It’s been a while since the FIA World Endurance Championship announced a revised calendar for the remainder of the 2019/20 season and subsequently pushed the start of Season 9 (originally the 2020/21) campaign back to March at the very least.
It was a difficult but logical decision in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has thrown motorsport calendars worldwide on its head as governments around the globe have scrambled to fight the virus. This has typically taken the form of various means like stay-at-home orders, forced shutdowns of bars and restaurant and, like Belgium and Germany both announced last week, summer-long bans on major public events.
In light of all of this, it is safe to say that pressing on with the current schedule would both have been irresponsible and practically impossible, as well as a logistical nightmare.
But, to WEC’s credit, the championship has been quick to acknowledge its new responsibilities and act upon them: it cancelled the 1000 Miles of Sebring mere hours after the United States government enacted a European travel ban and postponed both the 6H of Spa-Francorchamps and 24 Hours of Le Mans months ahead of schedule, which was good.
This was followed by a new revised schedule to conclude what is left of the 2019/20 calendar, with Spa moved back to August, Le Mans postponed to the end of September and a November round in Bahrain to make up for the Sebring cancellation.
Unfortunately, with the very fast moving developments surrounding the pandemic, even this new calendar might still be at risk of further delays because of the aforementioned Belgian event ban. This could see the new date for Spa be moved yet again, although there is no indication from the WEC at time of writing that it plans to further revise its schedule.
But even if we assume that this schedule sees even more changes as the COVID-19 situation evolves, one thing is abundantly clear: Season 9 will not kick off before 2021 is ushered in. The WEC itself has made that clear as much, confirming that the calendar for what was supposed to be the 2020/21 campaign will be altered significantly and will likely not kick off before March, with Sebring the likely candidate for season opener.
And that is if we even can go racing before then. This pandemic is so far proving rather difficult to control and it’s understood that it could take months before it is safe and responsible to start hosting races at an international level again. As Grand Prix Editor Phillip Horton explored on F1’s side of things, having a world championship return to normal might take a lot longer than assumed.
That isn’t even mentioning the situation in individual countries like the United States, where the number of confirmed cases surpassed 750,000 on Monday. How long before hosting races on American soil will even be considered? I don’t think anybody has a concrete answer to that question.
In any case, to get back to the original topic. For the sake of argument, let’s say that this whole situation is somehow solved by the time we all count away the final seconds of 2020 in December and say goodbye to a year that not many of us will remember too fondly. Say 2021 starts, we can all go back to racing and the new and revised Season 9 is clear to kick off at Sebring International Raceway in March. From a championship perspective, there might be a few reasons why this decision could turn out to be a positive one.
Ditching the Super Season
The Super Season was created in the wake of Porsche’s departure from the WEC stage in late 2017, a trend that was started when Audi did the same thing a year earlier. At the time, it made the WEC abandon the calendar year format it had been using since the inception of the series in 2012. Season 2018/19 was dubbed the ‘Super Season’, kicking off with a round at Spa in May 2018 and concluding with the 2019 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, meaning the Super Season marked the first time in championship history that the race was held twice in a single season.
The same winter format was originally retained for the 2019/20 campaign, albeit with a September kick-off and one edition of Le Mans instead of two, although the French endurance classic would still act as the season finale before the real world intervened.
Although the decision to revert back to a yearly cycle has been made with the looming economical impact of the pandemic in mind, it can also be argued that getting rid of the winter format might also be the right step for the series. The longer season provided more challenges than opportunities, and the length of the championship, particularly during the original Super Season meant it felt like it rather dragged on at times.
Then there’s the topic of the season finale at Le Mans. On paper, it is a brilliant idea to have the championship decided at the grandest stage of them all. In reality, because the season before it had gone on for so long, most of the title fights had been all but decided. The difference between first and second in both LMP1 and GTE Pro was more than 35 points by the time we got to Le Mans. OnlyLMP2 was still very close, with a difference of four points meaning it really was winner take all in that class. In addition, it did feel like the title battles were drowned out by the grandeur of the race itself. After all, Le Mans on its own is an institution and arguably doesn’t really need the added gimmick of a title decider.
Reverting back to a calendar-based schedule like it had pre-2018 might be a step in the right direction for the championship. Not in the least because of the aforementioned economic impact due to the pandemic would make the continued existence of a longer, more stretched-out season questionable at best. And it would bring the calendar back in line with other sportscar series like the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship. Which brings us nicely to…
The Convergence Conundrum
It’s weird how quickly things can change, isn’t it? It seems like a lifetime ago under current circumstances (maybe because March has felt like the longest month in recorded history), but was only back in February when we were all collectively caught up in speculation and discussion about Le Mans Hypercar and LMDh. Aston Martin had pulled the plug on Valkyrie, blaming the cheaper alternative LMDh had created, Toyota confirmed it would stick to LMH because it had no choice and Glickenhaus, the third player in the drama, lashed out at Aston Martin, labeling them ‘pathetic’. Good times.
Since then, it’s been understandably quiet on the convergence front. The announcement of further details, which was supposed to take place at Sebring, was delayed. Both Aston Martin and Glickenhaus have since notably shifted their focus from producing racecars to producing medical equipment to aid and protect medical staff.
It’s easy to forget, but when we last raced at COTA in February, the LMH/LMDh debate was in a fairly tricky spot. As just mentioned, Aston Martin had pulled out, Peugeot wasn’t even close to ready yet, Glickenhaus’ 007 hypercar would not make the September start of the season and ByKolles had seemingly disappeared off the radar completely. As Toyota had firmly committed to Hypercar and their car was already in development, it left the Japanese manufacturer all by their lonesome (where have I heard that before?)
If there is one positive from this crisis we’re all living through, it’s that the convergence process has been granted the one thing it massively needed: time. More time for the ACO and IMSA to iron out the kinks, and maybe even more chance to prevent a repeat of 2012’s WEC kickoff.
For those that don’t remember, the first race of the newly created FIA WEC featured only Audi as a top prototype manufacturer after Peugeot’s abrupt withdrawal as a result of financial woes. Toyota, to their credit, stepped up and brought the TS030 Hybrid to the championship earlier than planned, but prior to Le Mans, it was just Audi and few LMP1 privateer entries with little hope of challenging the diesel giants.
The postponement of Hypercar’s introduction gives both Toyota and Glickenhaus the time they needed to continue working on their car, especially now that they need it most. But it would also give the folks in charge more time to work out the regulations for both LMH and LMDh to solve the issues that had presented itself before the pandemic took over our lives.
It also gives LMDh more time to be developed as its introduction to the WEC has been pushed back from September 2021 to the 2022 season opener, meaning the two classes would likely first share the track at Sebring in 2022. By that time, the issues would hopefully have been worked out and we can go back to enjoying top class prototype racing like we did before we all had to shelter in our own houses.
