[WEC] LMP Future Regulations (was Le Mans EVO rules - now hypercar rules)

[helgi]

Why can't they just make the "balance" process as transparent as possible? All this "behind the curtains" calculations add lots of ..e-e-hm.. conspiracy (not to say farce) in everything. Just show the formulae you use to balance different chassis at different tracks, different engines in different conditions. It would be more or less fair.
Or better, just give the competitors certain amount of fuel and cap the costs with transparent and independent audit with no restrictions on tests or development except of money amounts. It should lead to new, effective solutions, better usage of energy, resources and so on.
It's like aerodynamics. You can not force the air to do something. You'd better gently ask it and gains are quite enormous in that case.

[Juntos]

Originally Posted by TF110

Well, with Peugeot's announcement, do we see DPi with the same leverage? .

From now on, the guys from Paris will start to ignore the IMSA pleas.

[Sodemo]

I'm a little confused at how these regs will work.

As far as I understood, these rules were reliant on a manufacturer entering a road going hypercar (albeit modified). What car then are Peugeot going to enter?

[Mike E]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

I'm a little confused at how these regs will work.

As far as I understood, these rules were reliant on a manufacturer entering a road going hypercar (albeit modified). What car then are Peugeot going to enter?

You can enter anything you like. Modified road car (like Aston Martin) or prototype (like Toyota). The magic of BoP does the rest.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

I'm a little confused at how these regs will work.

As far as I understood, these rules were reliant on a manufacturer entering a road going hypercar (albeit modified). What car then are Peugeot going to enter?

Yes, you are confused. The original regs were not like that, in them you had to make a prototype a la what Toyota is going to do. The regs were published in December 2018. Then at the request of at least Aston Martin the regs were amended and now also a road-going one can be entered. What was sent to FIA last June for approval were these original regs + these road-going car provisions. The final rulebook has not been released yet (might that come out next month? when the likely next FIA council meeting is) so we don't know yet what exact differences there will be between the prototype rules and the road-going rules.

[Deleted]

One other significant additional snippet from Auto Hebdo confirms that Peugeot are one of the manufacturers directly engaged with the development of the 2023/24 Regulations to introduce zero emissions Hydrogen-fuelled car to the FIA WEC and Le Mans 24 Hours.

http://www.dailysportscar.com/2019/1...ar-update.html

The 23-24 bit must be a typo or misunderstanding as that is not the target aim of zero emission regulations, but 24-25, correct?

[deggis]

24-25 would still overlap with the 5-year hypercarcar homologation period.

If it is going to be initially a sub-category regardless then that overlap is not a problem.

[Deleted]

I highly doubt the big OEMs pushing for green ideology would want their hydrogen/new technology to perform on lower pace than conventional combustion engines... even being equal to them would likely be bad for public relations.

Audi or Peugeot doing Garage 56 for one year and qualifying for position 37 and then retiring in hour 3 of the race is fine for that purpose, but when the factories _really_ want to come out, they don't want to play second or equal fiddle to traditional petrol powered cars. Just like no-one in the hybrid LMP1 era would have wanted for Corvette DP to be in the same class and beat em. Or if Formula E allowed F3/GP3 spec cars suddenly into the mix

[deggis]

Whenever it has been mentioned the wording has been "implementing hydrogen technology", "accommodating hydrogen cars", "allowing hydrogen cars to compete", or similar and that 2024 Le Mans is "a target".

But more importantly, it is a pretty short timeframe from getting where the tech is now (that modified LMP3 H24 project car is able to race in Le Mans Cup at the pace of GT3 cars next year, maybe) to a full grid (WEC-adjusted: approx. 5 cars) as the top class.

[Deleted]

The ACO French-to-English translations have always been questionable.

Anyway now that I started looking back, I guess you are indeed correct judging by this (if once again not a case of Lost in Translation - or Dagys misinterpreting):

ACO President Pierre Fillon confirmed that the integration of hydrogen-powered cars at Le Mans are still on track for a 2024 debut.
However, instead of its own class, as initially indicated during the announcement last year, it now appears the cars will compete within the top class, which would add another platform to the mix.
“This is a work in progress but [it will be a mix] with the same performance,” Fillon said.
https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/...-in-top-class/

Dream crushers the mere thought sickens me, if such is becoming reality. So you might have the ACO non-hypercar-hypercar-prototypes, Hypercars, DPi x.0, Zero Emission and whatever else as top class together

If the future - or rather present - is just jamming as much mishmash into one pie as possible without actually thinking what those ingredients do together, why have other classes in the first place anymore... if it doesn't matter who does what, just stuff LMP3 into LMP2 and GT4 into GTE and to both of those add "special cars" from OEMs while relying on balance of performance to 'work it out'. Then throw in more sub-awards to keep people happy...

Public relations aside, what is the incentive of Zero Emission if the performance and development part of racing doesn't actually matter... you will only be left with reliability. And how bad will that look in the first years against the conventional machinery? I mean technology is more or less a gimmick in Formula E too but at least the manufacturers there can theoretically claim to have the best technology somewhere under the hood, even if the chassis are spec and they only have access to limited area of development inside.

[TF110]

Isn't that the same thing that hybrids had a problem with? People screaming unfair because of the hybrid advantages but they should be better because of their inherent advantages... it's a lose lose situation. That's why I feel like putting them in the same performance as the top class at the time is the only way to get everyone on board.

[Deleted]

In the 2014 regulations the ACO forced factories to use hybrid if they wished to compete, the very same request could have been made here (to force factories to use of alternative technologies). It is limiting, yes, but if the alternative is balancing everyone out, it's better. Much better*. Yes we would lost the likes of Aston Martin but they're going to get about five years of easy overall win opportunities now anyway, that's more than generous for a set of regulations that are clearly ACO-FIA's plan B for the moment. Or plan 57C, after all the million changes we've seen after the Le Mans press conference in 2017.

The other option would be to have the Zero Emission as it's own factory class, while the usual combustion engine vehicles/manufacturers are in separate factory class, in order to not make it all about balance of performance. Cars conforming to different set of regulations should belong to their own separate classes, not together. That's the idea of multi class racing.

* Now, I too do remember myself 3-5 years ago hating how ACO forced factories to use hybrids, when clearly many other factions wanted to come with conventional cars, but that thinking had three merits at the time:
1) they had handled the general once-a-year EOT well
2) diesel-petrol equivalency had also been fine after Toyota showed up (2013 was small hiccup but not too bad)
3) other than LMGTE they had not yet screwed up the other categories with brutal balancing crap
So there was faith in ACO actually having the ability to somehow handle it, if they had attempted to bring non-hybrid factory cars alongside hybrid cars. I don't have such faith now, not after giving up to lobbyism and balance of perfomance for the Hypercar regulations. Add into that the inherent problem of Zero Emission being 100% different from traditional combustion engine vehicles, whereas Hybrids were more or less just an added thing to regular cars.

[hondafan37]

I really don't understand the meaning of this new regulation

https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/...t-FZzdL1bRG3Hw

[joeb]

Originally Posted by hondafan37

I really don't understand the meaning of this new regulation



https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/...t-FZzdL1bRG3Hw

ACO trying to make sure private teams don't enter?

[TheMightyM]

Originally Posted by joeb

ACO trying to make sure private teams don't enter?

My (cynical) guess is that this comes as a result of — or even is the price of — attracting Peugeot. As Toyota has said, the value in a factory hypercar program comes from competing against other OEM hypercar programs. Beating to (say) Glickenhaus or (even worse) ByKolles is not brand enhancing and not why you spend the big bucks. Even worse to lose to them.

The more OEMs you have, the less you need small constructors and privateers. And the ACO and WEC have shown who they favor in the past…

And yes, the new ACO/WEC position is in marked contrast to what was said when hypercar was first proposed, when attracting boutique constructors seemed very much to be a goal.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by TheMightyM

And yes, the new ACO/WEC position is in marked contrast to what was said when hypercar was first proposed, when attracting boutique constructors seemed very much to be a goal.

We don't have the definition and the wording could be confusing/misleading but a boutique constructor like Glickenhaus should be "an automotive brand".

Competitors in the Le Mans Hypercar category in the FIA World Endurance Championship must enter a homologated car under the name of an automotive brand.

https://www.fia.com/news/fia-announc...l-decisions-16

[chernaudi]

And what do the ACO/FIA consider a OEM? Can someone just take a car and do a DPI-esque rebadge of it? Or just badge a car as an OEM? Hell, Signatech and G-Drive already are doing that in LMP2, where such things are still allowed even though the ACO promised to tighten that loophole.

[TF110]

Automotive brand is such a general term. It could mean anything.

[PascaLM]

Originally Posted by TF110

Automotive brand is such a general term. It could mean anything.

Yes. Porsche, Toyota, Aston Martin are brand as Riley, Dallara or Oreca are brands. I wait the official regulations.

[Deleted]

Nothing about these regulations makes any sense anyway so I don't know what the big deal is here. And yes obviously there will be plenty of rebranding

Funnier thing is that they're still changing things randomly 8 months before the first race for the ruleset

[CTD]

One aspect where it might make sense is the view of the casual spectator.
The casual spectator will have a lot easier time to identify and connect with a known automotive brand which he/she can read about in the automotive news. For us more diehard fans we love the Rebellions, Dallara, Riley, Oreca, Lola, Pescarolo and Courage cars as we know of the past and the incredible work and passion that is put into these cars compared to the automotive manufactures. However the casual fan does not about this and does not care (yet).

Personally I would rather have a field of WRs than a field of Aston Martins as the passion is the driving point more than the wallet. (Not stating that there is no passion in the Aston program)

When all comes to the point, we, diehard fans are simply not a large enough number to float the FIA WEC, so casual fans is needed and these are best attracted with known labels and badges on the cars.

[Alex Langheck]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Funnier thing is that they're still changing things randomly 8 months before the first race for the ruleset

Hardly a surprise, is it? Making it up as they go along......Hopeless!

[Akrapovic]

Excluding privateers worked so well last time that why not give it another go? We won't possibly end up with manufacturers pulling out and only having ByKolles left.

Egg. Face. Business plan.

[CTD]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Excluding privateers worked so well last time that why not give it another go? We won't possibly end up with manufacturers pulling out and only having ByKolles left.

Egg. Face. Business plan.

I think we might be getting this wrong - privateers are not excluded, they just need some branding to go together with.
The more I think about it, the better I understand it. They need big brands to attract the casual spectator as they are the ones bringing in the money (quantity over quality, spectator-wise)

[hondafan37]

ACO clarifies FIA Hypercar ruling.

” The new phrase used is that entries will be “subject to approval by the Endurance Committee.”
This means that each entry will be looked at on a case-by-case basis should it not meet the initial criteria. ByKolles, for instance, could still be allowed to enter because, the relevant section of the regulations (still unpublished but shown to RACER by the WEC) states that “the Endurance Commission will rule in the last resort, at its entire discretion, on the admissibility of a car brand and car name to the Championship.”

https://racer.com/2019/12/05/aco-cla...percar-ruling/