2020/21 Hypercar announced
The announcement of the 2020/21 Hypercar regulations has rather settled the paddock at Le Mans, in one sense. At the press conference in France, the ACO and the FIA confirmed that the regulations as voted on by the FIA World Motorsport Council in December were largely written in stone, but that teams could bring a prototype hybrid, a prototype non-hybrid, a road car hybrid, and a road car non-hybrid, plus in year one they will also grandfather the current LMP1 cars that wish to race.
2020/21 Hypercar – Balance of performance
The key to the 2020/21 Hypercar regulations will be the ability to performance balance the concepts. Some say that this can be done, and will be done or the whole concept will fail, others say that it cannot be done. Power, weight, aero and hybrid deployment will all be tightly regulated, put into performance windows, including the torque curve and power delivery from the hybrid before the cars are performance balanced. With a lap time of 3m30s at Le Mans, manufacturers are looking at a relatively inexpensive way to race in the FIA WEC. The single tyre supplier rule has not been met well by either Dunlop or Michelin, both of which want teams to have the option and to have competition between the brands. However, in a BoP world, this is a variable that the organisers cannot accommodate.
The BoP will be automated, FIA President Jean Todt reportedly against the idea that an individual or a team of engineers could decide the...