LMH versus LMDh

IMSAWECHyperCar

Aug 16

FIA WEC Hypercars mixing LMH and LMDh

After 5 out of 7 races in the WEC championship, the time has come to take stock of the integration of the LMDhs in the Hypercars championships. The LMH have dominated the championship with Toyota and Ferrari remaining the only rivals for the constructors' title race.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Le Mans and Spa-Francorchamps.

Similarly, in the drivers' championship, only the crews of Toyota #7, Ferrari #50 and #51 can still claim to beat the current leaders (Hartley, Buemi and Hyrakawa with the Toyota #8).

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Sebring. Toyota Gazoo Racing #8 team with GR010-Hybrid.

Admittedly, the Lynn, Bamber and Westbrook trio with the LMDh based Cadillac #2 can still mathematically win the championship but, with 44 points behind while there are 65 to be awarded in the last two rounds, it would be very surprising if the Toyota #8 fails to garner 22 points which would definitely put them out of reach for the crew of the beautiful sound making blue American car.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Spa-Francorchamps. #2 Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R.

The BoP misses its target

Not only have the LMHs monopolized all the pole positions this season (3 for Toyota, 2 for Ferrari) but the LMHs monopolized 13 spots on the 5 podiums for 2 at the LMDhs (P3 for Porsche at Portimao and P3 for Cadillac at Le Mans).

In the constructors' championship, Cadillac and Porsche (LMDh based) have definitively lost any chance of winning the championship because Cadillac (3rd) is 80 points behind Toyota and Porsche (4th) is 86 points behind.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Monza. Peugeot 9X8 #93 first podium.

We may analyze the results in all directions, the LMH with 4x4 transmission are currently faster than the LMDhs. Peugeot's (also LMH) rise in performance at Monza only confirms this fact with their first podium during the last race.

Conclusion: the BoP has not achieved the objective of ensuring the balance between the manufacturers and promoting a tightening of performance in the same window.

Better results in IMSA

In the WeatherTech Sportscars Championship organized by IMSA, the leveling between the various manufacturers proves to be much more successful.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at The Glen. Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-06 #10.

After 7 races out of the 9 in the IMSA championship, the 4 manufacturers (Acura, BMW, Cadillac and Porsche) remain in the race for the manufacturers' championship and the first 6 teams in the drivers and teams championship still have every chance of becoming champions. The gap between the Teams and Drivers Championships leader (Taylor-Albuquerque with the #10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-06) and the 5th (Braun-Blomqvist on the #60 Meyer Shank Racing W/Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06 and Bourdais-Van der Zande with #01 Cadillac Racing) is only 118 points (out of 2,171 won by the #10 Acura ) while 350 points will be awarded to the winner of each of the two remaining races and 35 points for each of the two poles.

In those teams and drivers' championships, each manufacturer still has every chance of to have one of their teams winning the crown because Sims and Derani with the Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac v-Series.R #31 are only 14 points behind the #10 leaders, Yelloly and De Philippi driving the BMW M Team RLL BMW M V8 Hybrid #25 are third, 73 points behind #10 Acura and the Tandy-Jaminet duo with the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsports Porsche 963 is fourth with 98 points behind the #10 leaders.

In addition, each race delivered a different winner: for the 7 races so far, 7 different teams have won the victory points: #10 at Daytona (even though #60 won), #31 at Sebring, #6 at Long Beach, #01 at Monterey, #25 at The Glen, #60 at Canadian Tire and #7 at Road America.

Racing incident management

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Monza. Hypercars launch after first safety car regroup.

As Filipe Albuquerque, Louis Deletraz, Kevin Estre, Ben Keating and others have explained in our columns, the use of Safety Cars grouping together the competitors at accidents during IMSA races leads to the leveling of the playing field. Although this system has been implemented at Le Mans and Monza in the FIA WEC Championship, the domination of Toyota and Ferrari has not been called into question by the LMDhs (Cadillac and Porsche).

Championships still open.

Everything remains to be played in the two championships (FIA WEC and IMSA) which each have two more races to award the laurels.

The IMSA Championship is much more undecided with 4 manufacturers fighting for the constructors' championship and at least 6 teams in the drivers' and teams’ championships.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Monza. Current Drivers Championship standing: Toyota #8, Toyota #7, Ferrari #51.

In the WEC Championship, only Toyota and Ferrari can still win the two championships but Toyota has a clear advantage over its rival.

We bet that the engineers responsible for the BoP will get closer to the objective of leveling between the manufacturers and that we will see a Cadillac or a Porsche win one or the next two events. This would bode well for the 2024 season.