The increased size of the Hypercar class for the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship season will put additional pressure on the qualifying sessions, Porsche’s Kevin Estre told reporters in a pre-season media call.
The Frenchman said: “The biggest difference, in terms of pressure, will be [in] qualifying because in the past, if you had a bad qualifying, you’ll still be alright on the grid.
“Now you can be very, very far. And you can lose a lot of time in the first laps of the race, so qualifying is going to be one of the biggest differences for a driver.”
The Porsche Penske Motorsport driver in the #6 963 LMDh described to selected media about the impact of the expanding Hypercar field, which has increased by 10 entrants for 2024.
With the withdrawal of the LMP2 class on the full-time WEC package, now only present at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, it has made way for new manufacturers such as Alpine, Lamborghini, BMW and Isotta Fraschini.
During the 2023 season, 13 Hypercars entered the full season, with cars from Ferrari, Toyota, Peugeot, Porsche, and Cadillac, plus single cars from ’boutique’ manufacturers Glickenhaus and Vanwall. At some races the grid was down to 11 cars as the Porsche customer teams did not compete the first few races and Glickenhaus pulled out after the European season ended at Monza.
However, the class has grown considerably for 2024, with the implication being that instead of six rows of Hypercars at the rolling race start, there will be almost 10 rows-worth this year, with 19 full-season cars and considerably more expected for Le Mans.
This, therefore, puts drivers under an increased amount of pressure to get their car as high up the grid as possible for the race.
This then has a knock-on effect for the teams’ race strategy, with the fuel and tyre strategy impacted by where on the grid a driver starts. It could also impact a car’s reliability, as a driver may have to push to get further up the field if it is out of position on the grid due to a poor qualifying.
Whereas in qualifying, even with the Hyperpole format now being put into effect for the full-season, this puts emphasis on one-lap pace from one driver per car.
Hartley: no added pressure
Toyota’s Brendon Hartley, however, said for his part, he doesn’t feel extra pressure from the increased amount of cars on the grid.
“I think for me the pressure won’t be any more than what it was last year,” said the Kiwi.
“I think particularly as Toyota, we had a lot of pressure to perform. I think we would have looked a bit silly if everyone else turned up and beat us from the first race. Ferrari taking pole at Sebring was a bit of a wiggly tooth, let’s say. A bit of a knock to the jaw. But I think we fought back well in the race.
Indeed, Ferrari shocked the entire field and paddock, plus everyone at the track and watching on TV around the world, by taking pole at the 499P’s debut race at the 1000 Miles of Sebring last year. However, they had sacrificed race pace in order to do this, and as the Toyota driver describes, the Japanese-German team fought back in the race to take the victory.
“But I think now everyone’s more established,” he continued.
“I think everyone will be fighting us harder and I think the championship’s for anyone to take. And I don’t think we are as much favourites as we were last year. But I can probably speak for all the other guys that when you put the helmet on, you want to do the best that you can and you always have some pressure to do that.
“So I don’t think there’s gonna be much more this year. But the racing’s definitely gonna be more exciting with so many cars on track,” he concluded.
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