FIA World Endurance Championship Archives

Organisers change plans for 88th 24 Hours of Le Mans – spectators not allowed

Each year, usually around June, thousands of spectators (250,000 in 2019) ring the Circuit de la Sarthe in France to watch the classic 24 Hours of Le Mans race. This year – for the first time since the first race was held in 1923 – there won’t be the carnival atmosphere at the 88^th edition of one of the best known events in the motorsport calendar.

Surge in infections force change
With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, permission is being given by governments to run races with strict conditions largely aimed at avoiding spread of the coronavirus. Originally, besides being postponed to September 19 and 20, the event was allowed by health officials to have spectators. However, with a recent surge in infections in France, this was changed and no spectators are allowed. Teams and media must also be at a minimum and follow stringent procedures just like Formula 1.

“The 88th 24 Hours of Le Mans will go down in the annals of history as, sadly, the world’s greatest endurance race run this year with no spectators trackside,” said Pierre Fillon, President of the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO).

Health and safety the priority
He explained that even a limit on the number of spectators could not be considered as health and safety are the highest priority. “Given the constraints involved in organizing a festival-scale event over several days in the current situation, we have opted with the local government authorities to hold the race behind closed doors,” Fillon said.

“Fans will not miss out altogether,” he assured. “They may not be at Le Mans but our media teams and service providers will bring Le Mans to them! Thanks to the new digital platform, they will gain an exclusive insight of what goes on behind the scenes at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.”

*A Toyota TS050 Hybrid racing car in one of the past events.*

The second last round of the 2019/2020 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) will have 62 teams taking part. There will be 4 free practice sessions, qualifying, the Hyperpole session and a warm-up, culminating with the 24-hour endurance race on the 13.6-km course.

Last year, the starting time of the 2020 race was changed to 4 pm on Saturday, one hour later than usual. However, in replanning the whole event program this year, the race itself will start at 2:30 pm on Saturday.

7 races for this season
The championship season began with the 4 Hours of Silverstone in September 2019 and races were run in Japan, China, Bahrain, and the USA (Texas). There was also a second race to be held in the USA at Sebring but this was cancelled due to the pandemic.

Before Le Mans, there will be a 6-hour race at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium on August 15. The final round will be the 8 Hours of Bahrain scheduled for November 21.

Looking ahead
The 2020/2021 WEC season will see the brand new Le Mans Hypercar category in place of the LMP1 category. Assuming the pandemic diminishes and countries are less restrictive, there are 8 races (ranging from 6 hours to 24 hours) scheduled to be run in Europe, Asia, Middle East, Africa and the USA. Two new venues – Monza in Italy and Kyalami in South Africa will be on the calendar.

Goodyear makes return to global motorsport at Silverstone WEC opening round

Over the weekend, the opening round of the 2019/2020 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) at the Silverstone Circuit in England marked Goodyear’s global racing comeback. For the new season and its racing partner, the company had developed 4 all-new tyre specifications to start the 8-round WEC season.

Three top WEC teams (Jota Sport, Jackie Chan DC Racing and High Class Racing) will race on Goodyear tyres in the highly competitive LMP2 class for high-downforce prototype cars. At Silverstone, this was the only WEC class to feature open tyre competition, providing the perfect showcase to benchmark Goodyear’s latest technology.

Goodyear WEC — *Jota Sport is one of the three teams Goodyear is supporting in the WEC*

All-new approach for ultimate dry performance
The WEC regulations allow tyre manufacturers to supply a range of up to 3 dry-weather tyre specifications to racing teams for the season and Goodyear has chosen their first two specifications after an extensive 12,000 kms of testing at 7 circuits.

At Silverstone, Goodyear offered their A (softest compound) and C (medium compound) specification tyres to the three teams. These both feature brand-new constructions designed to offer driveability and consistency across the varied season of WEC circuits.

“With races lasting between 4 and 24 hours, our focus was to develop a range that had the versatility and performance to cope with varying temperatures, stint length between pit-stops and cater for the needs of a wide range of driving styles,” explained Mike McGregor, Manager Race Sales, Testing & Track Support.

With the first three races (at Silverstone, Shanghai and Fuji) being in temperate climates, Goodyear will initially focus on working closely with the teams to optimise the A and C around their cars. They then will consider introducing their third specification at the Bahrain (December 14th) or Sao Paulo (February 1st) rounds.

Commenting on the conditions at Silverstone, McGregor said the new track surface had been expected to have a major impact on race strategy: “Testing had shown that earlier resurfacing had created a very high grip circuit that put heavy loads through the tyres. We also noticed the surface took longer to ‘rubber in’ after rainfall which was one of the reasons we had chosen softer compounds to give drivers the confidence to push hard on new tyres after a pit-stop,” he explained.

Due to the resurfacing, the FIA relaxed the regulations to allow teams to use an additional set of tyres during the event. This change turned the 4-hour race into a series of flat-out sprints between pit-stops, which is another reason that Goodyear had chosen an aggressive tyre selection strategy.

Wet focus – new technologies introduced
An English summer race means that wet performance is likely to be a talking point. Goodyear’s LMP2 wet features a dramatic new tread pattern with curved grooves in the shoulder to dispel water at high speed but with a large continuous centre rib to retain stability and grip under heavy cornering loads. This design is inspired by Goodyear’s latest Eagle F1 SuperSport range for ultra high-performance road cars.

The intermediate tyre actually features the same construction as the A-spec dry tyre to enhance its grip changing wet to dry conditions. This versatility allows the teams to optimise stint lengths between pit-stops.

Goodyear’s testing encompassed 7 different circuits with the goal of testing in as many different wet conditions as possible. In addition to the circuits of Silverstone, Donington and Rockingham in England, Goodyear also headed to Northern Ireland to Bishopscourt before testing at Portimao (Portugal), Motorland (Spain) and Sebring (USA). “We’ve tested in wet conditions that have varied between 4 degrees C. to 35 degrees C., giving us a deep understanding of what’s needed to win in the wet,” said McGregor.

Starting off with a strong pace
Jackie Chan DC Racing finished the LMP2 class in 4^th position, followed by Jota Sport in 5^th and High Class Racing in 7^th. “The pace of the race shows the benefits of a tyre war. The battle at the front produced lap times that were over 3 seconds a lap faster than the 2018 race and all 3 cars used a mix of our A, C and intermediate tyres during the 4 hours. We are pleased to have returned in such a competitive arena and have shown strong pace as well as learning a lot for the future. It bodes well for the rest of the WEC season,” said Ben Crawley, Director of Racing.

Farewell Tour for history-making Toyota TS050 HYBRID

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing’s history-making TS050 HYBRID has been further optimised ahead of the 2019-2020 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) season as the team prepares to defend its World Championship and Le Mans 24 Hours titles.

The 8-race season, which kicks off this week with the annual Prologue test in Barcelona, Spain, represents the final competitive entry for the TS050 HYBRID. The racing car made its debut in 2016 and has been at the centre of memorable moments in endurance racing history ever since.

Its Le Mans debut almost ended with victory before the unprecedented drama of a technical issue on the penultimate lap. In 2017, Kamui Kobayashi piloted the TS050 HYBRID to the fastest-ever Le Mans lap on his way to pole position, while Mike Conway set a new race record this year.

TS050 HYBRID gave Toyota first-ever Le Mans win
The 2018-2019 WEC season saw the TS050 HYBRID go down in history in 2018 as the first Toyota to win Le Mans, while a repeat 1-2 victory a year later capped an extraordinary season which saw TOYOTA GAZOO Racing win both the Teams’ and Drivers’ World Championships.

For the upcoming season, a 1,000 ps 4-wheel drive hybrid prototype has been modified with revised aerodynamics and further fine-tuning of mechanical parts to strengthen reliability.

“As a team. we have grown stronger and more resilient during the TS050 HYBRID era and we need to demonstrate this again as we challenge to defend our titles and, in parallel, prepare for the new hypercar regulations.”

Hisatake Murata, Team President

Veteran drivers plus newcomers
Behind the wheel of the #7 TS050 HYBRID will continue to be the trio of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose María Lopez. Brendon Hartley, a former Le Mans winner and WEC champion, joins World Champions Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima in the #8 car. Thomas Laurent will combine his new role as test and reserve driver with an LMP2 race seat with Signatech Alpine in order to enhance his development.

The farewell tour for the TS050 HYBRID begins in September with the 4 Hours of Silverstone, the first of 8 races on 4 continents. In total, the car will cover 66 hours of racing on historic tracks such as Sebring, Spa-Francorchamps and Fuji Speedway, ending at Le Mans in mid-June 2020.

Aston Martin Valkyrie makes first public run at Silverstone

“Aston Martin Valkyrie continues to redefine what you and I recognise as a hypercar, possessing unrivalled levels of performance in a package that is technologically beyond anything else. “

Andy Palmer, Aston Martin Lagonda President & Group CEO

The Aston Martin Valkyrie has broken cover after making its dynamic public debut in front of an enthusiastic crowd ahead of the 2019 British Grand Prix. Piloted by Aston Martin High Performance Test Driver Chris Goodwin, the 740 Nm/1,160 bhp (at 10,500 rpm) machine, took to Silverstone’s world-famous Grand Prix circuit for its first public demonstration run. With the focus not on outright lap time, today’s showcase offered a glimpse of what is to come from this extraordinary hypercar.

Following months of digital modelling and simulation work alongside both Aston Martin and Red Bull Advanced Technologies’ engineers, today’s drive is one of the first times that Aston Martin Valkyrie has been driven in the physical world – a testimony to the technological capability of the team’s cutting-edge development techniques.

World’s most extreme road car and platform
The Valkyrie is described as ‘the world’s most extreme road car and platform for a future FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) challenger’. Aston Martin will enter at least two works Valkyrie racing cars in the 2020/21 FIA World Endurance Championship. In line with the WEC’s confirmed ‘hypercar’ regulations designed to allow race-prepared derivatives of the world’s fastest road cars to fight at the forefront of world sportscar racing, the Valkyrie will draw on all the radical pillars of the road car and its track-only AMR Pro variant.

The car will feature a race-prepared version of its bespoke high-revving normally-aspirated 6.5-litre V12 engine. Placed within a lightweight carbonfibre structure, and featuring F1-inspired aerodynamic technology, it forms a fully competitive platform capable of challenging for outright race wins. It was created as a result of a technical and strategic collaboration between Aston Martin, Red Bull Advanced Technologies and project partner AF Racing.

“I’ve driven this car around Silverstone for countless hours on the simulator at Aston Martin Red Bull Racing’s HQ and in many other sportscars throughout my career, but to drive Aston Martin Valkyrie here today feels exceptionally special. Of course, we still have a lot of development work to go but we can now begin to really push the physical testing process and realise the capabilities of what we have developed over the past months. Putting that aside, today has brought a real smile to my face and I hope that the crowds watching from the stands enjoyed it as much as I did,” Chris Goodwin said on completing the lap.

The 150 road-going Valkyries are sold out, with first deliveries commencing in before the end of 2019.

Redesigned Porsche 911 RSR ready to defend world championship title [w/VIDEO]

The brand-new Porsche 911 RSR – the most spectacular 911 of all time – is ready to defend its World Endurance Championship (WEC) title. In developing the new Porsche 911 RSR, substantial insights were garnered and adopted from the extremely successful race outings of its predecessor.

“Since 2017, the 911 RSR has yielded us more than 20 class wins in the world championship as well as at long-distance series in North America and Europe. Our job in the development was to make a very good car even better. The engineers at Weissach have perfectly implemented this in every aspect,” says Fritz Enzinger, Vice-President Porsche Motorsport.

“We never rest on our laurels,” added Pascal Zurlinden, Director GT Factory Motorsport, explaining that the development team extensively analysed all factory and customer campaigns with the 911 RSR. “Our engineers noticed room for improvement in a number of areas. We have made significant progress in the development of our car for the next three-year homologation period, especially in the complex areas of driveability, efficiency, durability and serviceability. 95% percent of the car is new. The only components that we’ve kept unchanged from the predecessor are the headlights, brake system, clutch, driver’s seat and parts of the suspension. Tests so far have run excellently. We’re already looking forward to the first races of the 2019/2020 FIA WEC season.”

Biggest boxer engine in a 911 ex-works
In terms of the drivetrain, Porsche remains faithful to its chosen path. The latest 911 is also powered by a 6-cylinder naturally aspirated engine. The highly efficient boxer unit positioned in front of the rear axle has a displacement of 4194 cc and – depending on the size of the restrictor – produces around 515 bhp.

The new power unit is the largest ever boxer engine to be mounted in a 911 ex-works, and offers even better driveability over a wider rev-band compared to the predecessor’s proven 4-litre aggregate. Power is delivered to the rear wheels via a weight-optimised, more rigid sequential six-speed constant-mesh gearbox.

The new powertrain ensures faster gearshift times and increased efficiency. The two exhaust pipes now exit on each side in front of the rear wheels. The new exhaust gas ducting saves weight and is aerodynamically advantageous.

With the repositioning of the tailpipes, space has been made for an optimised diffuser. The distinctive component at the rear now generates even more downforce. Thanks to the optimisation of airflow at the front and the sides, aerodynamic efficiency and stability have increased significantly, thereby further improving the use and durability of the tyres during racing.

Improvements for usability in long-distance racing
Driveability and serviceability are critical factors in long-distance racing. For this reason, Porsche placed particular emphasis on these aspects when developing the new 911 RSR. The cockpit has been reworked with the focus on better usability.

In this regard, extensive feedback from the Porsche drivers proved invaluable. Like with the predecessor, the body made of carbonfibre reinforced plastic can be swapped out quickly and thus ensures efficient pit processes in long-distance racing.

To give drivers added protection, the active and passive safety elements in the 911 RSR have been improved. The proven collision warning system allows drivers an even better overview to detect other approaching cars early enough. The optimised roll cage, the FIA side impact panel in the door and cage as well as additional impact protection for the legs improve the passive safety in the event of an accident. Other features include the removable roof hatch and the rigidly-mounted racing seat featuring a 6-point safety harness for the driver.

Porsche to abandon LMP1 in favour of Formula E racing

Porsche has announced that it will take part in the Formula E championship beginning in 2019. The sport is the first competitive racing series that comprises of fully electric racing cars that conform to the specified formula. The series was launched in 2014 and has seen a steady growth in viewership around the globe.

Unlike Formula One, Formula E seasons begin toward the end of the year and conclude toward the middle of the following year. This is done intentionally so as not compete with other forms of Motorsports series including Formula One. It’s purpose is to remind the public that electric vehicles can offer the same enjoyment as conventional race cars.

Its races are conducted on specially designed street courses in the heart of major cities worldwide. And unlike most racing events, Formula E travels to the spectators instead of the other way around.

Porsche’s participation here, also signals the end of its involvement in the LMP1 category of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC). Its a world famous racing series that showcases the very best that automotive manufactures are able to offer. Most notable events of the series include the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in addition to the North American IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

Its a series that Porsche has dominated these past four years. And despite this news, Porsche isn’t pulling out of all conventional racing series in favour of fully electric ones, instead it will still be campaigning with the 911 RSR in teh GT class of the WEC.

In LMP1, Stuttgart based automaker has had three successive victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and World Championship titles in both the team and driver classifications in 2015 and 2016. However, this will be the last year that Porsche competes in the LMP1 category of the WEC as it mounts a defense of its back-to-back title wins of the previous years.

Speaking of this drastic move, Michael Steiner, Member of the Executive Board of Porsche AG responsible for Research and Development, said, ” Entering Formula E and achieving success in this category are the logical outcomes of our Mission E project. The growing freedom for in-house technology developments makes Formula E attractive to us.”

He went on to say, “Porsche is working with alternative, innovative drive concepts. For us, Formula E is the ultimate competitive environment for driving forward the development of high-performance vehicles in areas such as environmental friendliness, efficiency, and sustainability.

This restructuring of priorities at Porsche will help it to align its Motorsports activities with its direction stated in the Porsche Strategy 2025, which will see Porsche develop a combination of conventional GT vehicles and fully electric sports cars. This includes cars like the first fully electric Porsche model that will be due soon, which is based on the Mission E concept car.

Many automakers are making the gradual shift to the electric mobility platform from the fuel guzzling machines of today. This is the result of ever stricter emissions regulations imposed by regulatory bodies in Europe and North America as well as the surge in demand for EVs.

That said, it will be awhile before automakers like Lamborghini and Ferrari mirror the move made by Porsche. They still believe that the visceral feel of contemporary petrol engine race cars are still unbeatable and that it will be awhile before they dip their toes in any type of EV racing series.

Porsche introduce new driver line-up for WEC

Porsche has announced its new driver line-up for the upcoming season of the 2017 FIA World Endurance Championship. After three years without change, the German automaker has decided to shake things up a bit for the 2017 Porsche LMP Team. Driving the No.1 Porsche 919 Hybrid are Neel Jani, Andre Lotterer and Nick Tandy.

Jani, is currently joint WEC champion and 2016 Le Mans winner. But he isn’t the only drive with winning experience, teammate Lotterer was the 2012 world champion with the Audi team, while Tandy was part of the winning Porsche team at Le Mans in 2015.

The driver line-up for the No.2 Porsche is made up of 2015 world champion Timo Bernhard and new Zealanders Earl Bamber and Brendon Hartley. In 2015, Bamber claimed joint victory with Tandy at Le Mans and in the same year Hartley partnered Bernhard to win the World Endurance title.

Porsche has some serious championship experience with both teams of drivers and will probably be a formidable foe for the upcoming season. The Stuttgart based team has just completed testing at the a number of circuits such as Valencia (Spain), Aragon(Spain), Vallelunga (Italy) and the Paul Ricard circuit in France. Look out for more news of the team soon.

Piston.my