The FIA World Endurance Championship full-season entry list is set to expand to 40 cars for the 2025 season, according to championship CEO Frederic Lequien, who spoke with the media following yesterday’s reveal of a 37-car field for next season.
Lequien explained increasing the capacity of the grid to 40 cars has become “kind of an obsession in the office”, because to accommodate everyone that wants to race the WEC would need “44 or 45 cars in 2025”.
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For 2024, 37 cars turned out to be the maximum. This meant multiple teams missed out on entries, principally due to garage space limitations at some of the circuits on the calendar. This included the Vanwall Racing team in Hypercar and customer teams from Audi and Mercedes in LMGT3.
To reach 40 in the future, clearly making changes to the calendar and adding circuits with more garages is an option. However, Lequien suggested that another solution would be to ask LMGT3 teams to share garage space. This is something that the WEC “is discussing with teams and team managers”.
Either way, Lequien was clear that 40 is the desired number for 2025. “That’s the direction we would like to take. There are so many parameters that have to be taken into consideration. 40 cars for 2025, we will go to 40 cars definitely.”
In the longer term, it appears that 40 will stay as the maximum too. “If you participate in the WEC you qualify for Le Mans, and at Le Mans we have 62 places, we have to pay attention to this,” he explained, hinting that the ACO and FIA wish to retain more than 20 guest spaces on the grid for teams in IMSA, the European Le Mans Series and Asian Le Mans Series.
So what about the teams mentioned above that missed out this year due to the 37-car cap? Will they be able to race at all in 2024? Unfortunately, their chances for next season are effectively over unless they switch to competing with machinery entered for the full season.
When asked by RACER to clarify if teams such as Vanwall or customer teams from LMGT3 manufacturers that didn’t make the cut could compete as race-by-race entries, at circuits that can accommodate additional cars, Lequien said:
“They can make some applications for race-by-race entries, even for Le Mans. And for Le Mans we have a selection committee that will decide on if they will take it or not.
However, “the LMGT3 car must be homologated by the ACO and FIA, so only brands which are going to participate in WEC and ELMS will be eligible for Le Mans, no other brands,” he continued.
“Everybody can apply and ask, but LMGT3 is very well balanced. I do not see any possibility of having one more GT3 in race-by-race, maybe in Hypercar that’s possible.”
He was later asked specifically if the same rules applied to teams looking to compete in Hypercar. Would the team’s car need to be homologated for the full season to be eligible for a race-by-race entry?
“Yes, absolutely,” was his response.
He was also asked for additional comment on Vanwall’s omission from the field for 2024, though he wouldn’t be drawn into any specifics.
“I will not give too many comments on these decisions,” he said. “We have to make decisions based on different criteria, which are right for the sporting regulations. For Vanwall Racing some of those were not ‘ok’. But I want to add that I have a lot of respect and admiration for the team, it was not an easy decision to take.”
Nevertheless, the ACO and FIA are extremely pleased with the 37-car grid that has been assembled for next year and Lequien believes the selection committee made the right calls.
“It has been a tough selection committee, as it is not easy to make certain decisions. We have a limited grid of 37 cars so we must consider all different criteria. You have criteria like performance and history of the car.
“I think we took the logical and right decisions even if it was not easy to take,” he concluded. “I would prefer to have everybody on the grid of course, but we have a limited number of cars we can accept.
“We are now in a capacity to attract big names like Valentino Rossi and Mick Schumacher. It’s big for the championship. We want to expand the audience, and for this we need big names.
“The drivers we have in endurance are extremely good, but they are specialists and because there are three in each car, it’s difficult to get the same media coverage as Formula 1. So to welcome big names is big for the WEC.”
