[WEC] WEC 2019/20 season

[Anyopenroad]

Originally Posted by sceptic

I don't believe that's true.
WEC basically hires the track from Silverstone, and takes the ticket revenue

WEC is an FIA championship. All such races require a sanctioning fee paid to to the FIA. Competitor entry fees are also paid to the FIA. The WEC events are then run by ACO acting as promoter.

Blancpain and British GT are SRO events. SRO is a private company/club which organises races. Like all such clubs they charge entry fees and pay to hire circuits. They also act as their own promoter.

I believe the circuit keeps ticket revenue in both cases.

[Adam43]

I would have guessed that is the case.

There is no rule about who gets ticket revenue, or any other revenue, who pays who, who promotes it, etc... All deals for race meetings are agreed independently and must satisfy both parties. At one extreme you have F1 and others the club meets. This will fall in between, but I don’t recall seeing specific details ever. Although I’m not that bothered.

[TF110]

Agreed on that, just hope that the race is here for a good few more seasons at least. Hopefully the track will be in good financial shape and the ACO/FIA wants to be racing there.

[Mike E]

Olly Jarvis steps in for an injured Chris Dyson at Ginetta for Silverstone.

http://www.dailysportscar.com/2019/0...lverstone.html


And this Goodyear-liveried Jota ORECA looks good!

http://www.dailysportscar.com/2019/0...r-fia-wec.html

[S griffin]

Nice to see Jarvis being given a chance, Ginetta should benefit a bit from him

[LC2guy]

Cars look stunning in Pit-Lane, Blue seems the new colour of choice in LMP2 ( 6/8 ). Getting excited now, even if on paper it's a weakened grid, it will still be epic !

[GT6]

This time in 2 days i will be watching the cars rather than imagining them.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by GT6

This time in 2 days i will be watching the cars rather than imagining them.

And it still seems strange to me for the season to be starting right now. I like the idea of the winter season, but i haven't wrapped my head around the reality quite yet.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by joeb

And it still seems strange to me for the season to be starting right now. I like the idea of the winter season, but i haven't wrapped my head around the reality quite yet.

Technically this isn't the first time for this timing, the 2010 ILMC season started off from Silverstone in September as well

[chernaudi]

Only thing with that is that the 2010 ILMC was only a handful of races during the fall of 2010. IMO, more a dry run than anything else for what would eventually become the WEC.

[Woolley]

Originally Posted by Adam43

So we have F1 that is paid to race there and gets everything, but Silverstone gets the ticket revenue.

Club meetings would most likely pay Silverstone to host the race and Silverstone would get the ticket sales.

And WEC that is in the middle.

Originally Posted by Anyopenroad

WEC is an FIA championship. All such races require a sanctioning fee paid to to the FIA. Competitor entry fees are also paid to the FIA. The WEC events are then run by ACO acting as promoter.

Blancpain and British GT are SRO events. SRO is a private company/club which organises races. Like all such clubs they charge entry fees and pay to hire circuits. They also act as their own promoter.

I believe the circuit keeps ticket revenue in both cases.

My understanding is Silverstone spends a huge amount on getting a GP, and the only revenue they get is ticket sales. A large part of that revenue goes on security, etc which is required for a large crowd, thus reducing the effective income. The GP therefore runs at a cost which the circuit has to recoup from the rest of its activities. I imagine the phrase 'GP circuit' probably helps, and I suspect the possibility of it not being a GP circuit may have been what put WEC off originally.

I'm not sure about other international events, I guess some of them will pay Silverstone because they want to race there and others are paid by Silverstone because they want them/can make a profit on them. National events will hire the circuit to run their meetings.

And no, 4 hours isn't enough. I want 8 or even 12 ideally

[GT6]

a return to 6 hours would be acceptable

[Akrapovic]

Nobody likes Silverstone. Don't need more than 4 hours. Don't read the surveys.

[Deleted]

Pre-2010 Silverstone was amazing. The new layout is boring and sterile, and the site looks like an industrial zone at places. Even Shanghai has more of a character. It's also annoying to have WEC and ELMS grids separately when they could easily be integrated as per the olden golden days. Anyway I'm looking forward to Silverstone Classic next year now that they're covering the goodness that is Masters Endurance Legends

Go back to Donington Park ACO

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Pre-2010 Silverstone was amazing. The new layout is boring and sterile, and the site looks like an industrial zone at places. Even Shanghai has more of a character. It's also annoying to have WEC and ELMS grids separately when they could easily be integrated as per the olden golden days. Anyway I'm looking forward to Silverstone Classic next year now that they're covering the goodness that is Masters Endurance Legends

Go back to Donington Park ACO

I'm not big on more OrecaP2 than we have already. I don't think it adds a lot to the table to have more of the same car and some slow AM drivers from their GTE class, who probably won't be used to the speed of the lmp1's. The elms grid is nice in its own way but adding it to the wec grid? I don't see what it brings besides more cars, even if that's usually a good thing. It also cuts out content from the weekend because it's no longer its own race (if you want to see it).

[chernaudi]

If the WEC had some decent support race series with it, this wouldn't be much of an issue. But outside of the WEC P/Q/race sessions, most race weekend content seems to be kinda barren.

[Deleted]

Sebring and Bahrain just became more important and the 6/4 hours even less than before, so the correct way (at least for Toyota) to "play" the game of success ballast will indeed be to sandbag hard at Shanghai and Interlagos in order to max out scoring opportunities. So I think they will hand out wins to Rebellion there... Such would also make the rivalry seem more "exciting")

https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/...double-points/

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Pre-2010 Silverstone was amazing. The new layout is boring and sterile, and the site looks like an industrial zone at places.

I think you are missing a real opportunity to be everything used to be better.

Surely you mean pre-1991 before they slowed it down with the Brooklands Luffield complex? This is the circuit Keke set his lap. Or if you want to take that further the mid ‘70s before there was even a chicane at Woodcote.

Whatever the change in 2010 made the circuit better, especially as Abbey had already been chicaned (that’s a new verb) in the later ‘90s.

It made it better from a driver’s point of view as it added faster more challenging corners (and actually more elevation change!). I much prefer it. It is also better from a spectator point of view as it introduced some good grandstand viewing in the new bits that often had actual racing.

As for it being like an industrial zone. That’s not new.

Even Shanghai has more of a character. It's also annoying to have WEC and ELMS grids separately when they could easily be integrated as per the olden golden days. Anyway I'm looking forward to Silverstone Classic next year now that they're covering the goodness that is Masters Endurance Legends

There is so much not to enjoy at this meeting isn’t there? Heaven.

The Classic has always been good, even when the circuit was rubbish. I find the Master Endurance cars rubbish. No where near as good as the racing used to be before the ACO ruined it.

Go back to Donington Park ACO

Donington Park is good too. A fun big club track.

However surely the real hipsters prefer Brands?

[Speedblood]

Won't be attending Silverstone for race day for the first time since 2008 (first Le Mans Series race).
Can't justify £45 for a reduced race length, no support race increase, and a worse grid than previous years. They've basically lopped 2 hours off the end of the day, made no change to improve the day and said pay the same as before. I love my racing across all disciplines and particularly love my sportscar racing, but this is just... No

Saturday for £30 is a much better bet to watch 2 sessions of WEC and get a full days track action but Porsche cup cars and ELMS grid with little variety doesn't excite me like it used to.

Originally Posted by Adam43

Whatever the change in 2010 made the circuit better, especially as Abbey had already been chicaned (that’s a new verb) in the later ‘90s.

It made it better from a driver’s point of view as it added faster more challenging corners (and actually more elevation change!). I much prefer it. It is also better from a spectator point of view as it introduced some good grandstand viewing in the new bits that often had actual racing.

More elevation change? Bridge corner was the biggest noticeable elevation change on the entire circuit before... unless you're counting the cut through on the international layout...?

[Adam43]

You’re right on that, especially as most of the elevation change is in the pit lane now! It’s never been a Spa!

[carbsmith]

Bridge was even with the Abbey chicane a better high speed corner than the new Abbey or Brooklands thanks to the compression. The new shape of Club is truly awful as well. As far as extending the course out and giving more space to stretch the legs as it were to better suit F1 and endurance racing the arena layout works pretty well though.

[S griffin]

I disagree. I think it's given a good overtaking opportunity down the wellington straight. Like the old left right flick before Woodcote 87-90

Anyway Rebellion already faster than Toyota. We'll see if that lasts long enough

[Adam43]

Club has had that style since 1991. The run off is now something that people can get behind whinging about.

Beige was cool. There was a nice small grandstand to watch it from too, but Abbey into farm is good fun. Had a nice tank slapped there!

[TF110]

Since there's no race thread yet, just gonna post here that the #1 Rebellion led the two Toyotas in first practice. They set a 1:38.8 to go .4xx seconds clear of Nakajima in the #8. This time is also 1.1 seconds better than the ultimate best in the same session last year (from the #7 Toyota) and about 1.4 seconds better than their own best time from 2018's fp1. You could chalk it up to the resurface of the track but there's definitely big improvement from Rebellion from a little over a year ago.

[Anyopenroad]

Originally Posted by Woolley

My understanding is Silverstone spends a huge amount on getting a GP, and the only revenue they get is ticket sales. A large part of that revenue goes on security, etc which is required for a large crowd, thus reducing the effective income. The GP therefore runs at a cost which the circuit has to recoup from the rest of its activities. I imagine the phrase 'GP circuit' probably helps,

Yes. And there is a marketing value to being able to say "F1 circuit" which would justify running the GP at somewhat of a loss, but not the seven-figure loss which was being talked about before the renegotiation.

Originally Posted by Woolley

and I suspect the possibility of it not being a GP circuit may have been what put WEC off originally.

Perhaps. I'm more inclined to think that the ACO is just arrogant about its importance and wants to race at glamorous places, which Silverstone isn't. There may just have been a sliver of an argument that with Le Mans and Spa European fans are well catered to, but its not as if there are 30-50k crowds beating down the gates at other places around the world.

Originally Posted by Woolley

I'm not sure about other international events, I guess some of them will pay Silverstone because they want to race there and others are paid by Silverstone because they want them/can make a profit on them. National events will hire the circuit to run their meetings.

F1, MotoGp, WEC and WRX all charge a sanctioning fee. Other aspects of revenue sharing are up for negotiation of course, but the basic starting point is that circuits pay to host those events. Other international events like Blancpain hire the circuit just like a national club does. And I suspect that while the fee will be higher, the basic arrangement is much the same. That's why (for example) Silverstone doesn't open on the Friday of the Blancpain meeting and they don't open Grandstands - SRO won't pay for it.

Originally Posted by Woolley

And no, 4 hours isn't enough. I want 8 or even 12 ideally.

Absolutely. The WEC should not have 4-hour races at all. For these cars and drivers 4 hours is a sprint race.