The World Endurance Championship may introduce success handicaps within the Hypercar division for its 2026 season.
The brand new sporting guidelines for the collection subsequent yr comprise the availability to increase using the performance-balancing measure from LMGT3 to the highest class.
However the FIA, which runs the WEC along with Le Mans 24 Hours organiser the Car Membership de l’Ouest, has careworn that no last resolution has been made.
It mentioned in a press release: “As per the 2026 WEC sporting laws, the success handicap, already in place within the LMGT3 class in earlier years, may be utilized within the Hypercar class, excluding the Le Mans 24 Hours, if deemed essential by WEC’s regulatory our bodies [the FIA and ACO] earlier than the beginning of the season.
“No resolution has been made at this stage and the availability has been launched solely to permit the potential of inclusion of such an adjustment as a part of the efficiency balancing course of [the Balance of Performance] in 2026.”
Success handicaps had been beforehand used within the prime class of the WEC over the course of the 2019/20 season within the last yr of LMP1.
#95 United Autosports Mclaren 720S LMGT3 Evo: Darren Leung, Sean Gelael, Marino Sato, #27 Coronary heart Of Racing Group Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3: Ian James, Zacharie Robichon, Mattia Drudi
Picture by: FIAWEC – DPPI
The system, which adjusted the facility and weight of the vehicles in response to race outcomes, allowed the privateer Rise up Racing squad to win two of the eight rounds forward of Toyota, which was WEC’s solely remaining main producer on the time.
The usage of success handicaps in LMGT3 got here in on the introduction of the category in 2025, changing the success ballast system beforehand in place for its predecessor, GTE Am.
Underneath the proposed system a lap-time handicap can be calculated and utilized to every automotive within the type of a rise in weight and/or discount in energy and be printed as a part of the BoP desk earlier than every race.
FIA’s assertion added: “The precise particulars of the efficiency balancing course of can be decided earlier than the primary timed session of the Prologue, the official pre-season check, which is about to happen at Losail Worldwide Circuit one week earlier than the 2026 season-opening Qatar 1812Km. The 2026 efficiency balancing course of is being developed with full transparency and in shut collaboration with the producers concerned in WEC’s Hypercar class.”
The potential use of success handicaps follows criticism of the BoP course of this yr: Porsche urged that dissatisfaction with the BoP performed a component in its resolution to go away Hypercar as a manufacturing facility for 2026.
The FIA and the ACO is working to once more revise the BoP course of for 2026 on the again of developing with what have been described as “extra strong efficiency home windows” below the homologation strategy of the Le Mans Hypercar and LMDh equipment that compete in Hypercar.
This may comply with a brand new spherical of wind tunnel testing within the Windshear facility within the USA. Beforehand solely LMDh equipment had gone into the Windshear tunnel, however now the LMH will comply with as a result of the Sauber tunnel the place they had been previously examined is not obtainable after Audi’s takeover of the System 1 workforce.
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