[WEC] WEC 2019/20 season

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by canaglia

BTW brazil race just a week after daytona 24h

And another Petit-Fuji clash + Sao Paolo is same weekend as Bathurst 12H.

Brilliant job by the WEC - as always!

[EffectiveSprinkles]

Bathurst, people care about that? Come on, why should WEC consider a local GT event on the other side of the world?

And it's a provisional calendar, if Petit Le Mans moves to the slot they've always had there is no clash.

[JHamilton]

Originally Posted by EffectiveSprinkles

Bathurst, people care about that? Come on, why should WEC consider a local GT event on the other side of the world?

And it's a provisional calendar, if Petit Le Mans moves to the slot they've always had there is no clash.

Because the Bathurst 12hr will be a vastly more watched and attended race than Brazil. Also, they should consider it for the health of sportscar racing across the globe, not to mention driver commitments.

PLM, with one exception, has been run over three weekends (last Sat. in September, first or second Saturday in October) so there is no traditional weekend. However, the first time Fuji and PLM clashed, IMSA did move the date and then the ACO moved the date of Fuji to clash again. Screw 'em.

[JHamilton]

Originally Posted by Juntos

By reading ACO press release I got to the conclusion that there is an enormous WEC fanbase in Bahrain!



Please do not BS us. We are not stupid.

"Fans":

[EffectiveSprinkles]

Originally Posted by JHamilton

Because the Bathurst 12hr will be a vastly more watched and attended race than Brazil.

Yeah, no.

Screw 'em.

Now it makes sense.

[JHamilton]

Originally Posted by EffectiveSprinkles

Yeah, no.


Now it makes sense.

You clearly know nothing about the Bathurst 12 hour and have no idea what you're talking about.

Am I upset about the WEC's decisions? Yes. They continually make poor choices that hurt the sport in favor of short term gain.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by EffectiveSprinkles

Bathurst, people care about that? Come on, why should WEC consider a local GT event on the other side of the world?

And it's a provisional calendar, if Petit Le Mans moves to the slot they've always had there is no clash.

It's not a "local" GT event. It's part of the SRO World Challenge. It has factory entries with factory drivers, some of which double duty in WEC.

You apparently haven't even seen the race, and have no idea what it is.

[TF110]

I know Bathurst is really popular but in terms of eyes-on, Brazil's population far outweighs Australia's. All of Australia has ~24 million people. Sao Paulo alone has half that with 12 million, just in the area near Interlagos, and the race takes place during a festival period. You can't be serious in thinking that race must be avoided at all costs by the WEC. It'd be nice but there's only so many weekends in the year. According to DSC there's wiggle room for a date change for Bathurst too. All is not lost. Silverstone dropping to 4 hours is a head-scratcher, but the reasons listed were the attendees and teams trying to leave the circuit. Not sure how true that is. Bahrain I could do without 8hrs of, but they seemingly pay the WEC so if more money comes from them I guess it's worth it since it helps float the series?

[Adam43]

Variable race lengths. Hurrah, just what I wanted. A good step.

[Akrapovic]

I don't think anyone thinks Bathurst should be avoided at all costs, but it is worth trying to avoid certainly. A week after Daytona doesn't bother me though. The amount of teams doing double duty is already dropping and will drop further. Drivers will do double duty between a week, so that's fine - and as you said, only so many weekends. The Petit clash again though is careless. If it was one clash, you say well fine, but WEC seems to make a habit of it.

I agree with your Silverstone reasoning. That's...nonsense. If Bahrain wanted 8 hours then fine, there's no harm in it. But it does feel like someone has a beef with Silverstone. It was dropped for weird reasons, then readded (showing there wasn't really a problem with having it) after backlash, and now it's one of the first to get a length cut. The fan survey said they want Silverstone, and the fan survey rated 4 hour lengths as a lot less popular. It's just...weird. Feels like there's an odd conflict we don't know about. I think when people voted for different race lengths, this isn't quite what they had in mind lol.

It's a decent calendar, it just has weird little bits where it's odd.

[MaskedRacer]

Originally Posted by Adam43

Variable race lengths. Hurrah, just what I wanted. A good step.

Something I realized that this schedule we see posted will be the first season without Ford in GTE Pro.

[MaskedRacer]

Originally Posted by JHamilton

"Fans":

Ha Ha. Lots of people living in Bahrain named Benjamin. They are all big sportscar fans.

[TF110]

There's lots of foreigners and Military who 'live' and work in Bahrain and that area of the M.E. If I were to guess, it'd be more of them attending the race than the locals unless they're the higher ups.

[Akrapovic]

https://storage.googleapis.com/fiawe...dia_Report.pdf (Pages 14-16)

I do find it weird that Bahrain never got mentioned in the fan survey...at all. They even say in that survey that Le Mans, Fuji, Sebring, Silverstone and Spa are the races with the most appeal, and they ranked the highest in event importance (Nurburgring was also up there in ratings). Fans also didn't want 4 hour races. It's just...weird.

No point in looking up attendance, as the attendance for every race outside Le Mans is always 55,000. It's cringy when they announce that about 5 hours into the race.

[Adam43]

Basically there aren’t many sportscar fans and those small number that there are all hate it. They should probably shut up shop. Zero hour races nowhere is the real solution.