challenge Sprint Cup, a class win at Road To Le Mans, and a very public test in an LMP2 Oreca at the Bahrain WEC ‘Rookie Test’.
He’s aboard the #46 (of course) Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 for a full season of the FIA WEC, millions will be taking note of his journey, and if it goes well who knows what comes next?
Rexy evolves! The hugely popular ‘Rexy’ livery from AO Racing stays on for 2024 but has evolved from a GTD class entry into GTD Pro as the de facto Porsche factory representative in the much-boosted class.
Safety Cars At Le Mans. After some cataclysmic moaning by some, including industry commentators who should know better, there’s another change in Safety Car process at Le Mans coming for 2024.
Something, something no drop back – something! I’m sure it will work fine – just as 2023 did.
2024 sees the FIA WEC going back to South America for the first time since (checks notes)…. 2014!! Interlagos in Sao Paolo, Brazil hosting a 6-hour event on 14 July.
Upsides, they have rebuilt the place since 2014, downsides – it is, by a distance, the most terrifying place to try to hail a cab that his writer has ever known!
After the 100th anniversary of the first Le Mans 24 Hours in 2023 – in 2024 it’s the centenary of the Spa 24 Hours and there is sure to be a galaxy of historical amazeballsness on offer – including historic cars, and an exhibition populated, at least in part, by mementos of the fans themselves.
The 2024 race will be the 77th running of what is now billed as the biggest GT race in the world. GT cars taking the reins from the touring cars that previously held sway at the event.
What’s that, another one-make series mentioned here? Yup, because Ferrari is debuting the new 296 Challenge in Europe and North America in 2024 as it succeeds the hugely successful 488 Challenge.
The car looks fantastic and the competition has produced some real talents in recent years. Whilst the Porsche Carrera Cup is more numerically and globally dominant and the Lamborghini Super Trofeo has (arguably) better coffee, we think the Ferrari is the best-looking one-make racer of the lot.
After a couple of passes at a factory Hypercar programme came to nought it looked for a while as if United Autosports would be taking a sabbatical from the WEC. But a deal to run a pair of McLaren 720S GT3s in LMGT3 means we get to enjoy its company in the paddock, and their excellence on track, for rather longer!
Whilst the team have run GT4 cars fairly recently it was 2015 when they last raced in GT3, and that has meant significant changes at their Yorkshire HQ – Their LMP3 programmes have halted, and there has been a major reshuffle to accommodate the incoming McLaren’s and a two-car IMSA effort in LMP2.
Another storyline that you just KNOW is going to get traction through 2024 is the fact that we have two brothers racing in Hypercar – for different factory teams.
Still, at least it’s a pair of chilled, not-at-all-excitable, guys!
Nope, it’s the podcasting brethren Laurens (Porsche) and Dries Vanthoor. We love ’em!!
What could possibly go wrong I hear you ask? Tune in all season long to find out!
And finally (simply because I was too tired to find storylines credible beginning with X, Y or Z there’s a big IMSA story to finish.
WTR with Andretti started 2024 as a two-car Acura factory team after the departure of Meyer Shank Racing from GTP (for now at least!)
It’s a very significant change, with a pair of top-rated cars and a squad of top-quality drivers, with the Rolex 24 Hours on the horizon the questions that the team have been asking themselves for the past few months are about to be answered.
Bring it on – all of it. 2024 is set to be quite a year!
