This is it. Finally, and after so long, premier-level sports car racing is united. The same cars that race at the Daytona 24 Hours and Sebring 12 Hours in America’s IMSA Sports Car Championship can now compete at the Le Mans 24 Hours in the World Endurance Championship – and major manufacturers are flocking back. Two parallel rule books are the key: Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) allows for greater technical freedom and four-wheel drive through front-axle hybrid systems; LMDh is simpler, more contained and based around a spec rear-axle hybrid on the spine of a next-generation LMP2 chassis, yet still allows for creative expression. Both forms should be able to race on an equal basis – and crucially win thanks to a system of Balance of Performance. So who’s in, and who’s doing what in what’s known confoundingly as Hypercar in WEC and GTP in IMSA? Let’s find out as a new golden era for a united world of endurance racing begins.

Ferrari

Class: LMH 2023 programme: Two cars in WEC

Drivers: Any six from Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina, Davide Rigon, Nicklas Nielsen and Alessio Rovera

One of the longest waits in racing history is over. Ferrari is returning to top-level prototype racing as a factory team after an absence of 50 years. Or to put it another way, half the lifetime of the Le Mans 24 Hours itself, a race it has won nine times.

Its comeback with the 499P LMH owes a lot to those numbers. The 50th anniversary of its last shot at outright victory with the 312PB in 1973 and the 100th birthday of the French enduro in 2023 were compelling draws when it looked at making a return. But so were rules that allow for a cost-effective entry at a fraction of what the manufacturers were spending during the LMP1 era and the freedoms that give a carmaker the chance to imbue its racer with the look of its road vehicles.

Nor was the significance of the era just about to begin lost on Ferrari and its sports car racing boss Antonello Coletta, the architect of the 499P programme. Ferrari wanted to be part of something big. So it would be fair to say that the stars aligned for the Scuderia to facilitate the biggest sports car story since Porsche ended another long absence in 2014.

The historic day of Ferrari’s comeback announcement came in February 2021. The 499P – named after the capacity of one cylinder of its twin-turbo V6 – was up and running at Fiorano back in July and since then has been on a whirlwind development programme: the marque has been conscious that it has a lot of catching up to do with the manufacturers in the WEC, as well as Porsche, which has been busy testing its LMDh for a year already. It had two cars running alongside each other almost from the get-go.

The pressure will be on for Ferrari when it and its chosen partner team – AF Corse, which gained vital experience of prototype racing in LMP2 last year to smooth its step up from GT racing – arrives in the WEC at Sebring in March.

As Coletta says: “When Ferrari competes in a category, people see Ferrari first and then all the others.”

Porsche

Class: LMDh 2023 programme: Two factory cars in WEC, two in IMSA

Drivers: André Lotterer, Felipe Nasr, Nick Tandy, Kévin Estre, Frédéric Makowiecki, Laurens Vanthoor, Michael Christensen, Dane Cameron, Mathieu Jaminet, Matt Campbell (to be allocated across the four cars)

Porsche was the first manufacturer to put its hand up in support of LMDh and was almost certainly the first to get board approval, though not the first to commit publicly. But that commitment, announced in December 2020, means that it will be back at the top of the sports car tree only five years after it axed its LMP1 programme with the 919 Hybrid. That compares with the 15-year absence ended by the arrival in 2014 of that car, which would go on to score a hat-trick of Le Mans wins.

As an early adopter, Porsche got its LMDh out on track ahead of its rivals. A car that was subsequently christened the 963 was up and running as early as last January, giving it a six-month head start. It’s not quite what it may seem, however. Much of that time was spent debugging the off-the-shelf LMDh hybrid system produced by Bosch, Williams Advanced Engineering and Xtrac.

A key selling point of the new category for Porsche was that it could race the same car in both WEC and IMSA. It kicks off another chapter in its rich sports car racing history with a pair of two-car assaults in conjunction with Penske. A new entity called Porsche Penske Motorsport will look after the programmes from Mannheim in Germany and Mooresville, North Carolina respectively.

Penske ran Porsche’s RS Spyder LMP2 programme of 2005-08 and the V8 from that car was the starting point for the 963’s internal combustion unit. What started out as a 3.4-litre normally aspirated unit, morphed through a 4.6-litre version in the 918 Spyder plug-in hybrid road car and has now been turbocharged for the LMDh.

The chassis of a new 963, the nomenclature of which tips its hat to the all-conquering 962 Group C car, has been developed by the Canadian-based Multimatic Motorsports organisation. It was also behind the abandoned Audi LMDh, which would have been a 963 with different bodywork.

Audi canned its programme early last year, but there will still be multiple Multimatic-built cars on the grid in both WEC and IMSA. Customer cars are an integral part of the Porsche programme and there will be privateer 963s racing from early in the year.

Toyota

Class: LMH 2023 programme: Two cars in WEC

Drivers: No7 Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway, José Maria López; No8 Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa

The vital statistics of the four seasons in which Toyota raced alone as the only major carmaker undertaking a full season in the WEC, two in LMP1 and two in Hypercar, make for impressive reading: five Le Mans victories and a further 18 wins, as well as a clean sweep of the drivers’ and manufacturers’ titles each time. But now it gets serious for the Toyota Gazoo Racing squad. Perhaps more pertinently it has the chance to cement its sports car legacy by beating Ferrari, Porsche, et al.

Toyota is returning to the WEC with an update of the GR010 Hybrid LMH introduced at the start of 2021. It is understood to have had a new design on the drawing board but took the decision around Le Mans time in 2022 to continue with a rejig of the existing package. What the upgrades will be remains secret, only that they will be more subtle than last season when the car was revamped to run different-sized tyres front and rear. An announcement is likely only in the run-up to the season-opener at Sebring.

The driver line-up is unchanged, however. José Maria López stays as part of the No7 crew that won the title in 2019/20 and ’21 after Toyota had to abandon plans to promote Nyck de Vries from his test and reserve role when he landed a Formula 1 ride with AlphaTauri.

As the reigning champion and the manufacturer with the most experience in the WEC, all eyes will be on Toyota in 2023 as it enters an 11th consecutive season in the championship. The BoP might equal things up in terms of car performance, but teamwork, strategy, reliability and, crucially, getting the most out of a set of tyres through a double stint, lay outside its scope. That’s where Toyota will be hoping, or even expecting, to score big.

Peugeot

Class: LMH 2023 programme: Two cars in WEC

Drivers: No93 Paul di Resta, Jean-Éric Vergne, Mikkel Jensen; No94 Loic Duval, Nico Müller, Gustavo Menezes

Peugeot shocked many when it revealed a show car in the summer of ’21 without a conventional rear wing, and then surprised quite a few when it began racing a car known as the 9X8, sans wing last year. The French manufacturer exploited the freedoms in the LMH rules to come up with something outside of the box and insists that the concept is sound.

The French manufacturer didn’t look entirely convincing on its return to top-flight sports car racing after an absence of more than 10 years. The bosses at Peugeot Sport always stressed that 2022 was a learning year ahead of the big push this season as it aims to repeat the Le Mans successes of its 905 3.5-litre Group C car of 1992 and ’93 and the 908 HDi LMP1 turbodiesel in 2009.

The car never made it onto the podium in the three races it undertook from Monza on, nor did one of the cars get to the finish without suffering some kind of technical delay. It would be wrong to say the car wasn’t quick, especially after a BoP handout for the Bahrain finale, witness Paul di Resta’s front-row starting slot and fastest race lap for Jean-Éric Vergne. But the jury is out on its pace over a double stint on the tyres.

Peugeot chose not to join the WEC until Monza in July, though it would be wrong to call it a delay. When it announced its LMH in November 2019, the deadline was for the start of the 2022/23 season (the series was running to the winter-series format at the time). That would have meant a late-summer debut, so it was arguably ahead of schedule.

Peugeot opted for six months of testing prior to debut in the knowledge that once the 9X8 was homologated, its specification would be largely fixed for the lifespan of the car. The LMH rules allow only five ‘evo joker’ upgrades made in the name of performance.

Peugeot conceded that there was work to be done, but that there was a plan in place as it strived to take a step forward.

Cadillac

Class: LMDh 2023 programme: One car in WEC, two in IMSA

Drivers: WEC: Cadillac Racing (Ganassi) – Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn, Richard Westbrook; IMSA: Cadillac Racing (Ganassi) – Sébastien Bourdais, Renger van der Zande, Scott Dixon (Daytona); Action Express Racing – Pipo Derani, Alexander Sims, Jack Aitken (Daytona, Sebring, Road Atlanta)

Cadillac was the ‘winningest’ marque — in American parlance — during the DPi era of 2017-22 and General Motors always looked likely to continue its participation in IMSA under the new rules. The big news, though, when the General Motors brand confirmed its programme in September ’21 was that it would also be contesting the WEC and bidding for Le Mans victory for the first time since its Northstar LMP of 2000-02.

A single entry will be fielded in the WEC by the Chip Ganassi-run Cadillac Racing squad, which will also run one LMDh in IMSA alongside a car from Action Express. Cadillac has all but confirmed that it will be filing entries for both the IMSA cars to go to Le Mans.

Cadillac has maintained its relationship with Italian constructor Dallara for its new prototype, which is known as the V-LMDh. Underneath the aggressive styling is a 5.5-litre normally aspirated V8. It’s the same capacity and architecture as the power unit in its DPi-V.R, though it is billed as all new.

Like Acura and BMW, the new car was up and running in the summer, so six months after the Porsche. Unlike the other LMDhs, the V-LMDh began testing in North America and has continued its programme, with two cars, on home ground. With three cars in the field, more than the other manufacturers, and a successful 24-hour test behind it, Cadillac might just be favourite to kick off the bright new era.

Glickenhaus

Class: LMH 2023 programme: Minimum of one car in WEC.

Drivers: Ryan Briscoe, Romain Dumas, Olivier Pla

The fledgling US carmaker punched above its weight with its 007 LMH in 2022. The car finished on the podium at Le Mans and would almost certainly have won the Monza WEC round but for a turbo failure. Not a bad showing for the minnow of the WEC field.

Yet for all its successes, Glickenhaus’ programme with its Pipo-engined non-hybrid developed in Italy by Podium Advanced Technologies has been in a state of flux since last summer when it ducked out of the WEC with two races to go. Jim Glickenhaus has been candid about the need for sponsorship or partnership with a customer team if it is continue. Only in mid-December did he confirm that he would be back for 2023.

All he had said as 2022 drew to a close was that Glickenhaus would race with a minimum of one car, most likely fielded by the Podium-run factory team. He hinted that there could be more than one 007 on the grid and that talks with potential partners were ongoing. He wouldn’t be drawn on whether that might involve an extra car at Le Mans in June.

Glickenhaus will need to contest all seven races. The ACO is being firm on what it expects from its entrants in the Hypercar class and that is a participation in all rounds. Last year’s situation when it cut Glickenhaus a bit of slack to skip races isn’t likely to be repeated.

Glickenhaus has also outlined a desire to upgrade its LMH design. The team concedes that it is already too late to have them in place for the season-opener at Sebring, but upgrades could arrive after Le Mans in June on the 007 –or 007s – racing in the WEC next year.

Alpine

Class: LMDh 2023 programme: Test and development alongside a two-car LMP2 WEC assault

Renault’s sports car brand is undergoing a relaunch, so what better way than to promote itself with a campaign aimed at rekindling past glories and repeating its 1978 Le Mans victory with Didier Pironi and Jean-Pierre Jaussaud? Remember the car that year was the Alpine-Renault A442B, not a Renault-Alpine.

The Signatech team that successfully represented the marque in LMP2 from 2013 — winning the class at Le Mans three times and the WEC title twice — stepped up to the Hypercar class in 2021 with an old ORECA LMP1 design ‘grandfathered’ to run against the new LMHs. But team boss Philippe Sinault never made any secret of his ambitions to get a proper programme with either an LMDh or LMH off the ground. Laurent Rossi, chief executive officer of Alpine, admitted at Le Mans in September ’20 that an evaluation of a long-term project starting in 2024 was underway. Confirmation of a WEC assault with a pair of LMDhs came almost exactly a year later. Alpine will continue a relationship with ORECA dating back to 2013 and is developing a powerplant at the Viry-Châtillon facility
in Paris that produced a line of world championship-winning F1 engines. It’s already up and running on the test bench, Alpine has confirmed. Development of the Alpine LMDh started in earnest in the summer once ORECA had got the Acura ARX-06 out on track: it didn’t have the capacity to undertake two design and development programmes side by side. When the Alpine LMDh will hit the track isn’t clear. No timeline has been released, only that it will be this year.

BMW

Class: LMDh 2023 programme: Two cars in IMSA with RRL Racing; testing for WRT in preparation for the 2024 WEC

Drivers: No24 Connor De Phillippi, Nick Yelloly, Sheldon van der Linde (Daytona & Sebring), Colton Herta (Daytona); No25 Augusto Farfus, Philipp Eng, Marco Wittmann (Daytona & Sebring)

BMW will be back at Le Mans shooting for outright victory in 2024, 25 years after its first and only win at the French enduro with the V12 LMR. But first it takes on the challenge of the IMSA series with a new LMDh called the M Hybrid V8, developed in conjunction with Dallara.

North America is the German manufacturer’s biggest market and the project wasn’t signed off until June ’21. That explains why it’s IMSA-only this year – a dual programme would have been a step too far. Bobby Rahal’s RLL team, a stalwart of BMW’s GT programmes, will field two cars in IMSA before the Belgian WRT squad, best known for its exploits with Audi, joins the WEC in 2024 with another two cars.

The car, as its name suggests, is powered by a V8, a twin-turbo developed out of the normally aspirated V8 that BMW used in the DTM in 2017-18. It retains the four-litre capacity of that unit.

The M Hybrid V8 started running in Europe in July and then moved over to the US to continue development on the tracks on which it will race in its maiden season. BMW had expressed content with the development at press time, but some issues have crept in. On its debut at Daytona it could only manage sixth, some 15 laps down after hybrid issues.

Any other contenders?

The other brands gearing up for Le Mans

Acura

A dominant winner at Daytona, but could Honda’s North American brand translate across to La Sarthe? Its 2.4-litre turbo V6 ARX-06 is potent enough. Wayne Taylor and Michael Shank, have expressed a desire to race at Le Mans and the brand hasn’t ruled out supporting that.

Lamborghini

The last major brand to confirm a programme in LMDh. It is has partnered with Ligier Automotive and also the DC Racing Solutions, which includes the Iron Lynx team, for the project. It is set to go racing in 2024 in both IMSA and the WEC with a twin-turbo V8 at its heart.

Vanwall

Your guess is as good as ours… Colin Kolles got a provisional WEC entry for his new ‘Vanwall’ Vanderwell 680, but then legal issues surrounding the naming rights reared up. The car’s up and running, but it remains to be seen if it will be allowed to race in a class for makes only.

Taken from Motor Sport February 2023