6H Spa-Francorchamps Preview: Part 1, Hypercar

The three-week ACO journey around Europe comes to a close this weekend with Round 3 of the FIA WEC at Spa-Francorchamps. It’s come at us fast. The 6 Hours of Portimao was just two weekends ago and since then we have had six hours of ACO racing, plus three days of testing.

It has to be noted that fatigue was already having an impact last week in Spain for a handful of the teams that have been hopping from circuit to circuit this month, competing in the FIA WEC, ELMS and in some cases, the Michelin Le Mans Cup too. Many of the personnel that form part of the teams competing on multiple fronts will be relieved by this point that the ELMS round at Imola has been cancelled, despite the fact that in a lot of cases, reducing the number of events has come as a hit financially.

Yet here we are, with the Le Mans dress rehearsal upon us and a 38-car field in the paddock packed with teams all looking to make an impression ahead of the big race in France in June.

The headline here is another record field for the top class. Hypercar in Spa will see a grid of 13 cars hit the track, with the addition of a second Cadillac V-Series.R and HERTZ Team JOTA’s brand new Porsche 963. It’s not a record that will stand for very long though, with the entry for Le Mans set to feature 16 cars in a category for the sport that is only due to get larger and deeper over the coming months and years.

JOTA’s new car marks the start of the privateer Hypercar era in many respects, the British team the first globally to run a customer LMDh chassis in the FIA WEC, up against factory opposition. Expectations for this effort should be realistic at this stage though, with the car having only completed a brief shakedown in Germany at the hands of Matt Campbell prior to the trip to Spa.

As previously confirmed, JOTA will race with a trio of Hypercar debutants in Will Stevens, Yifei Ye, and Antonio Felix da Costa, all of whom have been extremely quick in LMP2 in recent years and will hope to make a seamless transition into this world-class field.

Once this HERTZ-backed effort gets up to speed, how it stands up to the Penske-run 963s and the other factory cars will be one of the key storylines for the rest of the season

For Stevens too it marks a return to the WEC after a short break. The Briton won with JOTA in Sebring, but made way for Felix da Costa in Portimao, to allow him to get some WEC track time in before this weekend and race in front of his home fans.

Once this HERTZ-backed effort gets up to speed, how it stands up to the Penske-run 963s and the other factory cars will be one of the key storylines for the rest of the season. JOTA has little to prove in terms of its ambition and how well it can run cars. The only area it lags behind the factory teams is in outright resource, but with equal equipment to the Porsche factory team, world-class driving talent and the likes of ex-Audi Sport boss Dieter Gass running the programme, there’s no reason why this effort can’t fly.

For now, though, the challenge will be learning the car, getting as much track time as possible and coming away from the meeting without any major mechanical or incident-related setbacks.

Another effort here hoping for as much mileage as possible this weekend is Cadillac Racing, which running two cars in the FIA WEC for the first time. For the 6 Hours the full-season crew will be joined by the IMSA-full-season crew (utilising a brand new chassis), plus some Action Express personnel and the late addition of driver Jack Aitken, to help prepare the GM brand for its three-pronged attack at Le Mans.

The only other notable change here is at Glickenhaus, with Ryan Briscoe making way for Franck Mailleux in the #708 007 LMH. The Frenchman rejoins the team as it prepares for its third Le Mans with the car. It’s worth mentioning that while Maxi Goetz was for a time linked with Glickenahus for a Le Mans drive, Jim Glickenhaus has recently counted this out, with the hope for sponsorship for Goetz apparently not emerging.

Like Vanwall, Glickenhaus will be treating this race as an extended test session ahead of Le Mans, knowing full well by this point that its only chance of a strong finish in the 24 Hours is to stay reliable, as outright pace simply isn’t there.

As an aside, the fiery brake failure for Vanwall at Portimao was diagnosed to have been caused by the cooling duct being blocked by rubber debris. It will hope for a trouble-free run this time…

Up front, Toyota will be looking to score its third win in three races to start the season and head into Le Mans firmly in control in both the Drivers’ and Manufactuers’ World Championships.

Whilst the other factories closed the gap somewhat in Portugal, the combination of the GR010 HYBRID and the team behind the scenes, are proving to be a very tough nut to crack. The points standings don’t quite reflect this though. The team will be hoping that the #7 crew leaves with a strong haul of points here to make up for the torque sensor failure that cost it dearly in Portimao. Mike Conway, Jose Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi have dropped to third in the points tally behind the #50 Ferrari.

There were rumours post-Portimao that a platform BoP change was incoming in favour of the LMDh cars, though the organisers have decided against it for this weekend at least. Will this ensure an apparent gap between Toyota and Ferrari and the LMDh cars remains? We will have to wait until Saturday afternoon to find out…

Ferrari is expected again to be the closest competitor to Toyota in Belgium

Thus, Ferrari is expected again to be the closest competitor to Toyota in Belgium. The 499P has tested at Spa in the off-season too, though the team’s dry running was minimal, meaning task number one will be finding a baseline set-up in tomorrow’s practice sessions before it focuses on outright speed.

It was interesting that AF Corse revealed post-Portimao that it was intentionally taking a conservative approach to the opening races of the season, to learn as much as possible about the car before it turns up the wick. If the braking issues, (caused by an MGU failure) seen in Portugal don’t become a factor this Saturday, might we see a further big step from a team that is clearly making progress all the time?

Porsche too will hope it can push harder with its 963s, as it learns more, principally, about managing tyre wear, which has been the car’s biggest pitfall to this point.

It has been fascinating to learn that two LMDh chassis present are clearly very different animals, even with so many common parts. The Cadillac’s greatest strength has been its ability to avoid major drop-offs in tyre performance, while Porsche has found extending the 963’s time spent at peak grip levels a real challenge.

Nevertheless, Porsche became the first of the two LMDh teams in this field to finish on the podium. It will be interesting to see if its chances of a podium this weekend hinge entirely on the reliability and fortunes of the Toyotas and Ferraris…

The Cadillac’s greatest strength has been its ability to avoid major drop-offs in grip

The final programme to mention is Peugeot, which continues to be Hypercar’s greatest enigma. Portimao saw significantly better reliability from both 9X8s (aside from the steering issue that delayed the #93 at the start of the race).

After the race team sources made it clear that it had driven to a very conservative pace to avoid an enforced stop to replace failed or failing FIA torque sensors. So it begs the question: what can we expect if all goes to plan this week? An improvement here would come as a huge boost to a team that thus far has found life in the FIA WEC’s top-class anything but simple.

That latter point will be an interesting one to drill into with championship organisers this weekend. It’s apparently not just the teams that have had their teething troubles with new Hypercar tech…

Images courtesy of Jakob Ebrey Photography

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