2014 Schedule, New Class Structure Announced

Photo: Asian LMS

The Asian Le Mans Series will expand to a five-race calendar, while also seeing a change in its class structure for next year, series officials announced Saturday.

The 2014 calendar will make return visits to its existing venues at Inje (Korea), Fuji (Japan), Zhuhai (China) and Sepang (Malaysia), while adding a new round at the Shanghai International Circuit.

All races will remain three hours in length, with teams being offered a more cost-effective travel and logistics package, which will be equivalent to this year’s four-round championship.

There has also been a shakeup in the class structure, with the launch of the CN category for FIA CN2-homologated cars. It replaces the LMPC class, which failed to attract any entries in the series’ first year.

Additionally, the GTE and GTC classes will be merged into a single GT class, which will also be open to JAF GT300-spec machinery. All three platforms will be performance balanced by the ACO.

The LMP2 category, which features three entries in this weekend’s season finale in Malaysia, remains unchanged for 2014.

“It’s our goal to have long term, solid, organic growth. For us, we want to present a platform and rules structure that can attain that,” said Asian LMS managing director Mark Thomas. “Our rules were always specifically aimed at supporting the increase of the grid and number of cars for next year.”

2014 Asian Le Mans Series Schedule:

July 6 – Inje, Korea
Aug. 10 – Fuji, Japan (w/ Super GT)
Oct. 12 – Shanghai, China
Oct. 26 – Zhuhai, China
Dec. 7 – Sepang, Malaysia

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John