FIA Confirms “Minor” Change to Hypercar BoP Process From Spa

The FIA has confirmed what it calls a “minor enhancement” to the Balance of Performance process for the Hypercar class of the FIA World Endurance Championship that took effect for the previous round of the championship at Spa.

This season, the FIA and ACO have introduced a major overhaul of the methodology used to calculate the BoP, revealing on the eve of the Qatar season opener in February that lap time data taken from the three most recent regular WEC races (excluding the 24 Hours of Le Mans) would be used to determine the figures in both Hypercar and LMGT3.

The stated target was to achieve “100 percent convergence” between the participating manufacturers, instead of targeting keeping all cars within a performance window of plus or minus 0.2 percent as had been the case under the 2024 system.

However, starting at Spa, a change has been made in Hypercar, so that data from the car’s best two races of the previous three are now used to determine the BoP.

This would go some way to explaining why the BoP for Spa featured so many dramatic swings, with the bulletin featuring multiple double-digit changes in both minimum weight and maximum power below 250 km/h compared to the Imola round in April.

A spokesperson for the FIA characterized the move as “a minor enhancement designed to accelerate the convergence speed of the process.”

The change does not apply to LMGT3, which continues to use all three of the most previous races as the basis to determine the BoP.

Competitors are forbidden to openly express opinions on the BoP — either the values themselves or the process by which they are decided — but it was still clear that several manufacturers were left unhappy with the system at Spa.

Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director David Floury stated he felt the Japanese marque was fighting a “virtual championship” against Porsche after a race in which neither manufacturer was in a position to challenge Ferrari for victory.

Porsche Motorsport boss Thomas Laudenbach also took clear aim at the BoP when he said “there is also a massive need for action outside of our organization” to bring the 963 back to competitiveness in the wake of a tough race at Spa.

The FIA and ACO underlined at Qatar that the new-for-2025 BoP methodology had been decided upon with the backing of a majority of manufacturers, although it is not clear whether their approval was sought for the latest change.

The 24H Le Mans maintains its own separate BoP that is theoretically unaffected by the data generated from the opening three races of the season.