Qualifying Changes Among Further Rules Tweaks for 2025

A change to the qualifying format is among a raft of further small revisions to the FIA World Endurance Championship’s sporting regulations for 2025.

For next season, LMGT3 teams will be required to use their Bronze-rated driver in first qualifying and their Silver-rated driver for Hyperpole.

This season, both qualifying segments have been the exclusive preserve of Bronze-rated drivers – with the notable exception of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where driver choice was left free for the first part of qualifying before the Bronzes took over for Hyperpole.

Another change for qualifying is that the tire compound for Hyperpole will now be specified by the rule makers in advance of each race weekend, instead of simply defaulting to the softest tire available on any given weekend.

This rule is only likely to affect the Hypercar class, as LMGT3 tire supplier Goodyear has only used a single compound, the Medium, for the whole season.

In addition, LMGT3 race numbers will switch from orange to green next year.

Green had fallen out of use when the GTE-Pro category was axed at the end of 2022, with LMGT3 inheriting the traditional orange of GTE-Am for its debut season this year.

One other subtle tweak to the rules concerns the ban on public statements from competitors criticizing the Balance of Performance system, which now extends to the process of setting the BoP as well as the values themselves.

It follows Toyota team director Rob Leupen being handed a suspended fine for making critical remarks in the media following the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo in July.

The relevant rule now reads: “Manufacturers, Competitors, Drivers and any persons or entities associated with their entries must not seek to influence the establishment of the BoP or comment on the process and/or the results, in particular through public statements, the media and social networks.”

These changes come on top of those announced earlier this month following the most recent meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council.