Gary Watkins: Are the tentacles of the WEC BoP dumbing down the racing?

No Stability of Efficiency, no golden age of sportscar racing. Interval. Prefer it or not, the BoP is likely one of the constructing blocks of the success of top-flight prototype racing around the globe.

You possibly can’t criticise its place on the highest ranges of endurance motorsport for that purpose, however maybe within the case of the World Endurance Championship, proper now you may query its widening scope. 

Within the WEC circa 2025, the tentacles of the BoP are creeping ever wider. That was confirmed by the rule makers, the FIA and the Vehicle Membership de l’Ouest in Qatar for the collection opener final month. They informed us that within the Hypercar class a automotive’s capability to make its tyres final over a stint or a double is now being factored into the BoP calculations. 

You would possibly assume, so what? Managing tyre degradation is a part of the competitors and so ought to be a part of the BoP. Solely it wasn’t beforehand. Probably not. And arguably it shouldn’t be now should you take the rulemakers at their phrase. 

They’ve repeatedly informed us what the BoP doesn’t do – and so they reiterated this in Qatar – is “compensate for the dearth of optimisation in racing (technique selections, driver kind, tyre selections)”. Their brackets, not mine, I hasten so as to add. 

My argument is that on the subject of “optimisation in (endurance) racing” – my brackets this time — there isn’t a criterion a lot greater up the listing than taking care of a set of tyres. In order that’s sustaining efficiency over a stint, a double or, on the Le Mans 24 Hours, a triple.  

It was revealed that as of 2025, the BoP calculations for normal WEC occasions at the moment are being made utilizing an algorithm primarily based on a producer’s 10 quickest laps and the quickest 60% of laps over the course of a race. That’s a major enhance from final yr when simply the quickest 20% of laps had been taken into consideration. 

That didn’t imply that tyre deg was completely factored out of the equation prior to now. The tempo of the automotive sort over its quickest laps will, most certainly, be set when it’s on a recent rubber. That early velocity will virtually inevitably impact efficiency when the tyres are a stint and a half outdated. 

However the shift for this season could be considered a sea-change. It has eliminated, or gone an extended option to eradicating, one of many huge differentiators in a system the place the vehicles are already carefully matched, given the strict constraints on their design, even earlier than the BoP kicks in. Is that this an extra dumbing down of our department of the game?

Gasoline mileage is now not an enormous consider endurance racing. And by that I imply a kind of differentiators that may determine who wins and who doesn’t. The strict controls on engine efficiency that just about dictate what number of laps a automotive can do between pitstops on a tankful of gas — or somewhat its power allocation — are one of many key tenets of the principles. 

These newest developments inevitably lead me to achieve for my rose-tinted spectacles and hark again to one of many biggest editions of Le Mans of all time. In 2011, the Audi and Peugeot turbo diesels went face to face with all weapons blazing. The Audi R18 TDi may do 4 stints on a set of Michelin tyres, the second-generation Peugeot 908, the V8-powered automotive, solely three. But it surely may go a lap longer on the gas. It made for an attractive after which thrilling contest through which the German producer got here out on prime by a scant 13s. 

What must be identified is that the most recent transfer is the desire of the producers competing in Hypercar. From final yr’s Bahrain WEC finale in November as much as Qatar, there have been eight technical working teams hosted by rule makers the FIA and the Vehicle Membership de l’Ouest and attended by every of the producers to tremendous tune the BoP system. ACO competitions director Thierry Bouvet revealed in Qatar that varied choices had been laid out on the desk, and Hypercar’s constituents voted in favour of a extra all-pervading system.

Marcel Fassler/Andre Lotterer/Benoit Treluyer Audi leads Sebastien Bordais/Simon Pagenaud/Pedro Lamy, Peugeot

Picture by: Jeff Bloxham / Motorsport Photos

A fast straw ballot by Autosport in Qatar discovered solely producers in favour. Or somewhat nobody is keen to return out in opposition to the most recent transfer. Porsche, BMW and Peugeot all caught their palms up and stated it was the proper transfer. That’s important as a result of the primary two are LMDh producers, the last-named a marque with a Le Mans Hypercar.

Toyota, the grasp of tyre administration with its LMH, selected to not provide an opinion. Draw your personal conclusions on the way it forged its vote. 

On the again finish of 2023 because the FIA and the ACO had been engaged on a brand new system of BoP to switch the one which clearly didn’t work in what we must always regard as a yr considered one of our golden age, an fascinating time period was thrown into the pot. The BoP, stated FIA Endurance Fee president Richard Mille, shouldn’t be “a pillow of laziness”. 

I perceive the place he was coming from, however I’m not going to say that the producers voted 12 months on for a straightforward life. That’s as a result of there’s an elephant within the room — the truth that Hypercar is made up of vehicles constructed to 2 completely different units of rules, LMH and LMDH. 

It was this, stated Bouvet, that drove the push “to take extra laps to take away the small variations that had been nonetheless current”. FIA technical engineering director Thomas Chevaucher identified the “variations between LMH and LMDh in among the elements that may impact tyre degradation”. He didn’t point out it, however he was alluding to the truth that LMH hybrids are four-wheel-drive and LMDh equipment rear-drive solely. 

The possibility now because the governance and the producers begin engaged on a brand new algorithm for 2030 is to rid Hypercar of what could possibly be considered a curse. And there appears to be a will to do it. Ferdinando Cannizzo, technical director of sportscar racing at Ferrari, put it fairly merely: “The goal ought to be to have a standard platform to make sure a balanced subject.” 

#51 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi

Picture by: JEP / Motorsport Photos

Porsche Motorsport boss Thomas Laudenbach was equally emphatic: “A very powerful factor is that we eliminate these two completely different units of guidelines.”

Producers have completely different wants, after all. Ferrari was all the time insistent that it might solely be part of the Hypercar ranks if it may construct its personal chassis — a Ferrari must be bespoke somewhat than produced round an off-the-shelf backbone provided by one of many 4 licensed constructors in LMDh. Some producers will wish to spend much less cash and go the LMDh route, although it’s unclear how less expensive it truly is (the LMDh producers all admit that they’ve spent greater than they envisaged).

However does it matter if a Ferrari is constructed round a Ferrari chassis and an Alpine round an ORECA? Not with the idea of efficiency home windows that so closely-control what a producer can do. Certainly, the important thing level is that vehicles racing in Hypercar, and in GTP over within the IMSA SportsCar Championship, ought to all be both rear-wheel-drive or four-wheel-drive.

I’m not saying we may eliminate the BoP: we most likely have to just accept that it’s a essential evil. However I reckon there’s a probability that we will begin pulling again on its scope. That is motor racing, in spite of everything.