WEC’s new era hit hard by Aston’s call

The world endurance championship’s LM Hypercar future has become all the more uncertain after Aston Martin’s bombshell that it is postponing the Valkyrie.

The car maker’s announcement follows the news that the next generation of IMSA SportsCar Championship prototype (LMDh) will be able to race in the WEC from 2021/22.

Aston’s Valkyrie decision means the WEC is currently entering the post-LMP1 era with just a single major manufacturer in the form of existing brand Toyota. Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus also says it will compete.

Aston laid the blame for its decision firmly at the door of LMDh. It pointed out that its business case for the project involved selling cars to customers and collectors and, as Aston suggested, who’s going to invest in a machine costing multiple millions when they can buy an LMDh machine based on an LMP2 car and compete on equally for a third of the price?

Peugeot, scheduled to return to the top flight of the discipline in 2022, has come out and said that it is now considering going down the LMDh route rather than LM Hypercar.

WEC promoter the Automobile Club de l’Ouest has insisted that the hypercar class does have a future and that has to be the case now that Toyota is a long way down the road with its new car for 2020/21 and has made clear it is not interested in an LMDh concept.

Where Aston’s news and Peugeot’s wavering leaves the series in both the long and short term is far from clear for all involved.