Porsche expects Balance of Performance change before Le Mans 24 Hours
Porsche has stated that there will be in a change in the Balance of Performance in the World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class before the Le Mans 24 Hours in June.
Thomas Laudenbach, head of Porsche Motorsport, made the claim before and after last weekend’s Spa 6 Hours round of the 2023 WEC, after there was no BoP revision for the Belgian race following the opening two events of the season at Sebring in March and Portimao in April.
Asked if there could be a change following Spa, he replied. “Which we all know is going to come.
“We clearly expect an adjustment before Le Mans.
“I was expecting it after Portimao, but I have been told we do it before Le Mans.”
Following the race in which Toyota claimed a third victory in three races, Laudenbach said: “I don’t think the question is, will there be a change; the big question is, what will be the change.”
WEC rule makers the FIA and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest had the opportunity to make a change ahead of Spa to the so-called platform BoP, the balance between the Le Mans Hypercar and LMDh machinery that come together in the Hypercar class.
Insight: 10 things we learned from the 2023 WEC 6 Hours of Spa
What is unclear is whether it was their only opportunity and if there is still scope for altering the balance between the LMH machinery such as Toyota’s GR010 HYBRID and the LMDhs that include the Porsche 963 prior to Le Mans.
Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director Pascal Vasselon insisted that Spa was the only possibility for a BoP revision this side of Le Mans.
“There is no room for adjustment [before Le Mans],” he said. “There are documents saying what the rule is: there has been an agreement with a precise schedule.”
Those documents are not in the public domain and the FIA and the ACO have only clarified that just the platform BoP can be changed before Le Mans.
Thomas Laudenbach, Porsche Penske Motorsport
Photo by: Porsche
An FIA representative pointed Autosport to a so-called ‘explainer’ released by the governing body over the week of the Sebring series opener in March, which appears to suggest a change is still possible.
It stated: “There will be only one BoP adjustment throughout the season after Le Mans, as well as possibly balancing out the LMH and LMDh platforms prior to that race.”
The new system introduced for this season is based on simulation rather than lap-time data from the races.
Primary among the targets was to remove the possibility of sandbagging, which is why the BoP was largely fixed for the first four races up to and including Le Mans.
There can be wholescale changes under what has been termed the manufacturer BoP to individual cars after Le Mans and then it will be set for the final three races of the season.
A second platform change is then possible over the second half of the season prior to the Bahrain season finale in November.
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