Ahead of the first season-opener in Qatar, Motorsport Week’s Sportscar Editor Phil Oakley previews the key talking points of an exciting 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship season.
It is quite incredible to see the growth the FIA WEC has had over the last few years.
From a miserable five cars in Hypercar in 2021 (and four in GTE Pro), new manufacturers and teams has seen the entry list fit to burst for 2024.
The addition of Peugeot to the Hypercar class in 2022 boosted the numbers and then Ferrari, Porsche and Cadillac joining the fun in 2023 increased the numbers further still, to 13 full-season entries and 16 at Le Mans.
Good going, yes? Well, you haven’t seen anything yet.
The entry list for the 2024 WEC season lists 19 Hypercars, alongside 18 new-for-2024 LMGT3s, replacing the GTE class.
We can expect considerably more of each class for Le Mans, as well as welcoming LMP2 back to the fold, with the class unfortunately being cut from the full season due to the expanding Hypercar and LMGT3 classes.
Hypercar
It would be crazy to say anyone other than Toyota are the team to beat in Hypercar this year.
Yes, Ferrari won Le Mans — on pace — and were very strong at a number of other races last year. But by virtue of the length of time Toyota have been in WEC, having raced in almost every WEC race, apart from the first two races of 2012, they have the target on their backs once again.
“Next year with so many competitors, yes, we’ll have a target on our back, but in a way it adds some pressure,” said Toyota’s Brendon Hartley on a pre-season media call.
“And it also feels nice. Everyone’s working really hard and everyone’s pushing the maximum to stay on top.”
The team will run its GR010 in a new striking black livery, which at least in theory should help it stand out against the competition. They’ve also got a new driver, welcoming former reserve driver Nyck de Vries back to the team, replacing Jose Maria Lopez in the #7 car, alongside team principal Kamui Kobayashi and Mike Conway.
Although they seemingly lacked pace during the Prologue pre-season testing, and the new Balance of Performance has given them the heaviest, least powerful car, ruling them out would be unheard of.
Amongst Toyota’s now-numerous challengers, based on last year, Ferrari are the most likely to pose the biggest threat. The Italian manufacturer won Le Mans in 2023 — at the first time of asking in the scarlet 499P — and will be looking to build on that in 2024. Plus, there will be three Ferrari prototypes on the grid this year, with the two red factory cars joined by a yellow customer car, also run by AF Corse.
Behind the wheel of this customer Ferrari, the first factory LMH-rules car to be raced by a ‘customer’, will be two factory Ferrari drivers, Yifei Ye, who’s moved over from Porsche and JOTA, and Robert Schwartzman, the Ferrari Formula 1 nearly-man who is highly rated by the Italian team.
Joining them will be Robert Kubica, who’s been in LMP2 for the last few years and was previously lined up to drive for Ferrari in Formula 1 over a decade ago, before his rally accident put paid to that. So this is a nice ‘circle of life’ moment for the Polish driver.
Porsche are back for another year, now with five cars in total on the grid — two factory cars run by Penske, two JOTAs, and a Proton car. After a year spent learning about the 963, for all three teams, this year will be the year to put those learnings into practice.
Performance did improve through last year, with a factory Porsche leading at Fuji for well over half the race, but that needs to happen a lot more often for the programme to achieve its aims. They also topped every session at the Prologue, with JOTA topping two sessions and the factory team the remaining ones.
Peugeot are probably the returning team with the most unknowns compared to last year. The new 9X8, now with a rear wing and standard 29-34 wheels and tyres, unlike the 31-31 set up of last year, has been majorly revised using the joker system.
The car will debut at Imola, the second race of the season, and all eyes will be on whether the French squad can improve on its performance compared to last year.
With Losail International Circuit’s billiard table-smooth track surface, the team are also hoping the 2023-spec 9X8 will work well at Qatar — and in the Prologue they set respectable times. But of course that’s just testing.
The culmination of Peugeot’s struggles were getting traction down out of corners, and getting the ground effect to work on tracks it wasn’t optimized for. The changes to the car should help both of these factors — at least that’s what ‘The Lion’ is hoping.
The other returning team is the American Cadillac team, run by Chip Ganassi Racing. Much like Porsche, Cadillac will be looking to consolidate on last year and move forward in 2024, with a largely unchanged car.
The big difference is Richard Westbrook is no longer with the team, with Alex Lynn and Earl Bamber being joined by a rotating driver line up picked from Cadillac and Chip Ganassi’s driver pool for the longer races, while remaining as a duo for the shorter six hour events.
The uber-experienced Sebastien Bourdais will be the first of these drivers to join the Brit and Kiwi at the Qatar 1812 km. At Le Mans, rather excitingly, they’ll be joined by the exceedingly rapid, two-time IndyCar champion Alex Palou, who raced for Cadillac at Daytona this year.
And so to the “new” teams, or at least new to Hypercar. Alpine are returning to the class with a proper Hypercar for this, rather than the old ex-Rebellion R13 that they raced in 2021 and 2022.
The Alpine A424 is a real looker, built by Oreca and with a Mecachrome V6 in the back. Hopefully that won’t be a cause for concern, given the same engine is in the back of the Formula 2 cars and reliability has, shall we say, not been the best.
That said, the engine has been extensively modified, as recounted by Alpine driver Nico Lapierre on a pre-season media call.
“It has been a lot of work to adapt this engine to endurance racing,” said the Frenchman.
“The structure is the same, but everything inside has been changed. And one of the strengths of Alpine, they have a lot of engine bench in Viry-Châtillon, and I can assure you that the engine was running a lot on the bench.
“And also we’ve been able to run already 30 hours in a row on the simulation. So on the engine side, we are quite okay.”
WRT and BMW are the other new team to Hypercar. The M Hybrid V8, though, has already raced for a year over in the United States as part of the IMSA championship, so WRT have a lot of data to draw on to get up to speed as quickly as possible.
Known as one of the best sportscar teams in the world, it will be intriguing to see how quickly the Belgian team can get up to the front of the grid, with its stellar driver lineup and Dallara-built chassis.
At the Prologue, they were right in the mix with the other teams, so maybe WRT and BMW could spring a surprise come race day.
Lamborghini are the last new big car manufacturer in the class, entering one SC63 this year and two at Le Mans.
The green prototype is sure to be a fan favourite, and with Iron Lynx running the car and the drivers including former F1 driver Daniil Kyvat, Lamborghini stalwart Mirko Bortolotti, and Edo Mortara, best known for his exploits in Formula E, it probably won’t take long for them to move up the grid.
Finally, the last new car comes from Isotta Fraschini, a name last heard from in motor racing in the first half of the 20th century. The car has been built by Michelotto and tested around Europe, but it remains to be seen how quick it’ll be against its competition. It has a V6 turbocharged engine in the back, built by HWA, and also comes equipped with hybrid — not something seen that much in a ‘boutique’ prototype.
However, the driver lineup isn’t exactly stellar — a platinum who’s mostly raced touring cars, plus two young silvers — so don’t go expecting great things from this team from the off.
LMGT3
There’ll be 18 cars in the new-for-2024 LMGT3 class, one less than in Hypercar. Every manufacturer has entered two cars: Aston Martin, Ferrari, Porsche, Corvette, Ford, Lexus, Lamborghini, BMW, and McLaren.
So, quite a list of big names. All the teams are ‘customer’ teams, privately entered by the team and not the manufacturer, although like in other series the lines do get a bit blurred here.
The pick of the bunch would seem to be either the #46 WRT BMW M4 GT3, driven by Ahmad Al Harthy, Maxime Martin, and Valentino Rossi. Yes, you heard correctly — the motorcycle legend is racing in the WEC this year.
Another car to watch out for is the #81 TF Sport, with WEC newcomer Tom Van Rompuy, Rui Andrade, and Charlie Eastwood behind the wheel. Eastwood and Andrade are both known quantities, quick and reliable, and Corvette know endurance racing, even if they’re new to GT3 racing specifically.
The Iron Dames are back in a Lamborghini instead of a Porsche this year, as a result of Iron Lynx’s tie up with the Bologna-based manufacturer.
As a result of grading changes, Doriane Pin will replace Rahal Frey in the car, alongside Sarah Bovy and Michelle Gatting. After the Dames’ breakthrough first win at Bahrain last year, the team will be hoping for more in 2024.
Keep an eye too on the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3.
This will have Ian James, Daniel Mancinelli, and Alex Riberas on board, who also raced the Heart of Racing car last year after Paul Dalla Lana called time on his racing career last year.
Heart of Racing are stellar in IMSA and with Prodrive support, it’ll be hard to bet against them. The Vantage has also been upgraded this year with an Evo package, giving the British manufacturer an even better chance of success.
Elsewhere, AF Corse’s Ferrari squad will always be strong, as will the Manthey-run Porsches. The Lexus RC F GT3, a now-aging car around a decade old, has seen a few upgrades and will be run by the ASP team, known for their Mercedes efforts in the last few years.
Former Toyota man Jose Maria Lopez will front one of the cars, with Kelvin van der Linde in the other.
Ford have also returned to WEC for the first time since their final year with the GT. Proton will be running the new Mustang GT3’s, and while the Daytona debut for the car was challenging, a team of Proton’s quality won’t take long to get to grips with the brand new pony car.
McLaren and United Autosports have teamed up — hardly surprising given the co-owner of both — and will also likely be a force to be reckoned with. That said, the driver lineups aren’t particularly exciting, likely because United team boss Richard Dean only had a couple of months to learn about the GT driver market after years in prototypes, as recounted to Motorsport Week.
In truth, though, it is hard to predict this class because of its newness and GT racing’s knack for throwing up the unexpected.
WEC’s 12th season, though, is sure to be an absolute banger. If you’re looking for top-tier sportscar racing action, this will be the series to watch in 2024.
