With one other spectacular version of the Le Mans 24 Hours within the rearview mirror, it’s now time to stay up for the second half of the FIA WEC season, with 26 hours of racing throughout 4 occasions left and World Championship titles in each courses on the road.
Up subsequent is the journey to Brazil, the place for the primary time since 2014 the WEC will compete on the Interlagos Circuit in São Paulo. Like at Spa, Imola and Le Mans, the occasion in Brazil’s most populous metropolis is predicted to attract an enormous crowd.
However the Autódromo José Carlos Tempo will not be the one circuit welcoming the WEC again after an prolonged absence this season. The Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas, will play host to the sportscar racing’s premier globetrotting championship in September (on Labor Day weekend), for the primary time since 2020.
The final time the WEC visited COTA, sportscar racing was struggling for relevance. The race was held in February that yr, coincidentally as a stand-in for São Paulo after its occasion that season was canceled. It additionally befell a couple of weeks earlier than the world froze for the Pandemic and whereas there have been rumblings of a brand new virus on the horizon, that weekend the paddock was extra targeted on the state of the championship and its murky future.
Simply three top-class automobiles made the journey stateside, with a single Revolt R13 taking up Toyota’s all-conquering TS050 HYBRIDs. Although Revolt emerged triumphant, with an American driver in Gustavo Menezes as a part of its lineup, the followers that did take some time to observe trackside would have discovered extra leisure within the hotly-contested GTE Professional battle. It was received by Aston Martin, which bought the higher of Porsche, Ferrari and Corvette on its solution to victory.
However that wasn’t the headline of the weekend. In actual fact, the 2020 version of Lone Star Le Mans is usually remembered for its information cycle, as within the build-up to race day the story broke that Aston Martin was shelving its authentic Valkyrie Hypercar program. That left simply Glickenhaus and Toyota as the one confirmed Hypercar entries for the class’s debut season.
How superb it’s then, to see the WEC return to one of the vital thrilling and technical circuits on the planet after 4 years away, in an infinitely stronger place.
When the WEC paddock springs into life this time, race followers countrywide will get their first style of the astonishing 2024 Hypercar pack. All 9 factories will function on the entry listing, racing their prototypes that every one look and sound dramatically completely different. Extra particularly, it presents a uncommon likelihood to see Ferrari’s double Le Mans profitable 499Ps, the a number of title-winning Toyota GR010s, Tom Brady-backed Porsche 963s from Hertz Group JOTA and the suite of brand-new automobiles from Alpine, Peugeot, Isotta Fraschini and Lamborghini.
As such, there’s an actual buzz once more for Lone Star Le Mans, with drivers and workforce members alike excited to journey to one of many extra thrilling locations in world motorsport for what guarantees to be a particular race.
“Everybody needs to be on this grid now as a result of the racing is so good and there’s motion in all places on a regular basis,” Cadillac Racing driver Earl Bamber instructed RACER. “It’s a few of the finest racing on the planet proper now, particularly in Hypercar and I feel for followers going to CoTA, seeing this discipline can be an incredible spectacle.
“It now appears like a giant deal, it’s lifting its degree increasingly and the paddock in WEC is a spot folks wish to be.”
And it’s not simply the competitors that followers and opponents alike are trying ahead to when the WEC heads stateside as soon as once more, the circuit itself is a star in its personal proper.
“CoTA is a really technical monitor, very tough to get proper. There may be numerous lap time to be discovered with drivers exploiting the kerbs. We don’t drive there so much, so it’s a troublesome monitor to nail. However it’s a problem all of us take pleasure in,” Bamber’s teammate Alex Lynn added.
“Sector 1 is by far my favorite. It’s top-of-the-line sectors in world motorsport. You’ve bought that massive hill to Flip 1, then the massive downhill sweeping into what can be a recreation of Maggots and Becketts from Silverstone. It truly is superb behind the wheel, and to observe from grandstands and viewing banks.
“Austin in itself is such a cool place too. Racing within the US is cool, however that metropolis simply provides to it. The folks there are so welcoming and for that motive I don’t know anybody who doesn’t love going there.”
In latest seasons – with CoTA off the schedule – Sebring held the USA’s slot on the calendar. And if you already know your sportscar racing historical past, you’ll know simply how necessary that airfield in Florida is to the game.
Internet hosting a double-header with IMSA and the Sebring 12 Hours had its deserves. For followers trackside it made for a real pageant and celebration of endurance motorsport. However logistically and commercially, it was a troublesome nut to crack for the WEC, which on a month-to-month foundation is changing into extra related, fashionable and steady as a championship proper now.
With the WEC’s organisers eager to capitalise on this present ‘Golden Period’ and construct up standalone occasions at key areas that enchantment to each the championship’s followers and stakeholders alike, a troublesome choice wanted to be made. A WEC race at Sebring on a separate weekend from IMSA’s 12 Hours was explored however logistically didn’t work, Indianapolis was additionally within the combine, however its probabilities fell foul of scheduling limitations.
Due to this fact, championship CEO Frederic Lequien instructed RACER, it made sense to return to Texas this yr. The whole lot’s ‘greater’ there in any case… Proper?
“Sebring was a improbable occasion,” he defined. “The welcome was good, the historical past is unimaginable, but it surely was complicated for our viewers, for the viewers in Europe. The format was obscure, racing on Friday with IMSA on Saturday. It was complicated and since we’re an FIA World Championship, we need to have a standalone occasion.
“On high of that, it’s true that it was difficult for the groups to arrange the tents within the paddock. It was charming, it felt very native, however final yr’s race did really feel like the tip of the story.
“However we knew we should go to the US, it is a vital market. We’re a World Championship so we should go to North America and we love the followers there. We evaluated numerous circuits and checked out which tracks may welcome the WEC with sufficient garages with F1-style infrastructure or near it. And instantly COTA was high of the listing as a result of it was the one one.
“On high of that, we love the structure of the monitor, and the workforce on the circuit are so good to work with them. So the ultimate choice was simple to take.”
Imola produced a file WEC crowd (exterior of Le Mans) of greater than 70,000 followers again in April, then Spa beat that file in Could with over 88,000. Le Mans was a sellout and tickets for the race in Brazil are believed to be in brief provide now after the native authorities’s latest push to advertise the occasion. In consequence, the expectation for CoTA is that we’ll see one other head-turning fan turnout.
The monitor is spectator-friendly, tickets are priced pretty and the US producers concerned – Cadillac, Ford and Corvette – are all eager to activate on house soil.
“The WEC in the present day is so completely different to the WEC 5 years in the past. It is not going to be simple to promote the occasion out, however we’re investing on this occasion. It’s a market we imagine in, the OEMs do too. It’s why we’ve got seemed to place our races on the community channel MAX, we wish to elevate it,” Lequien stated.
“We’re sensible, we don’t count on to have the identical variety of followers as F1 in Austin, however we imagine will probably be greater than we’ve ever skilled earlier than.
“It’s going to be an incredible ambiance, with such good entry to the paddock and so many unimaginable views trackside. And we’ve got already signed up the circuit for 2025 as a result of we all know that followers, groups and drivers will wish to come again for extra.”
