Re: WEC: Where it all stands after the drama at Imola I watched pretty much the entire race and figured as much. The Ferrraris are on a different plane altogether, in terms of pace in the dry. The rain played equalizer for a while, but when the track dried out, they took over the race immediately.
Toyota's challenge for the win showed how important experience is, in a 24 hour endurance race. While Porsche dominated in the 6 hour competitions, driving 24 hours continuously is a challenge in itself. They couldn't keep up with the Toyotas, Ferraris or even Caddies throughout the race. If the Cadillacs hadn't crashed when they did, they could've mounted a fighting chance at victory. Even Ferrari committed massive infractions and just about got away with it.
Despite all the glamour from a Ferrari victory in Le Mans, the race left a lot to be desired. New entries struggled with reliability issues. When they didn't, they found themselves in the wrong side of the race regulations and rules. Ferrari themselves took on so many penalties for different infringements, it was a surprise they won at all! FIA needs to clarify what is allowed while racing and what isn't and apply the laws uniformly throughout the race.
The local teams, Peugeot and Alpine struggled and suffered throughout the race. Alpine needs a complete overhaul of their racing program at this point. Their engineering bona fides need to be questioned for the quality of car they brought to this race. Peugeot on the other hand, need to spend some time in the wind tunnel and fix their design. While the car seems reliable, it is nowhere near quick enough to challenge Porsche, Ferrari or Toyota.
New entrant Lamborghini did well for their first race, completely the full 24 hours with few issues to account for. This is a great first step towards building a championship contender. Cadillac did impressively too! Their cars were completely reliable and would've finished the race, if it weren't for driver error, I suspect caused by fatigue. Veterans Toyota, showed why they are still a force to be reckoned with, providing a tough fight for Ferrari both, last year and the present one. Their drivers are arguably the best on the grid, bar none.
BMW is quickly earning a reputation for being an accident prone outfit. They had only one car finish at Le Mans, and brought out two major safety incidents in the last two races, with the spectacular crash at Spa, grinding that whole race to a halt for more than an hour. Personnel management need some focus and drivers should be handled better.
Meanwhile, despite displaying some of the best racing at La Sarthe this year, the LMP2 class is all but finished. They weren't included in the WEC season at all! It really seems to be a feeder class for the more prestigious hypercar segment.
LMGT3 on the other hand, brought out a lot of talent to the forefront this time around. Manthey EMA finished on the top stepped in their Porsche, while WRT came second, driving a BMW machine. The podium was completed by Proton Competition, driving their Mustang GT3. This class was a very close run race to the end, like the hypercar class, with 5 different cars being in contention for victory. The all women outfit, Iron Dames, managed only fifth in the end, despite looking competitive throughout. Pole sitter Inception, couldn't even manage a top 5 finish after spinning out early on in the race.
Overall, this year's Le Mans showed us that with the right set of regulations, manufacturer will show interest in developing innovative racing machines, which employ tech that eventually trickles down to road going cars. With Aston Martin set to join in the 2025 season with a Valkyrie based entrant in the hypercar class, thing are looking better than ever for sportscar racing right now.
Despite all the show and brouhaha of Formula 1 and open-wheeled racing, the World Endurance Championship is more realistic in terms of developmental goals for the industry as a whole. With the ever-tightening climate regulations threatening to stifle the industry if newer, cleaner development isn't fast-tracked, this series has the potential to impact development of new cleaner technologies and stand as a showcase for their use in society at large. |