WEC 2017 WEC Season - Page 14

Dyson Mazda · 28 Mar 2017, 02:48 (Ref:3722022)

Quote:

Originally Posted by carbsmith

28 cars across only 3 different car types for races in China and Bahrain is fine. I think people have a skewed idea of how big world championship car counts have historically been.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_360_km_of_Brno

They also had more than 12 factory entries.

bentley speed 8 · 28 Mar 2017, 04:12 (Ref:3722037)

12? Can we count those C2 cars on that list as factory teams?
Otherwise it's just Mercedes, Jaguar and Porsche.

carbsmith · 28 Mar 2017, 05:09 (Ref:3722049)

They aren't even factory Porsches.

If Silverstone wasn't a WEC/ELMS double header and Spa didn't have an ELMS round I'm sure you'd see more "wildcard" entries.

Akrapovic · 28 Mar 2017, 06:28 (Ref:3722059)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dyson Mazda

They also had more than 12 factory entries.

Arguably ELMS has been just as entertaining as WEC with 0 factory entries.

I think 28 cars is a bit lower than hoped for, but given we lost 2 Audis, RGR was lost to the Mexcian economy and Larbre failed to get a plan in place, it's easy to see where those cars went.

PorscheFanNo1 · 28 Mar 2017, 07:20 (Ref:3722069)

I think everyone is forgetting that both LMP2 and GTE-AM switched to new regulations for this season. That always means less cars in the first year until enough cars are distributed and made available.

I dont think 28 cars is in any way bad. And I can easily see the feild back up to around 35 cars for next year.

carbsmith · 28 Mar 2017, 08:51 (Ref:3722091)

There's actually the same number of cars in LMP2 while GTE Am lost 1 car (but Pro gained 1 from the Porsche factory replacing Dempsey Proton). It's the 4 (really 3 post Le Mans) car drop in LMP1 that's responsible.

Sodemo · 28 Mar 2017, 10:08 (Ref:3722115)

28 cars in a sprint formula, or touring car series would be a good grid. In an endurance type series, its pretty poor in my view. Should be at least 40 cars. This isn't a local, national championship, its meant to be the "flagship" endurance world series.

Akrapovic · 28 Mar 2017, 10:15 (Ref:3722116)

Wasn't it capped at 30 not so long ago? What is the cap now?

fergus_r · 28 Mar 2017, 10:18 (Ref:3722117)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sodemo

28 cars in a sprint formula, or touring car series would be a good grid. In an endurance type series, its pretty poor in my view. Should be at least 40 cars. This isn't a local, national championship, its meant to be the "flagship" endurance world series.

ELMS

Main reason I'm going to Silverstone.

isynge · 28 Mar 2017, 10:30 (Ref:3722120)

Quote:

Originally Posted by fergus_r

ELMS

Main reason I'm going to Silverstone.

Increasingly Saturday at Silverstone is the better day - WEC qualifying, what is generally a cracking ELMS race, and the prospect of a convivial evening in Buckingham afterwards.

fergus_r · 28 Mar 2017, 11:14 (Ref:3722127)

Quote:

Originally Posted by isynge

Increasingly Saturday at Silverstone is the better day - WEC qualifying, what is generally a cracking ELMS race, and the prospect of a convivial evening in Buckingham afterwards.

Yes, Saturday is always my go-to day. Friday is good as well, especially for just a tenner to get in, and there's the first F3 race too (whereas nothing raced on Friday in the past).

RWill2073 · 28 Mar 2017, 13:54 (Ref:3722169)

28 cars would be ok if a large bulk of them weren't essentially a spec category. It does have the feel of alms with the pc/gtc classes the only thing keeping them from 17 car grids. Sub Porsche for audi, Toyota for 2 acuras, add a couple stragglers like intersport/dyson/muscle milk for rebellion/kolles, some spec p2s for pc's, and an amateur gt class for gtc and it looks quite similar. Maybe that's fine for a regional or national series, but for a world championship?......

chernaudi · 28 Mar 2017, 15:33 (Ref:3722196)

A World Championship that last I checked had a grid cap of about 35 cars max for non-LM events. Not to mention that not long ago ALMS and GA had trouble getting more than 25 cars to show up for an event that wasn't one of the big ones?

If Audi were still around, along with Labre and RGR, we'd be at 32 cars, which is close to the ACO's self-imposed cap.

Acid09 · 28 Mar 2017, 15:56 (Ref:3722199)

The only gripe with this year's entry list for me is the spec-nature of LMP2, more variety would be welcome there. Then again, you can't fault Oreca for building such good cars.

If Audi was there, the numbers would be as usual, so there's no reason to panic. As long as LMP1 is competitive, all is fine.

bentley speed 8 · 28 Mar 2017, 16:09 (Ref:3722202)

Hopefully Toyota and Porsche are close enough to give us some good on-track fights.

carbsmith · 28 Mar 2017, 17:47 (Ref:3722219)

There was a time that C1 was effectively a Porsche 956 single make category. Obviously it had the large advantage of the cars not being identical but these things happen.

I'll reframe this again, but WEC basically has 28 cars in 3 categories, which is equivalent to ~38 cars in a 4 category series like IMSA or ELMS (take out GT3 and LMP3 and see what those grids look like). You can't expect an enormous amount of full time cars in a world championship because it's much more difficult to enter. If you were a true gentleman Am I can't see why you would do it looking at the track lineup compared to ELMS.

J Jay · 28 Mar 2017, 19:26 (Ref:3722239)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Acid09

The only gripe with this year's entry list for me is the spec-nature of LMP2, more variety would be welcome there. Then again, you can't fault Hugh de Chaunac for whispering sweet nothings into Pierre Fillon's ear.

I dare say this is more accurate. It's not hard to present a better car/package when you've had such close links to the series organizers and rules makers.

28 cars is about as good as it was going to get this year, so I'm pleased enough. Selfishly, most of my attention will go towards the pro classes, so as long as they are close it should be a decent season at least.

XtC24 · 28 Mar 2017, 21:07 (Ref:3722257)

Quote:

Originally Posted by bentley speed 8

Hopefully Toyota and Porsche are close enough to give us some good on-track fights.

For me this is the most important condition for this season to be decent.
Otherwise it will be hard to watch the whole 6 hour races, regardless of what is going on in other classes.
Le Mans is other thing naturally.

MaskedRacer · 29 Mar 2017, 00:33 (Ref:3722312)

Quote:

Originally Posted by bentley speed 8

Hopefully Toyota and Porsche are close enough to give us some good on-track fights.

No way. I want Porsche to dominate!

Bcarr6 · 29 Mar 2017, 08:03 (Ref:3722370)

With BMW in GTE Pro next year, I wonder if it will finally push Corvette to bring at least one Pro, even if that effort is Labre driven.

Sounded like it got closer than ever this year, and hopefully that additional competition in BMW will push them on

Simmi · 29 Mar 2017, 10:43 (Ref:3722402)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bcarr6

With BMW in GTE Pro next year, I wonder if it will finally push Corvette to bring at least one Pro, even if that effort is Labre driven.

Sounded like it got closer than ever this year, and hopefully that additional competition in BMW will push them on

You'd hope so. But I sort of feel like if it was going to happen it would have already happened, especially with Ford joining the party.

Mike E · 29 Mar 2017, 11:27 (Ref:3722404)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simmi

You'd hope so. But I sort of feel like if it was going to happen it would have already happened, especially with Ford joining the party.

And Corvette is not exactly a massive seller globally. IMSA is a more natural fit from a PR point of view. Le Mans is something else, of course.

TF110 · 29 Mar 2017, 23:16 (Ref:3722509)

I hope for a Pro Vette. But maybe they are planning to go with a mid engined car soon? Those mules running around definitely look right in time for a replacement to the C7.R

carbsmith · 30 Mar 2017, 00:04 (Ref:3722519)

I get the feeling it's probably very complicated to get a global racing budget with GM. Plus Corvette Racing's budget is a shadow of it was 10 years ago anyways, it seems like mostly a cheap national fan interaction program rather than a hardcore international racing effort at this point.

MaskedRacer · 31 Mar 2017, 18:37 (Ref:3722864)

So is both the #61 and #54 Ferrari 488's running the WEC in Clearwater silver/orange livery?

View Poll Results: Where will the WEC US round 2017 be held?
Circuit of the Americas (early September? with PCW?)	17	36.96%
Indy - plenty of history and, more importantly, plenty of run off	6	13.04%
Montreal - close enough to the US border and would serve US N-E audience very well	8	17.39%
Road America - the only right choice but lots of 'upgrading' to do to please the FIA blue blazers	7	15.22%
no US (or Canadian) round at all - the WEC doesn't need a race there anyway...	6	13.04%
somewhere else in North or South America (Brazil???)	2	4.35%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 46. You may not vote on this poll

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