The Roar of Daytona hits Sebring already

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It is, in fact, a pretty eventful off-season in endurance racing. Beginning with Porsche's extensions to their engineering staff hiring (former) Formula One employees for the new Le Mans Prototype program, the announcement Manthey Racing will be the first team entering the new 991 GTE in Le Mans, followed by the news that Manthey Racing and Raeder Automotive will fuse, the withdrawl of Dunlop from the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) to focus on the World Endurance Championship (WEC) or that the BMW Z4 GTE will be entered by Rahal-Letterman-Lanigan Racing in the 2013 ALMS season.



The biggest news of this off-season may have been the fusion of Grand American Road Racing Association (Grand-Am) and International Motor Sport Association (IMSA), best known for their endurance series, the Rolex Sports Car Series and the ALMS respectively. Speculations of a takeover of ALMS by Grand-Am were more or less present since 2009 but over the course of the summer of 2012 there was much rumors and many signs of a possible fusion of the two organisations, the most obvious (in retrospective) was the press release that IMSA would not continue to license the name "Le Mans" from the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) after 2013.
On Sunday, 9th September 2012, the weekend of the Grand-Am event at the Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, the unification has officially been confirmed, but without any given informaton about the class structure nor the name of the new series.

On Friday, 4th January the "'Best of Both Worlds' multi class approach" was presented to the public.

Individual class names have yet to be determined. The planned structure:
  • GRAND-AM’s DP and the ALMS’ P2 classes will combine into one, headlining prototype class that also will include the revolutionary DeltaWing prototype, with performance of the cars balanced to maintain close competition.
  • The ALMS’ Prototype Challenge (PC) class for spec prototypes will continue to run as a separate class.
  • Both of the organizations’ production-based GT classes will continue as separate, distinct categories based on performance, preserving each class’ proud history and loyal fan following. As part of this plan, the ALMS’ GTC cars will join the GRAND-AM GTs.
  • GRAND-AM’s new GX class, which is debuting at this year’s Rolex 24 later this month, is being explored as a possible addition to the GRAND-AM half of the GT mix in 2014-15. There also is the possibility that GX will run separately as a fifth class.

The since 2008 (when the manufacturers discontinued the full-time ALMS programs) shrinking LMP1 class will be dismissed. On the technical side, no new information were presented. Especially the ballancing of Le Mans and Daytona Prototypes will be a demanding task over the next few months for the united organisation.
Hugues de Chaunac, founder of the Oreca group, says in a Motorsport-Total.com interview:

The LMP2 cars can fight for the overall win. This is a decisive factor for our current and future customers. As the LMPC class will be continued, the value of our concept is confirmed. Also teams can now compete in the 24 hours of Daytona, the 12 hours of Sebring and the Petit Le Mans. Having these three races is exciting.

In the same aricle David Floury, technical director of Oreca, adds:

We are very happy with the announcement of the class structure from 2014 on. The organisers did a great job in the creation of an astonishing championship and we're looking foreward to be a part of it.

But not everyone is happy. Especially for the few LMP2 teams the announcement of the unification was made at a very crutial moment. With an uncertain future, many LMP2 teams struggled to put a program together. By New Year's Day there was no confirmed entry in LMP2 class according to SPEED.

Joe Foster, co-principal of Dempsey Racing:

We had 2013 pretty much finished as regards commercial partners but the timing of the merger announcement ended up killing those deals after over a year of work. We’re now having to start from scratch with barely a couple of month’s notice. Patrick and I are putting a huge effort into new deals and we remain hopeful of keeping the P2 on track.

With the class structure only confirmed for 2014 and '15 and no information on what will happen afterwards nor how the balancing of the prototypes will work, teams might look for alternatives. Tuesday, 15th January 2013 is the deadline for WEC and the 24 hours of Le Mans. This might clear up the situation a bit, if teams decide to switch.

SPEED moreover reports that there are negotiations between the ACO and Grand-Am/IMSA to create an exhibition class at the 24 hours of Le Mans to allow Daytona Prototypes to compete. The ACO showed interest over the last few months to at least negotiate to maintain the Le Mans invites with the new series, but it is still too early to tell what we will see racing at Le Mans or in America in 2014, leaving room for enough speculation and although things seem to be released premature or pure rumor, you never know what bit of truth lies in it, especially not in motorsports.

Image: NSSN
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