Revised Balance of Performance Methodology Revealed

The FIA and ACO have revealed modifications to the way the Balance of Performance is to be calculated for the new FIA World Endurance Championship season.

Following last year’s complete revamp of the way the BoP was determined for both the Hypercar and LMGT3 classes, the rule makers have revealed modifications to the system for the new campaign that begins this week in Qatar.

The most significant change in philosophy is that the organizers are now targeting what they term “100 percent convergence”, rather than keeping all the manufacturers within a certain undisclosed performance window.

It was explained by ACO competition director Thierry Bouvet and FIA technical engineering director Thomas Chevaucher that, in Hypercar, both the 10 best laps of each car and 60 percent of a car’s best laps will be taken into account when calculating the BoP, in a bid to include both peak performance and performance over a stint.

For the LMGT3 class, only the 60 percent of best laps will be considered, which in effect means that lap times from Silver- and Bronze-rated drivers will come into play.

Previously, rule makers took the 20 percent best laps of each car.

Bouvet said that the main reason for this change was to further equalize the LMH and LMDh platforms that together make up the Hypercar ruleset.

He admitted that it means that performance drop-off from tire wear — specifically excluded from BoP calculations in the 2024 system — is now to be equalized.

Top speed figures from what the rule makers called “clean laps”, meaning without a tow, are also being taken into account to define the BoP.

It was further explained that the BoP will be calculated based on a three-race rolling average of the previous three WEC events, excluding the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which will maintain a completely standalone BoP.

The BoP for the Qatar 1812km is therefore taken using data from last year’s Circuit of The Americas, Fuji and Bahrain rounds.

Bouvet explained that it wouldn’t have been fair to use the BoP from last year’s Qatar round as a baseline, as this would fail to take into account improvements made by some manufacturers over the course of the 2024 campaign.

For Le Mans, only simulation data will be used to avoid incentivizing sandbagging.

The BoP for the all-new Aston Martin Valkyrie in Qatar is being calculated using the data from the fastest car from each of the three most recent WEC races.

However, this will be replaced by actual lap time data from the Valkyrie as the season progresses, meaning that by the Sao Paulo round, the British manufacturer will have a BoP derived from the car’s own performance for the first time.

The new system is a result of a series of technical working groups involving the manufacturers, with no fewer than eight meetings having taken place since last year’s Bahrain finale in order to establish the revised methodology.

While “100 percent convergence” is being targeted, Bouvet stated that there will still be a “natural” performance window of around 0.3-0.4 percent, which is a reflection of the average speed differential between cars of the same manufacturer.

Another feature of the revised system is that the manufacturers are being provided by the rule makers with the data that is being used to calculate the BoP for their individual car in the interests of greater transparency.

Bouvet admitted that this means the manufacturers can “play around more” but suggested that the rules could be modified if any competitor tries to game the system.