Kurdock: No BoP in LMP2 Despite Ligier Addition

Photo: Rick Dole/IMSA

The LMP2 class of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will remain without Balance of Performance despite the return of open chassis competition according to IMSA technical director Matt Kurdock.

Sean Creech Motorsport has graduated to LMP2 this year with a Ligier JS P217 Gibson, which will go up against the flock of Oreca 07 Gibsons in the Pro-Am-enforced prototype category, marking only the second non-Oreca entry since the class was separated from DPi in 2019.

However, IMSA will not give the Ligier, which last appeared in WeatherTech Championship competition in 2021, any special dispensation.

“There is no LMP2 BoP process,” Kurdock told Sportscar365. “We do publish a BoP table with the minimums and maximums that the cars are permitted to run, but there’s no corrective process.

“We used to apply LMP2 BoP when we ran both DPi and LMP2 cars in the same class, but since then, it has not been a BoP category.”

The Sean Creech team, which has conducted multiple tests with its ex-ARC Bratislava Ligier, is understood to have been in agreement with the sanctioning body to not receive any form of extra help in getting the car up to speed in the class.

“We’re not expecting any BoP,” driver Joao Barbosa told Sportscar365. “It is what it is. The P2 car is a spec class.

“Our main goal is to accumulate the miles in the next couple of weeks and be ready for the Roar and come to the Roar in a much better place.”

Barbosa explained that the team was exploring multiple setup options at last month’s IMSA-sanctioned test at Daytona International Raceway, essentially working from a clean sheet of paper given the category’s evolution since the JS P217 was last in series’ action.

The addition of the Ligier to the LMP2 grid also doesn’t change the class stratification to GTP according to Kurdock, who believes they found a good balance between the two prototype classes last year.

“We found stability last year with the stratification between GTP and LMP2 with the adjustments made to LMP2 at the beginning of the season,” he said.

“Looking at the tracks where GTP and LMP2 run together, IMSA plans on continuing on those stratification efforts as they were last year. We don’t believe the arrival of the Ligier has any influence on that.”

Jamie Klein contributed to this report

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