WEC Targeting Expanded 40-Car Grid in 2025

Photo: Focus Pack Media/WEC

The FIA World Endurance Championship will expand to at least a 40-car full season grid in 2025 according to series boss Frederic Lequien, who said that feasibility studies are currently underway on the possibility of LMGT3 teams sharing garage spaces at certain at-capacity events.

Next year’s full season entry list, released on Monday, has been restricted to 37 cars due to the number of garages at Imola and Circuit of The Americas, something Lequien said is being looked at for the future amid the arrival of The Heart of Racing’s Aston Martin Valkyrie Hypercar effort and a likely second Lamborghini SC63 in 2025.

A similar concept was floated to LMGT3 teams for next season but had been ultimately ruled out due to teams needing to share refueling rigs between their cars, which would compromise race strategy among other elements.

“I can tell you it’s kind of an obsession at the office,” Lequien said on achieving more grid space. “It’s really difficult to find the right balance.

“Of course we will not be in the capacity to take everyone. In this case, we can have 44, 45 cars in 2025 but we are currently discussing with all of the teams, the team manager, to check different possibilities, especially in GT, to share some garages for 2025, which would give us the possibility to increase the grid to 40.

“Of course this is the direction we’d like to take but there’s so many parameters to be taken into consideration. Forty cars for 2025: we will go to 40 cars, definitely.”

When asked on the maximum number of cars the championship could accommodate, Lequien pointed out the restrictions at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, especially when factoring in a minimum of 15 LMP2 cars that also guaranteed places on the 62-car grid.

“When you participate in the WEC, you’re of course automatically qualified for Le Mans because Le Mans is a round of the WEC,” he said.

“In Le Mans we have 62 places so we have to pay attention to this also.”

Lequien Open to Race-by-Race Entries in 2024

The WEC CEO has remained open to the possibility of teams entering the championship on a space-permitting race-by-race basis next year, although downplayed the prospects of any additional LMGT3 entries for one-off races outside of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

“The more we have some garages, the more we have some possibilities to take some race-by-race entries,” Lequien told Sportscar365.

“But I do not want to make any compromises. It’s going to be tough to take additional entries. Maybe one or two during the season but it’s very difficult to tell you right now in which places we can do it.

“Of course we have more space in Qatar than in Imola but we also need to pay attention on the safety of the pit lane which is something that’s very important to us.”

Lequien clarified that only teams with cars homologated for the full WEC season would be eligible, therefore prohibiting one-offs from the likes of Vanwall Racing or customer teams running Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo IIs or Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evos, which were all not accepted by the WEC selection committee for 2024.

“The LMGT3 must be homologated by ACO and FIA,” he said. “So only the brands that are going to participate in WEC and ELMS would be eligible for Le Mans. No other brands.

“But the LMGT3 grid [in WEC] is very well balanced. I do not see some possibilities to have one more GT3 in race-by-race.

“Maybe in Hypercar it’s possible.”

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