WEC: Weight handicap introduced before the Le Mans race

With just over a week to go before the start of the Le Mans Marathon, the organisers, the French motoring club ACO in partnership with the FIA, have unexpectedly changed the rules and introduced a weight handicap for the cars of factory teams competing in the Hypercar -category.

This has been discussed before, but this measure can be considered unexpected because the regulations of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) included a clause that an adjustment of the so-called “Balance of Performance Platform” (“Balance of Efficiency”) or BoP , could not be produced until after the Le Mans stage.

However, it was now being produced ahead of the legendary Sarte 24-hour race, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.

The changes will affect Toyota’s GR010 Hybrid cars, as well as the sports prototypes Ferrari 499P, Cadillac V-Series.R and Porsche 963. The Japanese concern factory team’s cars have gained 37 kg in weight – they won all WEC stages this year ; the weight of Ferrari has increased by 24 kg, Cadillac – by 11 kg, and Porsche – by 3. These cars were already before practice, which began at Le Mans last weekend.

However, all this is partially offset by a slight increase in the amount of energy that can be used by hybrid power plants at a distance from each segment of the race. This amount is measured in megajoules and monitored by the FIA ​​using special sensors fitted to each car.

The changes not only affected the hypercars of the Glickenhaus and ByKolles teams, but these cars are equipped with conventional naturally aspirated engines and not the state-of-the-art hybrid power plants found on the sports prototypes of the factory teams.

In theory, such measures could somewhat level the odds of teams competing in the top tier of the WEC – at least, they were introduced for this purpose. A similar approach was already tested this year in the US IMSA Championship and proved to be quite effective.