United Autosports is set to join the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in 2024, with a pair of LMP2 class ORECA 07 Gibsons for the full season.
The Anglo-American team, which has been competing in the FIA WEC’s LMP2 category since 2019, has opted to place its headline 2024 prototype racing program in IMSA due to the incoming changes in the WEC’s class structure.
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From next season LMP2 has been dropped from the World Championship due to a combination of growth in the Hypercar field and the introduction of the LMGT3 class, which is almost certain to be oversubscribed.
United’s co-owners Richard Dean and McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown had been working to find a solution that would allow the team to stay in the FIA WEC for next season. RACER understands that on two separate occasions, with two separate major OEMs, United came extremely close to confirming a factory deal for Hypercar.
However, neither came together in time and the timeframe to build a new LMGT3 program, with no certainty of gaining entries at this stage, is simply too short.
“We are going to step away and race in IMSA and see how the marketplace in the WEC develops in both Hypercar and LMGT3,” Dean told RACER.
Its 2024 IMSA program will run out of a new, larger facility in the USA, which will replace its current space in West Palm Beach Florida. The team is already in talks with a number of drivers.
This will not be the team’s first foray into the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. In 2018, it competed in three of the Michelin Endurance Cup rounds with the Ligier JS P217 platform. That year, its Rolex 24 effort was spearheaded by Fernando Alonso and Lando Norris. A more recent program saw the team field an ORECA at select IMSA rounds in 2021 and 2022.
This new IMSA full-season campaign will run alongside continued ELMS and Asian Le Mans Series programs in 2024. Dean says the team remains keen to continue supporting the prototype classes in ACO-rules racing outside of the FIA WEC going forward.
“LMP2 is definitely still appealing to us,” Dean told RACER. “When you are an aspiring Hypercar team like we are, it’s the best place to be in terms of relevance if you want to make that step. It’s the obvious training ground.
“From a business perspective, these are still amazing cars to drive, there is a lot of desire from drivers to drive them. The fact that the ACO will keep accepting LMP2 entries at the Le Mans 24 Hours is a hugely attractive reason to stay in the category.
“Even if we are successful in building a Hypercar team, I like to think we would still stay in LMP2. It’s a college for people who want to race in prototypes. We love LMP2. The ELMS and Asian Le Mans Series are strong and the ORECA is an incredible car for the money.”
Dean also told RACER that the team has kept an open dialogue with the ACO throughout its decision-making process in the run-up to today’s news.
“We have wanted to make this announcement earlier, but we wanted to respect the ACO and let them make their announcement on the future of the LMP2 category first,” he said.
“This move to IMSA doesn’t affect our commitments to the ELMS and Asian Le Mans Series and our desire to compete in both going forward. We also have a desire for two cars at Le Mans again next year. We love the places that ACO racing can take us.
“In the meantime, we are going to throw everything at IMSA and take on this new challenge.”