The exciting new era continues for the FIA World Endurance Championship. Here’s a rundown of what’s new for 2024:
New two-class format
The FIA WEC has a new class structure for 2024. After cutting down from four classes in 2022 to three in 2023, the LMP2 category has now been removed for 2024.
In its place is a straight two-class format, Hypercar (19 full-season prototype entries) and LMGT3 (18 full-season GT entries).
LMP2 cars won’t be entirely absent from the WEC season, though, as 16 of them will be competing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. LMP2 also continues to form the top class of the European Le Mans Series.
Whole new LMGT3 category
The introduction of the GT3 category marks a sea change in the FIA WEC’s GT racing landscape: out with the GTE formula, in with the highly successful GT3 category.
The new class has attracted a swathe of new manufacturers – BMW, McLaren, Lamborghini, Lexus and Ford – in addition to GTE stalwarts Aston Martin, Ferrari, Corvette and Porsche.
Each of the nine manufacturers has two cars in the 2024 entry, some operated by the same team as two-car efforts and some split between operations.
Hyperpole at every race
Hyperpole was introduced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2020 to give teams a chance to run as quickly as possible in the fight for pole position. The session is only open to the fastest 10 cars in the short qualifying session that directly precedes it.
Separate Hyperpole sessions are held for the Hypercar and LMGT3 classes, giving the fastest in each class plenty of opportunity to see what their cars can really do.
The format has now been rolled out to all FIA WEC races, starting this weekend in Qatar.
New manufacturers in Hypercar
Not only will a whole host of new names be joining the WEC in the LMGT3 category, the Hypercar category has also seen some significant growth in manufacturer participation.
Joining reigning champions Toyota and fellow 2023 contenders Ferrari, Porsche, Cadillac and Peugeot will be BMW, Alpine, Lamborghini and Isotta Fraschini.
New circuits, one race more
It’s all change for the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship calendar, with some new destinations joining the series and the number of races increasing by one compared to last year.
The first round of the season marks the championship’s first appearance in Qatar for the 1812km of Qatar. After the season-opener in the Gulf, teams head back to Europe for the new-for-2024 6 Hours of Imola, followed by the customary pre-Le Mans trip to Spa-Francorchamps on 11 May.
The season highlight at the Circuit de la Sarthe takes place in mid-June, followed soon after by the 6 Hours of São Paulo in July. September sees two races within two weeks of each other, firstly at the Circuit of the Americas and then at Fuji International Speedway, before the season concludes in Bahrain in November.
The season starts in Qatar
The season kicks off this weekend with the 1812km of Qatar – a race commemorating Qatar’s unification on 18 December 1878. Qualifying and Hyperpole takes place between 4pm and 5pm local time (2pm and 3pm CET) on Friday, and the race will go green on Saturday morning at 11am local time (9am CET).
Check out our calendar page for an overview of all the session timings.