With the FIA WEC’s summer break in the rear-view mirror, the penultimate round of the season this weekend in Japan sees the resumption of the most hotly contested top-class title battle in many years between Toyota and Ferrari’s Hypercar teams. …
With the FIA WEC’s summer break in the rear-view mirror, the penultimate round of the season this weekend in Japan sees the resumption of the most hotly contested top-class title battle in many years between Toyota and Ferrari’s Hypercar teams.
Currently, in the drivers’ title race, the No. 8 crew of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa lead the standings in Hypercar. The gap between them and the sister No. 7 GR010 and the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 499P crews is 23 points, after the No. 7’s victory at Monza. The driver in the second Ferrari, the No. 50, sit fourth, a further seven points adrift.
The gap in the manufacturers’ world championship standings is 26 points with Toyota leading the way.
With just 65 points still up for grabs in the final two races, this weekend’s round at Fuji Speedway is set to be crucial. After Ferrari missed out on a home victory in Monza to follow up its Le Mans triumph, it is vital that the Italian marque make finds a way to close the gap before the eight-hour season finale. The task is mountainous, though, as Toyota has always been strong on home soil at Fuji and is looking to extend its win streak at the venue to six races on Sunday.
Granted, recent seasons with lesser competition since Porsche departed LMP1 have made for an easier ride for the Japanese manufacturer, but it remains the firm favorite even with the increased competition in the top class. This is primarily because the GR010 HYBRID, in addition to being arguably the strongest all-round package in the category, has raced at Fuji before.
No. 7 driver Mike Conway, who along with Jose Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi is looking to make gains on the sister car in the points tally, says the level of expectation and pressure is therefore high on the team. He expects the battle for the win on Sunday to feature multiple teams.
“It’s going to be close between us, Ferrari and Peugeot,” Conway told RACER. “They have a pretty good shot with the way the BoP has worked out.
“Ferrari seemed a bit quicker at Monza, as did Peugeot in straight-line speed. But we have a little more kinetic energy, and Ferrari will run a fraction heavier. But it’s small adjustments. This place is all about the middle of the lap, even if you’re quick in a straight line if you can’t get through the other sectors, with the way the tires wear here, you won’t be strong.
“Since Monza, we’ve done simulator work in Germany ahead of the race to keep us sharp,” he continued. “We’ve been here early, since last week doing factory and partner visits. We’ve seen that there are so many more fans coming to the races, there’s good momentum and it’s a buzz to be here in Japan. There’s big pressure.”
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Ferrari has also been hard at work with the end of the season in sight. The team tested at Barcelona over the summer, as it did last year following the 499P’s first rollout at Fiorano. Testing at the Spanish circuit during that time each year “is a tradition we would like to keep,” said Giuliano Salvi, the Ferrari GT and sports race cars race and testing manager, because it represented a good benchmark of the car’s progress over the past 12 months.
“We did almost two weeks of simulator work and we are happy with it,” he said. “Part of our success this season has come from the work of our drivers and engineers who have found a good correlation (between the simulator experience and on-track performance).”
“We split the days between the six drivers, it was very demanding mentally,” added driver Miguel Molina. “Physically it’s not as much of an effort, but mentally it’s a lot — we have to keep stopping, clear our minds, have a coffee and go again.”
While the 499P hasn’t competed or tested at the Fuji Speedway before, Salvi’s expectation is that the car won’t be best suited to the circuit’s layout.
“This is the first time we are facing a circuit we haven’t tested at before,” Salvi noted. “It’s more difficult than normal to have a prediction, as every other circuit we have faced so far we were able to test at before the racing, even Le Mans. We are still beginners. We don’t have a lot of data.
“It shouldn’t be a track that suits us — the layout is tricky and the third sector (which is tight and technical, featuring seven corners) is something we have never experienced in previous races. There are some sections that are similar to Portimao, where we struggled in places compared to the others. So we need to find a way to improve on that sort of section.
“It’s an important race for us, because of the championship. Until the math is against us we will give everything.”
Looking further ahead, Ferrari is also going to make the most of the gap between this weekend’s race and the season finale in November, before shifting its focus to the 2024 season. The team still has seven days of testing left from its pre-defined allocation and intends to use it all. In the Middle East, Salvi said it will use its track time to “replicate the conditions of the race (which runs into darkness) as much as possible.”
What: Bommarito Automotive Group 500 / Race 15 of the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series Where: World Wide Technology Raceway, Madison, Ill. – 1.25-mile oval When: Sunday, Aug. 27, 3:30pm ET (green flag 3:36pm ET) With three rounds to go, Alex Palou’s second …
What: Bommarito Automotive Group 500 / Race 15 of the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series
Where: World Wide Technology Raceway, Madison, Ill. – 1.25-mile oval
When: Sunday, Aug. 27, 3:30pm ET (green flag 3:36pm ET)
With three rounds to go, Alex Palou’s second NTT IndyCar Series championship in three years looks nailed on. He’s 101 points clear of the chasing pack, now led by Chip Ganassi Racing teammate Scott Dixon, who won last time out on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course. But that doesn’t detract from the allure of the last three races, starting with the final oval race of the season at World Wide Technology Raceway on Sunday.
Formerly known as Gateway, the 1.25-mile oval is officially located in Madison, Ill., but is often referred to as “St. Louis” since it’s just over the Mississippi River from the Missouri city. Indeed, St. Louis’ iconic 630-ft Gateway Arch almost casts a shadow over the track.
This weekend, Dixon and last year’s WWTR winner, Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden (below), have no choice but to go all out if they are to maintain any slender hope of catching Palou, but must also watch their rear-view mirrors for attacks from behind. P2 through P7 in the IndyCar standings are covered by just 73 points.
That seventh place in points is currently occupied by the outgoing champion, Will Power, who’s still seeking his first win of the 2023 season. He took both pole positions at Iowa Speedway in July, but watched teammate Newgarden claim both wins, despite he and the No. 12 entry having the speed to contend.
Power’s race engineer for all but two of his seasons at this level, and all but one of his 41 race wins, is David Faustino. He spoke to us about the challenges of World Wide Technology Raceway, where Power took pole last season (lead image, above) and led a race-high 128 laps before finishing sixth.
“I think we had a good chance to win both of the Iowa races this year — maybe we took a little too long to pit in the second race — but the Penske cars had the speed, and I’m hoping that rolls well into this weekend,” says Faustino. “But there are big differences between the two short ovals on the schedule, as well as similarities.
“Both of them require max downforce; they both force the driver to lift at both ends of the track, and for the most part, they’re grip limited all the time. So, in qualifying, you don’t really see people trimming out; our aero work is much more about getting the balance where you want it to be to complement the mechanical setup. At both tracks, you want to get to the point where you try to run as much front wing as you can for grip, but without the car becoming too loose on entry and exit.
“But it’s interesting because IndyCar has added available parts to the cars last year and again this year, such as underwing bargeboards, yet you see teams struggling with them. It’s not because they’re not useful options, but because it’s a real struggle to find accurate data that proves or disproves their benefit. For parts like that, it’s hard to get agreement between wind tunnels and the real world, and we don’t have enough days to test them in the real world. Their effect is so ride-height sensitive that you’re working off a little bit of track data and a little bit of driver feedback.”
One of the key differences between Iowa and WWTR is their shape. There’s far less disparity between the minimum speeds at each end of Iowa’s 0.894-mile bullring, because the arcs required for Turns 1-2 and 3-4 are roughly the same, and the progressive banking for each ranges from 12 to 14 degrees. WWTR, however, is shaped like a piece of candy corn, with the Turn 3-4 parabola allowing greater speed despite the surface being banked at only nine degrees, compared with the 11 degrees of the tighter Turns 1-2 (below, Power in 2022).
“Because Iowa is slightly D-shaped, you typically have greater speed into Turn 1 than into Turn 3, but it’s not a big difference,” says Faustino, “and the minimum speeds there are typically lower than in Gateway. And Gateway is also a one-and-a-quarter-mile track, so its straights are longer. Where you might hit 191mph at Iowa, this weekend you’ll probably see 198. But at Gateway, those straights mean you have to slow down more for Turn 1-2, so you have more downshifting, which means more upshifting on the back straight.
“Then you get to Turns 3-4 and that’s much faster…but the way the track surface has degraded, the driver lifts a little there, even in qualifying, and it puts him on a very fine line as to whether he does or doesn’t downshift. That makes deciding on gearing difficult, because you have to try and figure out what your cornering speed is going to be with sticker [new] tires and clean air.”
The knock-on effect of WWTR’s interesting profile is that it forces compromise.
“Because Turns 3 and 4 are much faster than 1 and 2, it’s 3-4 that defines your ride height,” Faustino explains. “People will try to get low there for the best aero efficiency, obviously, but you’re desperate for the car to not get too low and bottom out because it costs you so much speed. You’d like to get lower in Turns 1-2 if you could, but it’s what the car requires through 3-4 that sets your minimum ride height, so you just put up with wherever you may be in 1-2.”
A typical World Wide Technology Raceway issue that’s far less of a problem at Iowa is traffic. Yes, the cars run maximum downforce at both, but getting your substantial wings into clean air is far more difficult on the 1.25-mile oval.
“Iowa offers multiple lines that you can take as you catch a competitor or a backmarker,” explains Faustino (below), “so you can run in a groove where you have clean air — downforce — over at least one side of your car, so you can set up a pass. Gateway is more of a one-line track, except at the start, or on restarts after they’ve swept the track. So suddenly you’re having your speed dictated by the car in front because you’re directly behind, literally running in their wheel tracks and losing all the downforce that you should have with these large wings. That’s when the pace slows, and it sucks people into the decision of going for a fuel-save stint rather than risking everything on a pass. That can end up making everyone run the same strategy, rather than have the fastest guys using their natural speed to go really fast and make an extra stop.”
Adding further unknowns in the WWTR setup conundrum this weekend is the decision by IndyCar and Firestone to try out an alternate compound tire on an oval. Will they just be substantially different in terms of durability, or will they also be significantly faster than a fresh set of “standard” tires? Right now, Faustino is as much in the dark as any other IndyCar engineers.
“That’s a really good question, because we’ve never raced anything like this before, nor have we even tested it,” he says. “What we can say is that we believe we’ve run compounds here before that are similar to what we’re going to get as the alternate tire this weekend. It was back in 2019, and what we found was that we got vibrations as it wore — like the effect of a tire going out of balance — so we’re wary of that. To partly answer your question, we’re expecting the difference in lap times to be substantial, but the question is, for how long?
“We’ll get a set of these alternate tires to try in practice and all we can hope is that we get enough time on them to try and sort those answers out. It’s about finding the crossover point, where they shift from being faster than the ‘regular’ tires to being slower, and whether there will be tire vibrations, too.
“The track has slowed a little bit since 2019, because that was soon after it was repaved, and typically what happens is that as the tracks get more slippery and get more abrasive wear, you don’t get so much of the tire vibration problems. If that’s the case this weekend, then I think you’re just going to use the softer tire strategically when you have a chance to jump somebody by running grippier tires and in clean air. That’s when you’d play that card. But to be honest, right now it’s a substantial unknown.”
You can follow all the practice and qualifying action from WWTR on Peacock on Saturday, Aug. 26, with NBC your go-to location for 260 laps and 325 miles of race action on Sunday, Aug. 27. And to get even closer to it all, grab the best seat in the house with the INDYCAR App powered by NTT DATA and its 14 race day live onboard cameras.
TUNE IN
Saturday, Aug. 26 / 11:00am – Noon ET – Practice 1 – Peacock
Saturday, Aug. 26 / 2:00pm – 3:00pm ET – Qualifying – Peacock
Saturday, Aug. 26 / 5:00pm – 5:30pm ET – High-line practice (two groups, 15 minutes each) – Peacock
Saturday, Aug. 26 / 5:45pm – 6:45pm ET – Final practice – Peacock
Sunday, Aug. 27 / 3:30pm – RACE – NBC, Peacock
• All sessions and the race are also available as audio commentary on SiriusXM and INDYCAR Radio. Tune in, too, to the pre-race show on SiriusXM and INDYCAR Radio, 3:00pm-3:30pm ET on Sunday, Aug. 27.
Ride along with the INDYCAR App powered by NTT DATA
Taking you inside the action, 14 drivers will be carrying in-car cameras. During the race, you can live-stream every one of them with the INDYCAR App powered by NTT DATA. You choose who you ride along with, and you can switch drivers at any time. The App’s free to download for fans worldwide and you can find out more HERE. If you’re not already onboard, take your viewing experience to a whole new level HERE.
Bringing you the onboard action from the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 are…
Josef Newgarden / No. 2 Team Penske Chevrolet
Regardless of his faltering 2023 title quest, the two-time champion has the chance to make history this weekend by becoming the first driver to win all of the NTT IndyCar Series’ oval races in one season. It would also mean he scored his sixth straight oval win, going back to last year’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500. As a four-time WWTR race winner already, Newgarden has to be regarded as favorite on Sunday — but this is IndyCar and anything can happen.
Will Power / No. 12 Team Penske Chevrolet
“Oh yeah, the pressure’s on to keep that chain going,” says David Faustino, Will Power’s race engineer, as the pair seek to get into victory lane at least once in the last three events of 2023 and thereby extend the Aussie’s tally of consecutive race-winning seasons from 16 to 17. Gateway has been Power’s friend in the past — four poles, one victory — but he’s well aware that Newgarden has the opposite tally of successes at WWTR and right now appears pretty much impossible to beat on short ovals.
Pato O’Ward / No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet
O’Ward has amassed three podiums and a fourth-place finish at WWTR (below), a superb record that speaks highly of his oval-racing skills. But truth be told, the Arrow McLaren team, while shining at such as Indy and Texas, have looked only “thereabouts,” rather than right there in terms of short-oval pace in the recent past. Still, if he gets out front, he will be extremely hard to pass.
Felix Rosenqvist / No. 6 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet
Approaching his final races with Arrow McLaren, Rosenqvist will be more motivated than ever to translate his form into unencumbered finishes. There’s an edge to his driving this year that’s extremely heartening to see; he’ll be more than happy to get his elbows out if push comes to shove.
Alexander Rossi / No. 7 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet
Although he won the Indy 500 in 2016 and then at Pocono Raceway in ’18, conquering a short oval is something that this eight-time IndyCar race winner has yet to add to his list of achievements. But Rossi’s aggression on ovals is always a joy to watch from the onboards, so think about hitching a ride with car No. 7 on Sunday.
Colton Herta / No. 26 Andretti Autosport Honda
Remarkably, despite being in his fifth season of IndyCar racing, Herta (below) has yet to finish on a podium on an oval. But his best oval result did come at World Wide Technology Raceway — a fourth place in 2020. Andretti Autosport has blown hot and cold on ovals for quite some time now, but if the team is somewhere in the mix, Herta can lead the attack.
Romain Grosjean / No. 28 Andretti Autosport Honda
This is the track where the ex-Formula 1 ace made his oval debut for Dale Coyne Racing back in 2021 and impressed everyone with his daring passes and car control. He’s certainly not daunted by left-turn-only tracks, and in Texas he threatened to finish on the podium. A top-three finish right now would be a timely reminder of his potential.
Ed Carpenter / No. 33 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevrolet
It’s a long time since Ed Carpenter Racing has truly shone on a short oval, yet WWTR was the stage for owner Ed’s most recent podium, back in 2019, and he did manage to start from fourth for Race 2 at Iowa this year. But turning such sparks of hope into a substantial flame and threatening the series’ big guns for victory this weekend? That seems unlikely.
Christian Lundgaard / No. 45 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda
As Rahal Letterman Lanigan reboots itself after the embarrassment of the Indy 500, short ovals are probably the weakest part of the team’s game, and Lundgaard is still a relative novice on them. Yet he’s a surprising driver, too, and a top-10 finish could be within reach.
Graham Rahal / No. 15 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda
This is the most difficult season that Rahal has endured in the past decade, yet he now has pole position and a runner-up finish at the previous round on the IMS road course (below) to encourage him. Front or back of the grid on Saturday, you can always expect Rahal to give it maximum effort on Sunday.
Conor Daly / No. 30 Team Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing Honda
With Jack Harvey gone, Daly gets the opportunity to join his third team of the season — the second time that has occurred in his somewhat nomadic IndyCar career. And since this has traditionally been one of his best tracks, he may prove an extremely useful addition at RLL.
Kyle Kirkwood / No. 27 Andretti Autosport Honda
Despite being an IndyCar sophomore, Kirkwood knows what to look for from a strong oval car, having won here in Indy Pro 2000 in 2019 and earned a pole and two runner-up finishes in Indy Lights in ’21. His performance this weekend will be dictated by Andretti Autosport’s overall competitiveness, but he could well scoop a top-five finish.
Agustin Canapino / No. 78 Juncos Hollinger Racing Chevrolet
Canapino’s studious approach to his NTT IndyCar Series rookie season will ensure he’s taken everything that he learned at Iowa Speedway and transferred it to this weekend. Given the team’s struggles on the schedule’s only other short oval, he should target staying out of trouble and making it to the finish — one of his admirable specialties — and can then perhaps hope for a result in the top 15.
Linus Lundqvist / No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda
Making only his third start in the NTT IndyCar Series as Simon Pagenaud’s sub, the impressive Swede (below) currently has an average starting position of 12.5! And despite WWTR being his IndyCar oval race debut, maintaining that kind of form may not be out of the question this weekend. Last year, Meyer Shank Racing’s pair of entries qualified 14th and 18th at WWTR, and Lundqvist has already proven himself on this course, taking pole and second place on his way to the Indy NXT (nee Lights) title in 2022.
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A year on from the race debut of the Peugeot 9X8, it feels like the French manufacturer’s Hypercar program has reached a crucial moment as the FIA World Endurance Championship returns to Monza. It hasn’t been a comfortable 12 months for Peugeot in …
A year on from the race debut of the Peugeot 9X8, it feels like the French manufacturer’s Hypercar program has reached a crucial moment as the FIA World Endurance Championship returns to Monza.
It hasn’t been a comfortable 12 months for Peugeot in the WEC. A lack of outright pace and reliability woes have left little to show for the team’s efforts. There have been no wins, pole positions or even a podium place as part of a top class that has been steadily growing in quality and size.
The 9X8’s aerodynamic concept, which relies on its ability to generate the bulk of its downforce through its underfloor, has been a topic of discussion since the car’s public debut. Its powertrain — which initially featured a gearbox that shifted electronically and proved to be notoriously unreliable — has too. However, with the end of its first full season with the car in sight, the mood surrounding the program appears to be shifting and things appear to be turning around.
As a whole, the 9X8 has been steadily improving as a package, with a new hydraulically activating gearbox proving to be a significant step forward in terms of reliability. The outright performance of the car is gradually being unlocked too. Its test program before and during this season, which included two significant visits to Paul Ricard and Magny Cours before the 24 Hours of Le Mans, has been hugely beneficial. Nevertheless, the team was playing down prospects prior to the WEC’s signature race.
“We have to be humble,” driver Gustavo Menezes told RACER before the French endurance classic last month. “Toyota didn’t show up and win in their first year. Peugeot didn’t in LMP1 with the 908 either, and they finished on top in the end. We just have to keep working, but I am genuinely confident we will get there in the end.”
To the surprise of many, though, Peugeot’s 9X8s were in the mix up front at Le Mans, with the No. 94 leading the race overall into the night.
An off at the first Mulsanne Chicane before midnight ended the car’s chances of victory, but there were clear signs that the 9X8 could become a race winner in this BoP-governed category. It simply looked more at home at La Sarthe, the most important location on the calendar. The two 9X8s made it to the finish eighth and 12th overall and, until both cars hit trouble in the closing hours of the race, ran reliably. Now, Peugeot is looking to build on that progression this weekend in Italy.
“We thought that we might have small issues at Le Mans, so it was positive that we were mostly reliable,” Loic Duval, who shares the team’s No. 94 with Menezes and Nico Müller, told RACER. “I wouldn’t say it was surprising, but it was positive. It was encouraging that the car worked in the wet conditions and in the dry too. We can expect another step here (at Monza) because we ran here last year and we worked through problems with car behavior. I don’t think we will be able to fight with the best teams, but we will get closer.
“I think our best opportunities will be at Fuji and Bahrain,” Duval reckoned. “The nature of the circuits and the BoP we have seen for those races shows us that if there is a bigger opportunity it will be there.
“At Monza, you rely on straight-line speed and getting traction on curbs. Because we have different-sized tires to everyone else, traction is always a question mark ao we are not sure where we are going to be. So on pure performance, Fuji and Bahrain will probably be our best chances.”
Peugeot’s unique design stands out from the rest of the Hypercar pack — and also led that pack early on at Le Mans. Motorsport Images
Perhaps the bigger question is what the effort will look like next season. Despite rumors to the contrary, Peugeot continues to insist it is in Hypercar for the long haul.
“The commitment from the brand is still there — it’s still the same,” Olivier Jansonnie, Peugeot’s technical director, told RACER. “Le Mans was a big boost for everybody. We have never been more committed than we are now to winning races and winning Le Mans.”
So what will the 9X8 look like next year, given the restrictions on LMH development?
“You’re stuck with your homologation,” Jansonnie noted. “Still, around the homologation, there are many things you can actually improve and maximize. If you look at Le Mans, we did a lot of things that were very good strategy-wise, but there were some mistakes. We look at the others, they also did well but made mistakes.
“There is still the potential to run a perfect race, which nobody achieved at Le Mans in terms of pure strategy. It’s frustrating because the cars are frozen and you have to expect the BoP to correct your car to the right performance level. But from our side, it’s very clear that there are many things around the car that we can improve.”
Avenues Peugeot can explore before the start of the 2024 season range from making mild revisions to the 9X8, bringing a fundamentally different package to the table, or working towards something in between. No decisions have been made on that yet.
“We would like to make up the gap with a significant development package, but there is something in the rules that needs to be negotiated with the FIA and ACO,” Jansonnie explained. “We can’t disclose it — we are in this negotiation right now. The way the rules are done, we have to agree on what we are allowed to do in terms of the development of the car.
“It’s under evaluation. We have those two options; we are looking at a very basic upgrade of the current package or a very significant development of the car. The exact position of where we are between these two extreme solutions will depend on negotiations with the ACO and FIA. We are open to everything and are looking at all our options.”
Those options could include a major change in direction to the car’s aerodynamic concept. The addition of a rear wing, and therefore a shift in philosophy, was something that was hinted at by a source prior to Le Mans.
“There is nothing developed,” Jansonnie said of the prospect for such a change. “We have different concepts under evaluation. In terms of your aerodynamic package, you have many routes you can take. What is important is what you achieve in terms of results and mapping in the wind tunnel.
“We have different tools — adding a rear wing is one, but we have different ways of achieving it. If you look closely, the parts on the track where we are missing performance aren’t the high-speed areas of the track. It’s a question we get all the time about this car, but it’s not our biggest concern.”
As FIA World Endurance Championship CEO Frédéric Lequien revealed the series’ 2024 calendar last week at Le Mans, he was brimming with confidence about the prospects for trackside attendance and general interest next year and his presentation got a …
As FIA World Endurance Championship CEO Frédéric Lequien revealed the series’ 2024 calendar last week at Le Mans, he was brimming with confidence about the prospects for trackside attendance and general interest next year and his presentation got a favorable reception in a press room filled with media, manufacturer and team representatives. WEC will return to an eight-round schedule with a mix of new and returning venues as well four different race formats, offering a fresh feel to a season that will see the teams travel to eight countries between March and November. There were some surprises, too — one of which had been kept very much under wraps.
The latter was the planned six-hour race at Imola, which replaces the current race at Monza. Lequien told the media that there were multiple factors at play in the decision to switch Italian circuits.
“The first is the motivation for Imola to welcome us,” he said. “We are very close to the mayor — we discussed and accelerated the discussion knowing that Monza will be under renovation during this period.
“We will see what we will do in two years, but let’s enjoy next season in Imola, which is one of my favorite tracks in the world and one of the most historical places for motorsport.”
It appears on the face of it that Imola is not signed up for the long term, though Lequien wouldn’t be drawn into a conversation about its WEC future beyond 2024. The length of Imola’s contract, he said, remains “confidential” while a return to Monza after the renovations to Italy’s “Temple of Speed” are complete remains a “possibility.”
The next big chunk of news to come from the announcement concerned the WEC’s visit stateside next year. The “Super Sebring” doubleheader with IMSA is no more, and the WEC will instead return to Circuit of The Americas in Austin.
A number of factors led to to the sunsetting of “Super Sebring” but Lequien says the USA remains a key part of WEC’s plans for the future. JEP/Motorsport Images
Amid the doubleheader in March, there were rumors aplenty about the future of the WEC in the USA. Clearly, with convergence and the relationship that the ACO and FIA have with IMSA, hosting a round in the USA was never in doubt. Yet “Super Sebring” was always far more popular among fans trackside than it was with TV viewers and a WEC paddock obliged to work to its crushingly taxing timetable filled with late nights, early starts and constant track action.
Racing on the Friday of Sebring race week ahead of the 12 Hours was never ideal for the WEC. Neither was the mid-March slot in the calendar with the addition of Qatar for the opening round (with a new 1812 km/10-hour race format as a nod to the Qatar national day).
“One of the consequences of opening the calendar with Qatar was that we were obliged to modify our plans for the U.S.,” Lequien conceded.
Quite simply, returning to Sebring was no longer viable, so the WEC had to look elsewhere. The rumor mill quickly pointed in two directions: COTA or Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
COTA was always going to be the simpler option, as a venue that has hosted WEC rounds before. The circuit management is also popular with WEC management after stepping in on short notice to host a race days before the effects of the pandemic came to the fore in February 2020, when the planned visit to Brazil that year was canceled.
Indianapolis, though, had been in discussions with the WEC before, while Roger Penske’s takeover of IMS and his team’s Hypercar entry with Porsche surely added to its prospects. In the end, COTA got the nod but IMS remains a potential solution for the future. For now, though, the series aims to make the most of its U.S. visit to college town Austin.
“We found a nice agreement for COTA — the track layout is great for drivers and the city is full of young people,” Lequien noted. “The goal is to have a lot of spectators.
“It’s a difficult place to attract spectators because of other sports and (NCAA college) football games. We will not clash with a football game. The game that weekend (at the University of Texas) will be on Saturday evening, so we will take advantage of that and run the race on Sunday. We have plans in terms of promotion.
“If I told you we will sell 200,000 tickets for COTA I would be a liar, but we will do our best. You cannot have the same strategy for each country.”
Brazil’s Interlagos — another circuit returning to the WEC after multiple years away — has even greater prospects in terms of promotion and fan attendance, according to Lequien. That confidence was demonstrated by the series’ new five-year contract with the São Paulo circuit.
Motorsport Images
“If we talk about Interlagos, it was a dream to make this happen,” he declared. “It started with a discussion with the mayor of São Paulo a long time ago. They showed a very strong motivation. If we go there it’s not just for marketing — it’s going to be a popular race, with lots of spectators. It’s a nice return; we are very proud of that. It’s one of the ‘lands of motorsport.’
“We want to make this event popular — this is the spirit of Le Mans and the WEC,” Lequien told RACER. “We like it when events are popular and people are close to the cars and drivers. We have already announced the ticket prices for São Paulo — we want to keep them very cheap because we want a popular event.”
So what about Silverstone? A return to the British Grand Prix circuit, which has a relationship with the WEC that dates back to its inaugural season in 2012, appeared to be a real prospect. Lequien told the media at Portimao earlier in the season that discussions were ongoing, although at the time he wasn’t in a position to give any clear indications about the future prospects for either the Portuguese or the British circuits. Now we know why, as neither made the final list, although Lequien says the door remains open.
“We have some very close relationships with track management; we see each other at almost all the WEC races,” Lequien confirmed. “We continue the discussions.
“If we want to add one more race we face new problems. It’s not easy. It takes time to evaluate everything but the will to do something with them is there.”
“We do speak all the time with IMSA, and we try to optimize our calendar to avoid clashes. Sometimes it’s impossible…” FRÉDÉRIC LEQUIEN
Adding races is always a very delicate aspect of this process to navigate for any championship. WEC and IMSA have been doing everything they can to avoid clashes. However, with the WeatherTech Championship calendar already at 10 races and the WEC on the up, it is a colossal task, especially when other major events on the racing calendar are considered.
In 2024, there is only one schedule conflict with IMSA — at Imola, which will run on the same weekend as Long Beach.
“We do speak all the time with IMSA, and we try to optimize our calendar to avoid clashes,” Lequien stressed. “Sometimes it’s impossible. It’s complicated to set up a schedule. We do our best but we are proud of this calendar.
“IMSA is growing, we are growing. It’s not a surprise for them or us. We discussed this before the calendar was released. We all did our best to avoid that. For logistical reasons, for TV broadcast reasons, we will have only one clash.”
The bottom line, though, is that Lequien is determined to continue expanding the WEC’s international reach.
“We are a world championship, we need to travel,” he emphasized. “We are going to have eight races and now we are reaching the level that the WEC should have.”
Toyota Gazoo Racing’s No. 8 GR010 HYBRID scored its first win of the FIA World Endurance Championship season in dominant fashion after the team’s Sebring-winning No. 7 crew lost seven laps due to a driveshaft change being required on the car early …
Toyota Gazoo Racing’s No. 8 GR010 HYBRID scored its first win of the FIA World Endurance Championship season in dominant fashion after the team’s Sebring-winning No. 7 crew lost seven laps due to a driveshaft change being required on the car early in the race.
Sebastien Buemi, Ryo Hirakawa and Brendon Hartley finished a lap ahead of the field, although the race was more intriguing than the Sebring 1000 Miles. But ultimately the Japanese team, with its untroubled winning car, proved capable of keeping Ferrari and the other teams in the chasing pack at arm’s length.
“I felt for car 7 — they kept us honest,” Hartley admitted after the race. “They overtook us at the start before their issue. I’m still convinced the others are coming and will get their ducks in a row for Le Mans.
“It was a great race for us though. Today it was perfect — there were no mistakes from the drivers, pit stops, or on strategy. To take the championship lead is nice. We are still making steps. I am proud that the guys have put our experience to good use and optimized the package we have.”
Finishing second was the No. 50 Ferrari 499P of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen, scoring the team its best result to date, improving on the third-place finish in Round 1.
It wasn’t in any way a perfect race for AF Corse, but there were so many encouraging signs. The team’s race pace, and performance in the garage and on the pit wall were much improved in this encounter. As a result, Ferrari was in contention for the opening hours and able to put pressure on the winning car, spending almost five hours on the lead lap.
“Second place represents an excellent performance and a further step forward over the third step of the podium on the debut,” said Antonello Coletta, head of Attività Sportive GT. “We know there’s still a long way to go, and our opponents are very strong. We had a problem with the 499P No. 51 that stopped us from finishing with a double podium, which would have been an outstanding result. We go away happy but aware that we must continue to work, especially on reliability.”
Completing the podium was the No. 6 Porsche Penske 963, on what was an extremely memorable weekend for the young LMDh program. After the IMSA arm of the team claimed the 963 model’s first win globally on Saturday in the IMSA Long Beach sprint race, a first WEC podium today will add to the team’s confidence going forward.
With the third-place finish the No. 6 of Andre Lotterer, Laurens Vanthoor and Kevin Estre became the first LMDh car to finish on the podium in WEC history. It wasn’t a comfortable end to the race, though, as the team under-fueled the car at its last scheduled stop, forcing Lotterer in with 10 minutes to go, almost costing the team third.
Just off the podium, finishing a handful of seconds behind the Porsche, was the car from the only major factory team in Hypercar that didn’t suffer a mechanical drama or significant on-track incident: Cadillac Racing. Over one lap the V-Series.R couldn’t match the front-runners, but the car is significantly kinder to its tires than most of the other cars in the class, which gradually brought the team into play as the race wore on.
Richard Westbrook, Alex Lynn and Earl Bamber, who were out of sync for most of this one due to an additional tire change midway through a stint early in the race, will be thrilled with a second fourth-place finish, which was claimed when the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari suffered a right-front brake disc failure in the final 30 minutes.
The issue for Alessandro Pier Guidi occurred at Turn 1 after a late race restart for an incident for the Vanwall, which also suffered a brake failure that sent Jacques Villeneuve spinning into the barriers and into retirement at the end of the fifth hour. Pier Guidi went straight on at Turn 1, and then went straight on at the hairpin later in the lap.
— FIA World Endurance Championship (@FIAWEC) April 16, 2023
He finished, but had to limp home at a reduced pace with the left-front brake disc doing the heavy lifting. This came after Antonio Giovanazzi suffered issues with the car’s brake-by-wire system early in the race while running in the top three. The Italian was forced to complete an ironman stint, lifting and coasting to control the brake temperature while the team worked to solve the issue. It was a stint which he described as the hardest of his career.
Meanwhile, the No. 7 Toyota had to come in for a rear corner change, to replace a driveshaft and the sensor which failed. By regulation the sensor needs to work, so Toyota was forced to bring the car in despite the fact that the issue didn’t affect its performance. It proved a major setback for Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez, who held the championship lead going into the race and left Portugal with a ninth-place finish.
At Porsche, both its cars suffered power steering issues in the race. The No. 6’s was reported as persistent but not catastrophic, while the No. 5 had to spend time in the garage for repairs due to an electronics-focused issue for Michael Christensen late in the race. It came home last of the classified Hypercar runners.
Peugeot’s No. 93 9X8 also had steering issues, the team was forced to replace the steering rack in the build-up to the race. The car started from pit lane and a lap down, forcing its drivers into a recovery drive for the duration, eventually finishing a respectable seventh, behind the team’s No. 94.
The latter had a far more encouraging race, in the mix with the Cadillac and Porsches for a top-five finish throughout. This performance was by no means a complete turnaround for the Peugeot program, but it has clearly taken steps in the right direction since its woeful outing at Sebring.
There were no issues with the hybrid system or the new hydraulic gearbox. Peugeot will therefore have more confidence that it can take further strides at Spa next time out. With a surprise fifth-place finish due to the limping Ferrari falling back, the No. 94 also made it five manufacturers in the top five.
In LMP2, it was a thriller that went down to the wire, again. Winning the race after late drama was the No. 23 United Autosports ORECA of Oliver Jarvis, Giedo van der Garde and Josh Pierson. It was a welcome change in fortune after the team’s rotten luck in the season opener, when an issue with the in-car camera hit the kill switch on the car and they retired from the lead.
— FIA World Endurance Championship (@FIAWEC) April 16, 2023
The car controlled most of the race, before a fumbled penultimate pit stop as a result of a radio failure dropped Oliver Jarvis to second behind the No. 63 Prema ORECA of Danill Kvyat.
“I had no radio for the whole stint. The battery died and I was on my own,” explained van der Garde, who filled IMSA full-season driver Tom Blomqvist’s seat this weekend, told RACER. “Then suddenly they decided to put Olly in the car as they thought it was an issue with my helmet. We were only supposed to swap the left-side tires at that stop before I took the car to the end. But then suddenly Olly was in the car and I had to unbuckle and sort the drinks system. It was a strange situation, but we did a good job.”
But the final round of stops after the restart wasn’t kind to Prema, as the car dropped to third behind the two United ORECAs, the No. 23 reclaiming the lead, with the No. 22 of Phil Hanson at the end of the race close behind, following Jarvis home
To add insult to injury for Prema, Kvyat lost third in the closing laps to a hard-charging Louis Deletraz in the No. 41 WRT ORECA and came home fourth, the former F1 driver struggling for grip.
The No. 48 Hertz Team JOTA ORECA, in its final outing before the team begins campaigning a Porsche 963 in Hypercar, ended up completing the top five after struggling to feature in the race for the win, and getting involved in multiple lengthy tussles with the cars around it.
Meanwhile, it was a tough day for Vector Sport. After the high of missing out on pole by the smallest margin in WEC history yesterday, today the team suffered a fly-by-wire throttle issue that forced the team in for a lengthy stint in the garage for repairs.
GTE Am came down to a duel in the final hour. Corvette Racing’s pole-sitting No. 33 C8.R and the No. 83 Richard Mille Racing Ferrari ended up in a battle for the lead in the final minutes, with Nicky Catsburg putting on a defensive masterclass to keep Alessio Rovera at bay.
— FIA World Endurance Championship (@FIAWEC) April 16, 2023
“It takes two drivers to put on a show like that,” Catsburg said after the race, “but I have to say hats off to Alessio for driving fair. He was so much faster at the end, but catching is one thing, passing is another.”
Catsburg’s teammate Nico Varrone described the atmosphere in the Corvette garage during the final hour as “stressful.”
“We are so lucky that our team helped us at every stop,” Varrone told RACER. “We were gaining six or seven seconds each time, they kept us in it. Those guys hit the gym multiple times a week and practice every day — hard work pays off.”
In the end, Rovera was unable to make the move and Corvette held on for the win, taking a commanding championship lead in the process with its second straight win to start the season. It was nevertheless a great bounce-back result for Richard Mille Racing, after crashing out of the race in Sebring.
Completing the podium was the No. 85 Iron Dames Porsche, which was in the mix throughout and came home just 25 seconds off the lead.
Just off the podium was a pair of AF Corse Ferraris that finished fourth and fifth, the No. 54 leading the No. 21. The No. 21 crew of Diego Alessi, Simon Mann and Ulysse De Pauw will leave Portugal scratching their heads and wanting more. The car led much of the early portion of the race, Alessi proving to be the class of the field in the opening stints up against the other Bronze drivers.
Next on the schedule for the FIA WEC teams is the 6 Hours of Spa Francorchamps on April 29.
