World Endurance Championship: Excitement ahead of season opener in Florida đ„
MUCH NEW As in 2019, the archaic Sebring Raceway will host the first round of the World Endurance Championship on Friday and the classic 12-hour race on Saturday with interesting Swiss participation.
With two days of testing - the so-called Prologue (for scenes see video by Lanky Turtle) - the FIA World Endurance Championship, or World Endurance Championship for short, kicked off its tenth season at Sebring last weekend.
Memories of Marcel FĂ€ssler
The 6019-meter-long and sometimes very bumpy Sebring International Raceway is the cradle of American sports car racing. The first 12-hour race took place 70 years ago and the first WEC race ever was held at the same venue ten years ago.
In 2012, Marcel FĂ€ssler was on pole position in the fastest of the three Audi R18 cars in the traditional Twelve Hours of Sebring, which counts towards the World Championship for the first time in the modern era, but only finished eleventh after various problems.
Three years ago, the world championship teams returned to the archaic race track in the heart of Florida and held their own 1000-mile race on the day before the US classic. This Friday, starting at 12 noon local time (5 p.m. CET) over the same distance or a maximum race duration of eight hours, will be the opening round of the 2022 World Championship.
Defending champion Toyota again with two hybrid hypercars
The defending champions will be the undefeated 2021 Toyota Gazoo Racing Team with its two GR010 Hybrids modified within the permitted limits. The biggest change is the change in tire size to 18 inches front and rear.
This is accompanied by modifications to the body to maintain airflow and stay within the required aerodynamic performance window. This is visible, among other things, in the enlarged rear wind deflector and the fin of the engine cover.
Racing fuel from biomass
The 3.5-liter V6 engine itself, like all powerplants for the 2022 WEC cars, runs for the first time on 100 percent renewable fuel from unit supplier TotalEnergies.
The Excellium Racing 100 is made from wine residues and agricultural materials. This reduces CO2 emissions by at least 65 percent and contributes to greater sustainability in motorsport.
SĂ©bastien Buemi wants to get back to the top
The Swiss spearhead in the top-class field is and remains SĂ©bastien Buemi (center gallery). The driver from Vaud is aiming for his third world championship title with Toyota after 2014 and 2018/19 as well as his fourth triumph at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June.
Last year, his number 8 team had to give way to Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and JosĂ© MarĂa LĂłpez, who also won the world championship. The former Sauber GP driver Kobayashi has recently taken on a dual role as team principal and driver.
Japanese replaces Japanese
Meanwhile, Kazuki Nakajima, who retired as a race driver, is now vice chairman of Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe, the operational base of the WEC team. Nakajima will support the team at the races and mentor his successor on the driver's side, Ryo Hirakawa. The Japanese, who competed in the LMP2 class at Le Mans in 2016 and 2017, will drive the #8 hypercar alongside SĂ©bastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley.
Waiting for more opponents
For the time being, Toyota's opponents in the hypercar class are, as in 2021, an Alpine with a Gibson V8 engine and a Glickenhaus with a turbo engine from Pipo in France, both without a hybrid. A second Glickenhaus 007 LMH will join them at Le Mans.
Peugeot Sport still needs a longer development period and will not enter the fray with the revolutionary 9X8 (hypercar without rear wing) until after Le Mans. The top class will then really get moving from 2023 with additional manufacturers such as Porsche, Ferrari and Cadillac. Audi, on the other hand, has suspended its LMDh program for the time being.
Four instead of only three fast Swiss in LMP2
The LMP2 class, which consisted of 15 Oreca 07-Gibson cars at the Sebring prologue, has the largest number of drivers. Swiss driver representatives in three different teams here are Louis DelĂ©traz, Nico MĂŒller, Mathias Beche and, at short notice, Fabio Scherer.
While ELMS champion DelĂ©traz and returnee Beche have plenty of LMP2 experience, two-time DTM runner-up MĂŒller has only completed one WEC race (2017 in Shanghai). His team Vector Sport is also new to the WEC business.
Last year's two-time winner Fabio Scherer, on the other hand, is moving to the European equivalent, the ELMS. Originally, he was only scheduled to start in the 12-hour race at Sebring on Saturday, which Delétraz will also contest. Because Alex Brundle is not racing for Team Interpol due to a positive coronation test, the man from Engelberg will be racing at short notice in the WEC and on the following day in the IMSA Endurance Cup race (then with High Class Racing).
Neel Jani in the factory Cadillac instead of Porsche
Small but mighty is the GT king class LMGTE Pro with two factory cars each from Porsche Motorsport and AF Corse/Ferrari as well as a new Corvette C8.R (gallery left). For the first time, the Americans have signed up for a complete WEC season and not just for Le Mans or sporadic entries as before.
After Neel Jani no longer received a GT entry, even though he had been fighting for the 2021 World Championship title as the partner of Frenchman Kevin Estre until the very end, Switzerland is no longer represented here.
The man from Biel himself will make a short-notice appearance in the 12 Hours of Sebring, where he will replace Kevin Magnussen at Chip Ganassi/Cadillac Racing, who has also returned to Formula 1 at short notice. It's quite possible that more will come of this, because Jani has not yet fixed a race program for 2022.
Three Swiss Ferrari drivers
In the LMGTE Am class, each team has to let a driver with bronze and silver status get behind the wheel, so in the end, non-professionals tip the scales here.
Thus, in a Ferrari 488 GTE Evo WEC rookie Christoph Ulrich and the experienced aviation entrepreneur Thomas Flohr as well as Rahel Frey in the all-female team of Iron Lynx (AutoSprintCH reported). In the gallery on the right, the three fast women can be seen inspecting the track with their race engineer.
WEC entry of Niki Leutwiler
Although he will soon be 62 years old, Niki Leutwiler wants to try again. In recent years, he has proven that he is still fast in various GT3 and GT4 series.
The versatile entrepreneur from Feusisberg is familiar with the big stage from his two LMP2 races at Le Mans in 2014 and 2016. Leutwiler is now returning to it this summer with Porsche factory driver Matteo Cairoli as the driving force in Team Project 1 from Germany.
58 hours of racing on six circuits
In total, there are only six races on the 2022 WEC calendar, five of which are on classic sports car circuits, and Bahrain cannot really be counted among them yet, despite the fact that it will again host the final round.
- March 18: 1000 miles Sebring
- May 7: 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps
- June 11/12: 24 Hours of Le Mans
- July 10: 6 Hours of Monza
- September 11: 6 hours Fuji
- November 11: Bahrain 8 Hours
The race at Sebring will be televised live on Eurosport 1 from 7 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. on Friday, March 18. A livetiming and the complete results of all races in Sebring are available at this Link.
