APR Delays Asian Porsche Hypercar Program

Photo: Laurent Cartalade/MPS Agency

Algarve Pro Racing has delayed its planned Asian Le Mans Series Hypercar program on the grounds of safety according to team principal Stewart Cox, who said it would have been too much of a risk to run FIA Bronze-rated drivers in a European-based winter championship.

The Portuguese squad, the most successful team in series history, was set to field up to two Porsche 963s in the launch season of the privateer-based Hypercar class until organizers were forced to relocate the championship to Europe due to unrest in the Middle East.

“We were looking at it, we worked on it and we got two Bronzes that were very keen to move forward with the project,” Cox told Sportscar365.

“We felt with what was going on in the Middle East, the ACO were put in quite a bad position of what they wanted to do. I know they worked very hard to keep it as an Asian or Middle Eastern-based championship.

“Ultimately, what everyone wanted was hot weather and minimal rain disruption.”

Cox explained that requiring the Bronze drivers to start each race, even with tire warmers, would be challenging with this season’s calendar, which features races at Paul Ricard in November, Jerez in January and Portimao in February, due to low ambient temperatures.

“The fact they introduced the tire blankets was good because, obviously with the Bronze driver starting the race with the way the ruleset is now, you can put the tire blankets on,” he said.

“But with the residual temperature from where we would have been going in Asia, at Sepang, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, you wouldn’t have lost too much tire temperature. It would have benefitted the Bronzes significantly.

“Ultimately, when you’re driving these cars, you want to do the right thing, which is the safe thing.

“Our decision was based purely on safety, from a point of view that we don’t really want Bronzes that wouldn’t have had a great deal of testing in the cars prior to that, being sat on the grid with the five-minute board saying you’ve got to pull the tire blankets off.

“It could be 10 or 15 degrees [Celsius] and you’re losing a huge amount of temperature and a slow formation lap before you start the second formation lap, you’re not going to get the sort of temperature you’d like.

“Cars that we have seen that are quite tricky to drive on the opening laps for pros, we didn’t feel it was wise to put Bronze drivers in that position.

“For that reason, we decided to not move forward with the program, running it in Europe in the winter.”

While set to still support the winter series in fielding multiple Oreca 07 Gibsons in LMP2, Cox said he’s already working to be on the Hypercar grid for the 2027-28 season, should it be able to return to Asia.

As reported by Sportscar365, the class appears to be in jeopardy for this season, with only two entries having been submitted as of late last week, although the ACO and SRO, joint promoters of the championship, are understood to have extended the entry deadline by one week.

“The commitment from those drivers remains there,” said Cox. “From our side, as soon as we get the go-ahead that we’re going back to the Middle East or Southeast Asia, where it’s going to be significantly warmer, we’ll go ahead with the project.

“Ultimately it’s going to give us time to test with the cars as well.

“We feel like the ACO were stuck between a rock and a hard place and they had to do what they did with the calendar.

“I think they’ve done the right thing from their side to look after everybody. We’ve got programs going forward and we’ll be taking LMP2s to the series that we’ll announce shortly.”

Cox said he now hopes organizers will make the decision to delay the introduction of the Hypercar class by one season, in order to also not restrict the performance of LMP2 cars, which are believed to have more weight and less power, similar to IMSA specification, for the season.

This move was made in order to create a larger performance gap between classes due to the expected lap times from Bronze drivers in Hypercars.

“In some respects, it might actually be a good thing that we allow the P2s to run in their last year of full spec car, if they do actually pull the plug on the Hypercar championship, which I think, realistically, nobody would be upset about it, if they do it,” said Cox.

“Ultimately, it wouldn’t be great for any driver sat on the grid with those rather expensive cars and have a misfortune of going off or doing something silly in the first couple of laps.”

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