IMSA has announced its plans for the 2020 season at yesterday's 'State of the Series' presentation held by IMSA President Scott Atherton.
The event, always held at Road America, is where where the following year's IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge schedules are traditionally unveiled, and future plans and developments are unveiled publicly for the first time.
This year's edition of the event didn't feature any notable breaking news announcements, but there were some interesting announcements to be found.
"To confirm the details of every one of our 2020 series schedules so that all of our stakeholders – race teams, drivers, manufacturers, partners, and most importantly, our fans – can start making plans for next year is a real positive for everyone," said Atherton. "It is the result of a tremendous amount of collaboration between our team at IMSA and our promoter partners and we are grateful for the hard work of all involved. All seven IMSA-sanctioned series will visit the very best road racing facilities in North America throughout 2020."
The main news was the announcement of the 2020 schedule for the Weathertech Sportscar Championship, which will race at the same twelve venues it has raced at for the last two years. The season starts with the Rolex 24 at Daytona in January and end with the Motul Petit Le Mans in October. For more details on the 2020 calendar, click here.
The 2020 season will see some notable changes for the LMP2 and GT Daytona classes. LMP2 will switch to a six-race calendar next year. The Rolex 24 At Daytona will be a standalone "marquee" event and will not count toward WeatherTech Championship points, but it will count toward the class' four-race Michelin Endurance Cup season. LMP2 will also not be racing at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park like it did this year, sparing the teams from the challenge of competing on back-to-back weekends.
Bronze- or Silver-rated drivers in both classes will also be receiving extended dedicated practice time next time: 30 minutes. The drivers will get 15 minutes of exclusive practice, and 15 minutes of combined practice with the DPi and GTLM cars, both at the beginning of the weekend's second free practice session. Any participating driver or team will be allocated one extra set of tires for the session.
Furthermore, IMSA also gave an update on the evolution of the DPi platform in 2022, with the announcement that the series plans to release technical regulations in the first quarter of 2020.
