WEC 2025

[dialtone]

There are 4 chassis makers and everything in LMDh is off the shelf parts you buy from a few OEMs.

This was the only way to keep it alive and LMH cars will always have a very expensive advantage just because BoP is mever going to be perfect or covering everything, although it’s getting better.

Why LMH likes to be BoPed this hard I don’t know, but more manufacturers helps everyone given increased popularity.

Because if they weren't BoP'd, the whole 'sport' would be the most boring racing series in existence(even moreso than it already is), so they need to come up with an extremely artificial way to make it more exciting for fans and for inferior competitors to not completely embarrass themselves. Top teams agree to it otherwise there'd be no audience.

It's not an actual sport.

I’m not sure why you are replying to me… the point of my question is why would you spend $100mil to be BoPed, and that’s a valid question.

Your answer is fine, everyone already knows without BoP it would be different but this racing series is about BoP.

However I do not accept your reasoning, these are 6-24 hours races, even when they had no BoP in the class with LMP1 there wasn’t any fun racing. BoP is necessary because even with small differences you end up lapping everyone else a few times after 24h.

[dialtone]

Wow, from the timing sheets so far, and from the team comments, it seems like we could once again predict to a certainty which teams would be quickest in the coming race. How exciting.

Seriously hope they will take the opportunity to adjust this miserable BOP before the action starts for real.

There is still an adjustment allowed by ACO on BoP but yeah, the actual BoP published for the race is even slightly favorable to Toyota than the one I published so there’s a high chance they will win.

That being said this is just FP so times aren’t exactly what you’ll get later.

[dialtone]

https://www.onlyendurance.com/le-mans-t ... t-by-much/

According to only endurance Ferrari is ahead and Porsche/Toyota are 0.2s behind followed by Alpine who’s right there.

[mvfad]

What happened to Cadillac this year?

Last year they were much stronger than they are now (both at Le Mans and in the other rounds in both WEC and IMSA)

[Fakepivot]

https://www.onlyendurance.com/le-mans-t ... t-by-much/

According to only endurance Ferrari is ahead and Porsche/Toyota are 0.2s behind followed by Alpine who’s right there.

Toyota sandbagging like usual, i think they are favorite this year..

[Seanspeed]

There are 4 chassis makers and everything in LMDh is off the shelf parts you buy from a few OEMs.

This was the only way to keep it alive and LMH cars will always have a very expensive advantage just because BoP is mever going to be perfect or covering everything, although it’s getting better.

Why LMH likes to be BoPed this hard I don’t know, but more manufacturers helps everyone given increased popularity.

Because if they weren't BoP'd, the whole 'sport' would be the most boring racing series in existence(even moreso than it already is), so they need to come up with an extremely artificial way to make it more exciting for fans and for inferior competitors to not completely embarrass themselves. Top teams agree to it otherwise there'd be no audience.

It's not an actual sport.

I’m not sure why you are replying to me… the point of my question is why would you spend $100mil to be BoPed, and that’s a valid question.

Your answer is fine, everyone already knows without BoP it would be different but this racing series is about BoP.

However I do not accept your reasoning, these are 6-24 hours races, even when they had no BoP in the class with LMP1 there wasn’t any fun racing. BoP is necessary because even with small differences you end up lapping everyone else a few times after 24h.

You asked why LMH likes to be BoP'd that hard, but it's emblematic of the whole series. They do what is required to keep the series relevant.

I'm just reinforcing the point that the need for the wildly artificial BoP is the only thing that keeps this series from fading into total irrelevance, where manufacturers and whatnot would dropout due to lack of audience. Endurance racing had been fading in popularity for a long time, but the stricter BoP changes has brought back an audience. It's stopped being a sport in the process, but it's become more relevant in the zeitgeist again, which is obviously fairly important, especially from a commercial standpoint. And the commercial standpoint is the main thing that matters, and why the series is growing in competitors and interest.

[dialtone]

Because if they weren't BoP'd, the whole 'sport' would be the most boring racing series in existence(even moreso than it already is), so they need to come up with an extremely artificial way to make it more exciting for fans and for inferior competitors to not completely embarrass themselves. Top teams agree to it otherwise there'd be no audience.

It's not an actual sport.

I’m not sure why you are replying to me… the point of my question is why would you spend $100mil to be BoPed, and that’s a valid question.

Your answer is fine, everyone already knows without BoP it would be different but this racing series is about BoP.

However I do not accept your reasoning, these are 6-24 hours races, even when they had no BoP in the class with LMP1 there wasn’t any fun racing. BoP is necessary because even with small differences you end up lapping everyone else a few times after 24h.

You asked why LMH likes to be BoP'd that hard, but it's emblematic of the whole series. They do what is required to keep the series relevant.

I'm just reinforcing the point that the need for the wildly artificial BoP is the only thing that keeps this series from fading into total irrelevance, where manufacturers and whatnot would dropout due to lack of audience. Endurance racing had been fading in popularity for a long time, but the stricter BoP changes has brought back an audience. It's stopped being a sport in the process, but it's become more relevant in the zeitgeist again, which is obviously fairly important, especially from a commercial standpoint. And the commercial standpoint is the main thing that matters, and why the series is growing in competitors and interest.

I’m asking why are they happy to be BoPed while spending $100mil on the car. It’s not the same, they could probably achieve something similar by spending less than $100mil. I have no issues with this category being BoPed.

I disagree with your judgement though.

[dialtone]

So Toyota #7 is out of hyperpole also beat by an AMR.

This is not BoP's fault.

EDIT: Wurz said that De Vries was a bit unlucky with yellow flags in porsche curves and later had a puncture.

Still though both Toyotas are quite far from the top quali times, while even during practice their race laps were very good. I think that car is simply not a quali car, like I said before, and quali alone shouldn't be used to equal the performance of these cars.

[Tvetovnato]

Cautiously positive, surprisingly enough. In both practice and Q it seems a lot of cars are similar in sector 2, which is what matters for the race. Let’s hope it stays that way, and we might have a race after all.

[Seanspeed]

I’m not sure why you are replying to me… the point of my question is why would you spend $100mil to be BoPed, and that’s a valid question.

Your answer is fine, everyone already knows without BoP it would be different but this racing series is about BoP.

However I do not accept your reasoning, these are 6-24 hours races, even when they had no BoP in the class with LMP1 there wasn’t any fun racing. BoP is necessary because even with small differences you end up lapping everyone else a few times after 24h.

You asked why LMH likes to be BoP'd that hard, but it's emblematic of the whole series. They do what is required to keep the series relevant.

I'm just reinforcing the point that the need for the wildly artificial BoP is the only thing that keeps this series from fading into total irrelevance, where manufacturers and whatnot would dropout due to lack of audience. Endurance racing had been fading in popularity for a long time, but the stricter BoP changes has brought back an audience. It's stopped being a sport in the process, but it's become more relevant in the zeitgeist again, which is obviously fairly important, especially from a commercial standpoint. And the commercial standpoint is the main thing that matters, and why the series is growing in competitors and interest.

I’m asking why are they happy to be BoPed while spending $100mil on the car. It’s not the same, they could probably achieve something similar by spending less than $100mil. I have no issues with this category being BoPed.

I disagree with your judgement though.

Because they're banking on WEC becoming a more 'prestige' sport again where the marketing benefits will pay off. It wont, ever, but there's clearly a hope that WEC can provide a secondary racing series to benefit from outside of just F1.

I do generally agree that it's stupid to spend money developing a great car only for the sporting body to defacto nerf you so that some other inferior car can compete with you, or even be faster than you, depending on how competent the BoP is, or how others have gamed the system. Because again, it's not a real sport.

[SB15]

You asked why LMH likes to be BoP'd that hard, but it's emblematic of the whole series. They do what is required to keep the series relevant.

I'm just reinforcing the point that the need for the wildly artificial BoP is the only thing that keeps this series from fading into total irrelevance, where manufacturers and whatnot would dropout due to lack of audience. Endurance racing had been fading in popularity for a long time, but the stricter BoP changes has brought back an audience. It's stopped being a sport in the process, but it's become more relevant in the zeitgeist again, which is obviously fairly important, especially from a commercial standpoint. And the commercial standpoint is the main thing that matters, and why the series is growing in competitors and interest.

I’m asking why are they happy to be BoPed while spending $100mil on the car. It’s not the same, they could probably achieve something similar by spending less than $100mil. I have no issues with this category being BoPed.

I disagree with your judgement though.

Because they're banking on WEC becoming a more 'prestige' sport again where the marketing benefits will pay off. It wont, ever, but there's clearly a hope that WEC can provide a secondary racing series to benefit from outside of just F1.

I do generally agree that it's stupid to spend money developing a great car only for the sporting body to defacto nerf you so that some other inferior car can compete with you, or even be faster than you, depending on how competent the BoP is, or how others have gamed the system. Because again, it's not a real sport.

I have and forever will hate the implementation of BoP. Races always felt artificial because it basically impacts the best teams for no reason. It's simple: You make the fastest car, everyone else has to catch up. Regardless of how boring the races are.

[Seanspeed]

I have and forever will hate the implementation of BoP. Races always felt artificial because it basically impacts the best teams for no reason. It's simple: You make the fastest car, everyone else has to catch up. Regardless of how boring the races are.

They tried that, but the sport was dying cuz it absolutely did become super boring and disincentivized new manufacturers from joining. Because it's just an inherently poor format for good racing, so they had to resort to destroying all fair aspects of the competition to artificially create closeness and better racing.

For better or worse, this has worked well. It turns out that most people dont actually care about whether a sport is fair or has real competition, so long as they can invest themselves in storylines and whatnot. Make it a 'show' and people wont care it's not an actual sport.

[Sevach]

So Toyota #7 is out of hyperpole also beat by an AMR.

This is not BoP's fault.

EDIT: Wurz said that De Vries was a bit unlucky with yellow flags in porsche curves and later had a puncture.

Still though both Toyotas are quite far from the top quali times, while even during practice their race laps were very good. I think that car is simply not a quali car, like I said before, and quali alone shouldn't be used to equal the performance of these cars.

It's tough because the more sophisticated LMHs will certainly make some gains in race trim vs the LMDHs.

Kinda like you can qualify close or ahead of a Mclaren but can't keep their pace for a long stint.

[dialtone]

LMAO at the crowd that LMDH wasn't going to be competitive because ACO is not good at doing the BoP. 1-6 in quali are LMDH cars, 1 Ferrari in top 10, Toyota 10th, only 2 LMH in the top 10 and not in the first half of it.

[Sevach]

I was worried about the BOP putting Ferrari with less power after 250 KM/H, but the car sure is fast down the straight.