How the next step in the IMSA and WEC convergence can reunite multiple fronts

Many were euphoric that day 18 months ago when the LMDh category was announced on the eve of the Daytona 24 Hours in January 2020. Finally, they cried, we had one set of regulations straddling the World Endurance Championship and the IMSA SportsCar Championship in North America.

That was true. But crucially what we didn't have were two sets of regulations crossing over between the series. So to my mind there wasn't a true convergence. That changed last week.

The difference between then and now is that the Le Mans Hypercars already competing in the WEC will be allowed to race in IMSA come 2023 and the introduction of the LMP2-based LMDh rules. Back at the start of last year there was genuine confusion as to whether that would be the case. Last week's simultaneous announcements from WEC promoter the ACO and the IMSA cleared that up.

John Doonan, then brand new in his role as boss of IMSA, told us at the LMDh press conference that LMH prototypes would be welcome in his series. He then backtracked immediately afterwards, and in the year and a half since we've been waiting on firm news of the prospects of LMH competing in North America.

I'm not suggesting that now is really the time to be euphoric, because LMDh has done its job. The ability of a manufacturer to build one car and race it across two arenas has drawn Porsche and Audi back to the pinnacle of sportscar racing after thankfully short absences.

PLUS: Why Audi's return heralds a new halcyon age for sportscars

BMW, too, is returning to the top of the sportscar tree after a much longer hiatus with an LMDh prototype. Its big boss said ahead of its announcement that the duality allowed by the LMDh regs was one of the reasons it was seriously evaluating them, though for the moment it is insisting that its programme from 2023 will be North America-focused.

#24 BMW Team RLL BMW M8 GTE, GTLM: Start, Marco Wittmann, Augusto Farfus, Jesse Krohn, John Edwards

Photo by: Richard Dole / Motorsport Images

The true convergence announced last week might draw more manufacturers into sportscar racing, ones wanting to go the LMH route courtesy of a desire to showcase their hybrid credentials on two platforms rather than having to buy the off-the-shelf energy-retrieval system mandated in LMDh. But the significance for me of what was announced on Friday was slightly different. It was about the doors it might just push open.

The LMH manufacturers already racing in the WEC — that's Toyota and Glickenhaus — and those on their way — Peugeot and Ferrari — will now have the opportunity to take in the blue riband IMSA races. And I'm really thinking Daytona here, because all things being equal, the WEC will be back at Sebring next year for its 1000-mile fixture on the same bill as the 12-hour IMSA classic.

Glickenhaus, as an American marque, has long since made its desire to race on the hallowed banking of the Daytona International Speedway clear, and Toyota has hinted that one day it would like to follow suit.

Pierre Fillon, president of WEC promoter the Automobile Club de l'Ouest, has suggested incorporating some of the big IMSA races into his schedule is "on the radar" but the "devil would be in the detail"

Ferrari hasn't outlined its position as yet, though it’s difficult to see it staying away. Not only is it a long-time player in North American sportscar racing, but the USA is the Italian manufacturer's biggest market. Peugeot, however, has its eyes firmly on the WEC as a manufacturer that for the moment at least doesn't sell cars in North America.

PLUS: Why Ferrari is ending its 50-year top-flight sportscar exile

But what if they all had to race at Daytona? What if it was a round of the WEC?

Such a suggestion would have sounded fanciful just a few years back. But now the ground has been laid for the US fixture to join the schedule of what we might generically call the world sportscar championship for the first time since 1981. Before that the Daytona early-season fixture graced the world series schedule, initially as a 12-hour race, was a regular on the world series schedule.

1981 Daytona 24 Hours, Bob Garretson/Bobby Rahal/Brian Redman (Porsche 935)

Photo by: Murenbeeld / LAT

The Daytona grid might have shrunk a bit over the past few years, but it's doubtful whether the self-styled 'World Center of Racing' could accommodate the full WEC field in addition to the IMSA regulars. But how about the cars from the WEC's prototype classes, Hypercar and LMP2, joining the action at the end of January each year?

I don't see why every round of the WEC has to host all four classes. IMSA, of course, mixes it up a bit. Just the GT Le Mans and GT Daytona cars will be racing at Lime Rock this weekend, for example.

A few years back when the future of the DTM was far from clear, I championed the idea of the Norisring hosting a stand-alone GTE WEC race. That was at a time when the series was looking at ways of increasing the profile of the then-burgeoning GTE Pro class and was planning to introduce a short and sharp qualifying race to that end.

The idea of qualifying sprints was shelved after the bombshell of the Porsche's withdrawal from LMP1 in 2017 and need for a rescue package that you might remember went under the name of the 'superseason'. But I do know that my thoughts on the Norisring did pique the interest of some senior figures in the WEC.

Pierre Fillon, president of WEC promoter the Automobile Club de l'Ouest, has suggested that incorporating some of the big IMSA races into his schedule is "on the radar". He hasn't elaborated except to say that the "devil would be in the detail".

He's spot on there, of course. There are different sporting rules, different ways of operating in the pits, but it's got to be worth a look as the sportscar racing heads into what we all believe is going to be a golden age.

WEC president Frederic Lequien, IMSA President John Doonan, and ACO President Pierre Fillon

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

No disrespect to Spa or Silverstone, which have kicked off the series in recent years, but they aren't really events. They're just rounds of a championship.

And therein lies the problem for the WEC. It is built around the Le Mans 24 Hours, a race with a global reach and a crowd that in normal times numbers more than a quarter of a million. Yet the rest of its season is largely made up of anodyne and for the most part anonymous races that draw people through the gate in limited numbers.

The WEC needs a calendar befitting of the quality and quantity of manufacturers we're going to have at the sharp end of the grid come 2023

Adding a second 24-hour race to the schedule, and a flyaway at that for the majority of teams, would undoubtedly increase budgets. But it would be far better in my mind to forgo a couple of the regular six-hour races in order to get another high-profile race on the schedule. Less would be more to my mind.

The WEC needs a calendar befitting of the quality and quantity of manufacturers we're going to have at the sharp end of the grid come 2023. It would probably be a bit much to ask for that year's Daytona to kick of the WEC in the first year of LMDh, but I don't see why it couldn't happen a year or two afterwards.

I'm desperately hoping that some time soon I'll be writing the words 'Daytona 24 Hours, round one of the World Endurance Championship".

2021 Daytona 24 Hours race start

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images