From the 37 cars in the 2024 WEC field, the number is to be increased to 40 cars for 2025 – Because Austin and Imola do not have the capacity for this, a regulation is needed
The organizers of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) want to increase the starting field for the 2025 season to 40 cars. On the occasion of this week’s announcement of the 37 cars for the upcoming 2024 WEC season, WEC boss Frederic Lequien explains: “We will definitely increase to 40 cars for 2025. “
“I can say that there is a certain obsession, but it’s really difficult to find the right balance. We could even have 43, 44 or 45 cars in 2025, but we won’t have the capacity to take them all,” says Lequien.
Why? More than 40 entrants in the WEC would reduce the number of cars that Le Mans organizers ACO and the FIA could invite to the 24 Hours of Le Mans from their affiliated racing series – Asian Le Mans Series, European Le Mans Series and IMSA SportsCar Championship.
For the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans, there were a total of 13 automatic entries from the aforementioned AsLMS, ELMS and IMSA racing series. The ACO has already reserved 15 grid slots for LMP2 cars for the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans now that this class has disappeared from the WEC. However, the pit lane at the Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans no longer has more than 62 pits.
There are not even 40 pits at other race tracks on the 2024 WEC calendar. Because this applies to the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola and also to the Circuit of The Americas in Austin, the grid size for the upcoming season has been limited to 37 cars. For 2025, however, the WEC will have to increase the field if Aston Martin enters at least one Valkyrie LMH and Lamborghini increases from one to two SC63 LMDhs.
With a maximum grid size of 40 cars, there would then only be room for one more car – assuming that no teams drop out and the field of the new LMGT3 class remains at nine manufacturers and 18 cars. According to Lequien, it is still unclear how the WEC intends to accommodate the additional cars on race tracks with fewer than 40 pits.
“We are currently discussing with all teams to examine all possibilities, especially in the LMGT3 class,” says the WEC boss, hinting that “pits may have to be shared” in this class. This would mean that teams running two cars would have to operate both cars from one pit. However, the last word has not yet been spoken in this regard
