Looking back at the major 2023 Endurance Championships

IMSA

Dec 29

2023 was definitively a “grand cru” for endurance racing in the four major series: IMSA, WEC, ELMS, GT Europe. Car Racing Reporter looks back at the teams who animated those four championships.

Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing Champions in IMSA

The IMSA Championships have been very close between the 4 LMDH manufacturers: the top three teams (representing each a different manufacturer; Cadillac, Acura and Porsche) were separated by 5 points (on a total of 2460 points) ahead of the last race at Road Atlanta; the fourth team (BMW) was only 38 points behind the leaders. At the end, the Motul Petit le Mans race crowned the #31 Cadillac after successive eliminations of the pretenders.

Weathertech Sportscar GTP Championships

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Road Atlanta. #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.R.

Pipo Derani, Alexander Sims, and Jack Aitken with the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R ended sixth overal the last race of the IMSA Championship at Petit Le Mans which was enough for Derani and Sims to win the Drivers’ championship and Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing the Teams’ title. The second place of Cadillac Racing #01 offered the Manufacturers Championship to Cadillac.

Second in drivers and teams’ championships, Albuquerque and Taylor eliminated themselves with 1 hour 3’ to go when Felipe Albuquerque (#10 WTR by Andretti Acura) and #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing driven by Pipo Derani clashed in turn 1 after Albuquerque tried to pass Derani around the outside of turn one, lost grip in the grass and ended in the barriers.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Road Atlanta. #10 WTR by Andretti Acura ARX-06

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Road Atlanta. Left to right: #60 Acura ARX-06 - Meyer Shank Racing driven by Blomqvist-Braun-Castroneves won the race and ends third in championship. #7 Porsche 963 driven by Matt Campbell and Felipe Nasr ends fourth; sister #6 with Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy ends fifth of both championships.

Michelin Endurance Cups

Pipo Derani, Alexander Sims and Jack Aitken have dominated the drivers’ Michelin Endurance Cup with #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing throughout the season so that, after 8 hours of racing at Petit Le Mans, they clinched the drivers’ Michelin Endurance Cup and #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing the Teams’ Michelin Endurance Cup. Cadillac did win the Manufacturers’ Michelin Endurance Cup.

Toyota Gazoo Racing in WEC

📷 © Luc Warnotte at 24 Hours of Le Mans. Buemi, Hartley and Hirakawa ended second clinching 38 points agains 0 for the sister team #7 who did not finish the race.

The 2023 World Endurance Championship was dominated by Toyota Gazoo Racing with both cars winning 6 races out of 7 and Toyota clinching the manufacturers title at the penultimate race in Fuji. Drivers title was a contest between the two cars. Since #7 team did not finish the 24 Hours of Le Mans and didn’t mark a single point for that race, they couldn’t come close to sister team #8 despite winning 4 races. #8 driven by Buemi, Hartley and Hirakawa only won 2 races but the 38 points won at Le Mans for a P2 made the difference throughout the season.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at 24 Hours of Le Mans. Pier Guidi, Calado and Giovinazzi won the centenary edition with the #51 Ferrari 499P.

For their first season in the Hypercars class, Ferrari was a constant thread even winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans with #51 Ferrari 499P driven by Pier Guidi, Calado and Giovinazzi.

As we already mentioned (read LMH versus LMDh), both Hypercars teams outrageously dominated the LMDh based cars (Cadillac and Porsche) who didn’t even score half the points of the second placed Toyota in the Drivers’ Championship.

Algarve Pro Racing in ELMS

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Portimao. Algarve Pro Racing #25 driven by Alexander Lynn - James Allen - Kyffin Simpson clinching title after the penultimate race at Portimao.

The LMP2 PRO class saw an interesting battle between Algarve Pro Racing #25 driven by Alexander Lynn - James Allen - Kyffin Simpson and United Autosport USA #22 driven by Marino Sato - Oliver jarvis - Philip Hanson with the latter winning 3 races out of 6 and the winning #25 2 races but scoring more podium (five).

Algarve Pro Racing already clinched the 2023 Overall Team Championship (Pro and PRO/AM combined) ahead of the last race in Portimao.

ASP Akkodis in GT World Challenge Europe

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Nürburgring. Timur Boguslavskiy, Jules Gounon, Raffaele Marciello with #88 Mercedes-AMG GT3.

the Overall and Endurance GT World Challenge Europe saw both Akkodis ASP Team and Rowe Racing fighting for the Challenge win until the very last race.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps. #98 Rowe Racing BMW M4 GT3 driven by Philipp Eng, Marco Wittmann and Nick Yelloly.

With a P5 overall at Barcelona (last race) for the Akkodis ASP Team ahead of their challengers Rowe Racing squad in P10, the #88 Mercedes-AMG GT3 team and drivers (Timur Boguslavskiy, Jules Gounon, Raffaele Marciello) clinched both Fanatec GT World Challenge Powered by AWS Endurance Cup Drivers and Teams as well as Timur Boguslavskiy and Raffaele Marciello did win overall Cups (sprint and endurance races combined).