[WEC] 2018-2019 WEC Super Season

[MaskedRacer]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Hurrah!

Ok Toyota, now its your move.

[TheMightyM]

Originally Posted by MaskedRacer

Big things to take:

1) 5 WEC races in 2018 now
2) No conflicts with IMSA North American Endurance Cup races

Also a two month break between Le Mans and Silverstone and a four month in the middle of the season between Shanghai and Sebring. If this is the baseline going forward, explain to me again the advantage of a winter schedule again?

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by TheMightyM

Also a two month break between Le Mans and Silverstone and a four month in the middle of the season between Shanghai and Sebring. If this is the baseline going forward, explain to me again the advantage of a winter schedule again?

It's not the baseline, this is still the transitional year. In the future, Silverstone could get moved to September and everything else pushed down a month, then a gap over Xmas-Daytona, then back in.

[GT6]

Well silverstone in August should be good for camping but lets hope it does not clash with other things

[Matt]

http://www.dailysportscar.com/2017/0...ing-plans.html

Looks like Sebring won't be a 12 hour.

[Akrapovic]

Silverstone in August. 8-10 hour race at Sebring. Almost like they read the social media feedback.

Do a 10 hour Sebring race. Start it at 4am. It'll let fans get a nap in, and have time to get the IMSA cleanup done.

[TF110]

A 10 hour race would be good. I think they'll start at 2 or 3 in the morning and that would run to midday.

[chernaudi]

I say 8-10 hours or 1000 miles. Start it at close to dawn and finish it in the afternoon/early evening. Only problem with that start time is could it screw up things for the European TV audience/schedule.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by TF110

A 10 hour race would be good. I think they'll start at 2 or 3 in the morning and that would run to midday.

I got my maths wrong. I meant 4 hours after the IMSA race, which would be 2am, not 4am. So I agree - 2am start for 10 hours would be nice.

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

I say 8-10 hours or 1000 miles. Start it at close to dawn and finish it in the afternoon/early evening. Only problem with that start time is could it screw up things for the European TV audience/schedule.

Not really. Start it 2-3 hours after midnight at the latest and we can watch the start here in Europe while drinking our Sunday morning coffee.

[Akrapovic]

2am Florida time is approximately 7-8am European time (varies throughout, obviously).

All of these changes they're proposing are great, but let's be honest...they're a bit obvious aren't they. All you needed to do was read this forum, Facebook and Twitter the day after the announcement and you'd see all these suggestions. It's great they've listened to the feedback (and I'm sure the teams were giving even more than the fans), but they shouldn't have needed feedback for these changes - these are the obvious and easy ones.

[TF110]

Obvious changes but are they easy to implement? Even with the changes, they're talking about conflicts with other series. You can't please everyone, you're going to step on someone's toes. The question is who. Then getting to run on Sebring again probably took a lot of talks.

[TF110]

Pretty big and good news; the WEC holding a global fan survey!

[Articus]

I think a 24 hour race at Sebring would trump them all...bar Le Mans. Would be interesting to do it on a different weekend than IMSA so that they can start on Saturday.

[AoB Special Stage]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

I got my maths wrong. I meant 4 hours after the IMSA race, which would be 2am, not 4am. So I agree - 2am start for 10 hours would be nice.

Good, we might just have enough time to finish up 2012's podium ceremonies then.

(old jokes, man )

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Articus

I think a 24 hour race at Sebring would trump them all...bar Le Mans. Would be interesting to do it on a different weekend than IMSA so that they can start on Saturday.

You gotta run that race the weekend people would actually show up.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by TF110

Pretty big and good news; the WEC holding a global fan survey!

Taking a page from the IMSA playbook

[S griffin]

I just want to say that the people who are in the sport should look at the future of the sport and they should have a better series in a few donkeys time

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by joeb

Taking a page from the IMSA playbook

I suspect more of the F1/Motorsport.com playbook, as they did one last year in the same format.

Still doing some writing practice, so here's a bit of WEC Calendar analysing.

---------------

The FIA WEC has announced significant changes to the 2018/2019 ‘Super Season’ transitional calendar. The 2018/2019 WEC calendar is designed to move the FIA WEC into a winter season pattern, but the announcement was met with significant resistance. Fans and teams alike appeared unhappy with some of the changes. To the WECs credit, they have listened to the feedback from inside and outside the paddock, and quickly made major changes to the calendar.

Silverstone returns to WEC Calendar

Firstly, Silverstone has returned to the WEC Calendar. The social media feedback was pretty clear – dropping Silverstone was not a popular move. The event was a fan favourite, and a bit of a British Sportscar Festival with ELMS on Saturday and WEC on Sunday. That format will to return, as WEC has re-introduced Silverstone, but for August 19th. ELMS will to run on Saturday, a day before WEC.

The “TBA” race which was pencilled in for January or February 2019 has been cancelled, with that slot moving to August for Silverstone. The TBA race was originally listed as January, but moved to February after feedback from teams who were involved in the January Daytona 24 Hours. That slot is now eliminated for the 2018/2019 calendar.

The WEC was looking at Kuwait for an event, but the move to the winter calendar has put that on the back burner. The now cancelled TBA event was hinted at being an American event. Mexico and Interlagos were in the frame for filling this slot. A deal could not be made for these circuits, and Silverstone returned.

Asian races shuffle backwards

The Fuji and Shanghai races are both being moved a week later than the original dates. Fuji is now scheduled for the 21st of October, and Shanghai is now the 18th of November. The 6 Hours of Fuji original date proved problematic as it clashed with the IMSA Petit Le Mans. Whilst no calendar is perfect, and clashes will happen, clashing with Petit Le Mans was always going to be met with resistance. The move of the Fuji race by a week allows any WEC team to compete in the entire IMSA North American Endurance Championship.

Sebring tweaking?

Eyebrows were raised over the inclusion of WEC in the 12 Hours of Sebring weekend. Whilst most considered it a step up from COTA, the running of the WEC 12 Hours of Sebring just 2 hours after the IMSA 12 Hours of Sebring seemed problematic.

The race was schedule to start at midnight, just 2 hours after the IMSA race finished. This only allowed 2 hours for the IMSA paddock to clear out of pit lane, and the WEC paddock to setup. Concerns were also raised over the potential state of the track, with limited time for cleaning after the IMSA event.

The WEC has now said that whilst the race weekend will occur, changes may be made for logistical reasons. The WEC race could be reduced to 8 or 10 hours, but will be longer than 6 hours. It may also started later, giving the crews longer to switch from the IMSA setup to the WEC setup.

Listening to feedback

Clearly the WEC is listening to fan feedback. The dropping of Silverstone, the Petit Le Mans clash, and the logistical issues of Sebring were the 3 major concerns with the 2018/2019 ‘Super Season’ calendar. Less than 2 weeks later, the WEC has addressed 2 out of these 3, and is working on the Sebring logistical problem.

Many, including myself, have said that the ACO/WEC does not listen to the fans, so this sort of change is quite significant. Furthermore, the FIA WEC is launching a fan survey in conjunction with Motorsport.com, to ask for fan feedback.

Clashes

We’re currently experiencing a golden age of sportscar racing at the moment. Strong manufacturer backed GTE grids in Europe and the US, strong customer racing in ACO, IMSA and SRO competition, and a brand new growing Prototype class in the US. Granted, LMP1 is struggling, but that’s the exception that proves the rule – Sportscar racing is strong right now.

The downside of the strong state of the industry is the amount of races that clash with one another. Formula E has become a growing problem for WEC due to the amount of drivers that race in both series, but they have worked to avoid this. The other series that WEC should avoid is IMSA. With technology shared in the form of GTE/GTLM and LMP2, teams often move between the two series. The Fuji/Petit Le Mans clash with significant, but that has now been avoided.

Critics will point out that the WEC Calendar changes may now clash with SRO events, which could impact on some drivers. But unfortunately there isn’t going to be a perfect calendar, and avoiding Formula E and IMSA should remain the WECs priority.

Future Calendars

Whilst the Super Season is now sorted, we have to wait another 18 months to find out what the new format WEC calendars are going to look like. The August date for Silverstone cannot be considered permanent, as it doesn’t have an off-season break. An ideal solution would be to move WEC Silverstone to September, along with ELMS, and make it the first round of the calendar. Fuji could be moved to November, and Shanghai mid to early December, which shortens the break over the winter. There is an issue around Christmas, but that's a problem that's always going to exist with a winter calendar.

The return of Silverstone may have an effect on the Le Mans Cup calendar as well. The series currently doesn’t race at Silverstone, but was surely set to for 2018 as the original intention was ELMS as the headline series. Could we get WEC, ELMS and Le Mans Cup all in a single weekend at Silverstone? The ELMS and Le Mans Cup Calendars are to be announced at Spa in a weeks time.

The new winter season also opens doors to the Asian Le Mans Series becoming a support event. The AsLMS currently races at Fuji in December, but could that appear on the Fuji, or even Shanghai, support bill? The ELMS/WEC double-header at Silverstone has been a success, so would this be something the AsLMS could consider?

[NaBUru38]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

The [original] announcement was met with significant resistance. Fans and teams alike appeared unhappy with some of the changes.

To the WECs credit, they have listened to the feedback from inside and outside the paddock, and quickly made major changes to the calendar.

Clearly the WEC is listening to fan feedback. Many, including myself, have said that the ACO/WEC does not listen to the fans, so this sort of change is quite significant.

I'm pretty sure that changes were made because of pressure from teams, not fans.

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Critics will point out that the WEC Calendar changes may now clash with SRO events, which could impact on some drivers.

Unfortunately there isn’t going to be a perfect calendar, and avoiding Formula E and IMSA should remain the WECs priority.

IMSA's priority is not to have clashing dates with WEC and PWC. They don't care about Blancpain clashes.

Blancpain, ADAC GT and VLN must avoid clashes between each other.

Therefore, WEC and Blancpain having clashes is pretty much unavoidable.

[Akrapovic]

Teams obviously had a huge amount to do with it, but they have been criticised for not listening to fans, and have reverted a decision and are launching a fan survey. Given the ACOs previous (lack of) fan interaction, I don't think it's insignificant what they've changed here.

As I said, there's no such thing as a perfect calendar with no clashes. This arrangement is as good as it'll get. Busy weekends can be condensed by including AsLMS on WEC events when in Asia, ELMS in Europe and IMSA/WEC for Sebring. I'd go as far as putting ELMS on the Spa/Silverstone WEC weekend as well, and LM Cup, and dropping the single seater events from those. And then putting AsLMS on the Fuji and Shanghai supports whilst WEC is there.

[Coach Ep]

I strongly disagree with combining WEC with regional LMS series as it deprives local teams to make guest entries and have a tow-in-the-water-experience for a possible step up to the world championship.

Also, a 'perfect' schedule wouldn't be too difficult given that WEC does 8 races in a calendar year (only 5 in 2018!), ELMS 5 or 6, AsLMS 4 or 5 and IMSA like 12 so a max. of 20 when combining WEC + IMSA. That still leaves 30 weekends or so in a calendar year as wiggle room. Not saying scheduling is an easy task but it's probably one of the most important areas where a world championship sanctioning body is supposed to earn its money!

[Matt]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

I'm pretty sure that changes were made because of pressure from teams, not fans.



IMSA's priority is not to have clashing dates with WEC and PWC. They don't care about Blancpain clashes.

Blancpain, ADAC GT and VLN must avoid clashes between each other.

Therefore, WEC and Blancpain having clashes is pretty much unavoidable.

I'd say the WEC's priority is to not clash with IMSA. The uproar was from drivers not being able to compete at Petit, not the other way around.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Coach Ep

I strongly disagree with combining WEC with regional LMS series as it deprives local teams to make guest entries and have a tow-in-the-water-experience for a possible step up to the world championship.

Also, a 'perfect' schedule wouldn't be too difficult given that WEC does 8 races in a calendar year (only 5 in 2018!), ELMS 5 or 6, AsLMS 4 or 5 and IMSA like 12 so a max. of 20 when combining WEC + IMSA. That still leaves 30 weekends or so in a calendar year as wiggle room. Not saying scheduling is an easy task but it's probably one of the most important areas where a world championship sanctioning body is supposed to earn its money!

It doesn't leave 30 weekends though does it? A lot of these weekends are not useable. IMSA takes a whole month off after Daytona because it's going from a 24 hour event to a 12 hour event. Le Mans means you count at least all of June off apart from a single weekend, plus July. And then there is off-seasons. And local laws and agreements on when streets can be closed for events, and IMSA on IndyCar schedules. WEC also has to account for Formula E. So it really isn't 30 weekends they have free - there's a lot of things which cannot be moved.

The 'perfect' comment is a little out of context there as well, as I made that in reference to the criticism of the clashing of SRO Events. In terms of avoiding everything, and literally being a perfect schedule, that's just not happening, ever. Even if you only talk about sportscar racing, you're going to get clashes. Version 2 of this schedule is getting pretty decent, after some very obvious mistakes.

Given the success of the ELMS/WEC weekend, I'm not sure I agree with not combining series. It's been a huge success there.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Matt

I'd say the WEC's priority is to not clash with IMSA. The uproar was from drivers not being able to compete at Petit, not the other way around.

It's not a 'vs.' issue. I don't see that many wec drivers or teams looking at entering Petit Le Mans anyway. And vice versa.