Mercedes AMG: Waiting On LMGT3 – Internal Progress On GT3 Successor

Head of Mercedes-AMG Customer Racing, Stefan Wendl sat down with a very small group of journalists at the Spa 24 Hours to cover off a range of current and future matters ranging from the future of the brand’s Customer racing range, through the future of the IGTC and the growing enigma of ‘who’s in – who isn’t?’ in the FIA WEC’s new-for-2024 LM GT3 class.

There is plenty to ponder below as we pick through the opportunities and challenges off the immediate and near future in GT racing worldwide.

Where do you think the strength of your GT3 product is?

“I think we have a wide-range product in all perspectives. In terms of performance it delivers what is delivers necessary, it’s usable on each track with set-up and easily accessible and easy to handle for for mechanics and at a reasonable price.

“And in the same way everything outside the product, service and support. For all series all over the world we have spare parts, we have support engineers in place to help the teams out. We try to offer in every situation from a team something to help.

“Some things are free of charge, some things they have to pay for, but at least it’s accessible. And this is from my perspective are the biggest strengths – next to the brand that is, everybody loves AMG.”

We’ve had a number of announcements at Spa. One that I am sure was welcomed is the fact that the Nurburgring 24 Hours will be joining IGTC?

“As AMG we’ve been committed to IGTC for a while. We just missed the first year since we love the product, so I think that’s exactly what we want to communicate to the market.

“I like very much just the system to represent your strongest customers worldwide in the most important markets, the strengths of your car, of your product to showcase regional teams, give some know how coming from everybody around the globe and allow teams from the States, from Europe and Asia and so on, to connect with each other and strengthen the system.

“I think we have the case that engineers and mechanics, not only from HWA but also from teams are rented or lent to teams in America or to Asia and now the other way around too with Asian mechanics supporting teams here in Europe.

“We represent the brand once a year with one highlight event on each continent except for Africa in the future, to highlight the brand and to celebrate customer racing. I like the location in Kyalami, it’s a very impressive track which loves AMG. For me though, it’s okay that we are responding to the fact that there are too many struggles to choose between, like keeping costs down and efficiency.

“There’s no base, no race event, which is fed by regional customers (in Southern Africa). And this makes it really hard in this tight schedule between American, Asian and Middle East races, and the start of the European season to find a spot to bring the cars and the logistics into this country.”

Stephane Ratel appears to be increasingly concerned about an escalation of cost in GT3. He’s also been very clear that GT2 can race in a lot of places where people currently don’t choose to race it.

Can you tell us what your perspective is on that. You’ve got product in both camps, what are your customers telling you and what do you think the prospects are of growth in GT2?

“I think our customers and also myself are concerned about this because this is a really huge topic for us to stay attractive with worldwide challenges of inflation and cost increases.

“For the customer who is getting into the car, we do everything we can also, including for our future products, to build in to the development process of the car, cost-effecting measures, like the purchasing process, lead time for parts and so on, which is very important.

“One of our major targets for the future is to keep costs to a reasonable target.

“In GT3 we see that the newest released cars are massively more expensive than the previous generation of GT3 cars. I don’t believe that those manufacturers did that just because they can, I believe that’s as a result of the new FIA regulations and measures, so that means also that we will face challenges in the development process of our successor to keep our price level in the range that we stay attractive for customers.

That leads to the other half of the question, which is you said yourself at the start of the conversation. AMG GT platform has got some heritage. It’s one of the older base models now. It’s also the only platform you’ve got across. GT2, GT3 and GT4 (Ony Audi also does this at present)? What can you tell us about the future?

“First of all, we are happy to introduce the new GT2 contender.

“We have the first two cars running in the G2 European series, we also had two of our test cars completing the 24 race of the Nurburgring, which we were very proud of because this was like a test race, a first 24 hour test for the car and we did it under public conditions and with customer drivers.

“We had just a minor thing at the beginning of the race with a contact, everything else when brilliantly and the cars continued driving without big rebuilds. We are happy to start now to ramp up to production from August and to deliver now the first real production cars off the line to customers.

“We are happy so far. It’s two digits of cars already solid. And we are happy to continue this level to bring it to the world, to present the car in the States.

“In Asia at the moment there’s not the focus on GT2, there’s no real platform to go to. I think we are focused on US and Europe first. Because also we need to ramp up the support and it’s very difficult.

For GT3 and GT4, are we going to see another evolution cycle before there’s even a conversation about changing your platform?

“No, we’re not. We made this clear to our customers.

“We extended our obligation for GT4 from the fall of last year to 2027. And we told our customers that we will support this for the future because we see the platform is very successful. And also based on customer feedback. They love the car and they think it’s a perfect product.

“Also the GT4 has a wide range of perspective of performance, service price, every single level. That’s why we see no reason for another evolution just to make something.

“And it’s the same for our current GT3. We thought about it. But we think it’s better to stay in the current product and stay with the current set of regulations we faced with this evolution which came into place in 2020. And we will support our customers in the best possible way so that will go with us to wait for the successor coming

“And this is maybe to the second question. We are focused, highly focused at the moment on developing the success. And we make internal progress. But there’s nothing more than that to say about it.

“Also we continue to think about what happens to the current car, even if we have the successor in place
The performance is balanced and managed and yes, after a certain time when the car will maybe look old, or let’s say ‘classic’. But you can see the heritage on it with several victories and 24 hour races. We expect to have those cars running even when we come with a succesor in place because we sold nearly 300 cars. And this is a success story and they will not disappear at once. I don’t think so.”

On IGTC, if you were to be able to wave a magic wand and say I want to go there, which race would you go for?

“There’s just only one answer. So it’s a place we’ve been before, it would be Suzuka because its a very, very nice race track, a lot of heritage involved and I know all the drivers that go to Suzuka love the place, love the track. That’s why I think that it will perfectly fit into those iconic tracks and track layouts.”

Were you aware of the announcement around GT World Challenge Europe ending their season in Jeddah? What’s your opinion on the move?

“I like the idea. It was also a surprise to me. And the first surprise is why it’s not an IGTC event.

Stephane (Ratel) has, for sure, a strategic Plan. Bringing all those European cars GT4 and GT3, say 50-55 on one ferry to this with team equipment and everything (including the trucks) over to the Middle East for this final event. I think it’s a big boost for our market in the Middle East.

“This for sure brings new perspectives to every team to keep the equipment over to start for Asian Le Mans, the Dubai 24 hour, Creventic races. I expect this could be a big boost for those races to have even more customers.

“I think it’s very good that it looks like SRO, ACO, ADAC in Germany are communicating with each other. Stephane mentioned several times tthat he was working to avoid clashes between DTM and between WEC . I still cannot believe that it works so we will see with finalising the calendars.

“This is good for the teams so that there’s less competition and somebody’s looking on top of it, trying to make an efficient schedule.

“On the other hand for the teams, I know, they have to decide by their own and without having excuses for clashes about why not doing the other series on top and not this because it’s hard for for the whole staff for the teams and for the mechanics and everybody involved.

“You have such a high level of opportunities, it could get hard because if you get offered something or requested something, it’s hard for teams to say no. But sometimes it’s necessary to say no.”

Where are AMG at the moment in terms of the potential for LMGT3 for your brand and what level of confidence and reassurance have you got that there will be a place for Mercedes AMG?

“As we have no heritage with the ACO, we’re just starting our relationship and building up the connection points in every stage.

“We’re just being polite in trying to get on this platform and using the strengths of our system. Because also for the ACO, I think we will be an attractive partner. There’s a lot of potential customer teams joining their lower platforms not only in WEC and those two minimum entries, it’s all about also to feed those race series and make them stronger, even if they are strong at the moment.

“But you know, it’s always good to have more requests, than places. And in terms of regulation, I also don’t know what is the current position is, that’s the same for the other manufacturers.

“We also don’t know if we will receive one or two entries for our cars for the WEC.

“On the other hand, looking from their perspective, I fully understand that this is a fairly tough decision for them. Everybody’s looking at the announcements on what they plan to do.

“There was a commitment to have two entries for each manufacturer that was involved in LMDh and LMH. This leads to the assumption that there are minimum 14 GT3 cars. We can count on a grid in WEC of 36 or 38 cars.

“If you will subtract 14, then you are 24 or 22. You have three brands or four brands or six waiting.

“On the other hand, they (the ACO) don’t know exactly the number of entries and this is a limiting factor. And they cannot say now that we will have, for sure 22 (Hypercar) entries, and as far as I have understood they will no limit the the Hypercar entries for the WEC.

“This means they wait until they have a finalised Hypercar grid. And in this moment they open the space to make the decision and open the space for potential further (LMGT3) entries.”

(It is clear too that there is currently no clarity on the performance window to be applied to the LMGT3 class – and therefore no ultimate confidence that an upgrade kit will not be required to some degree at least).

“The difficult thing is the homologation of the car. If they stick to the changes in the performance window, it’s very late to start the process of developing a car to achieve what you need to achieve and produce the parts.

“If you need to have necessary changes in major bodywork parts, then it gets tight and potentially it’s not possible. But I don’t know exactly.

“As long as the performance windows are not clearly defined, maybe it’s possible with some flicks or minor changes on the front splitter or the rear wing to make it wider or shorter or something like this.

“Then it is possible. It depends a bit on the challenge to bring your car into the window. Maybe it is in the window. Then we’ll find out.”

If it was no from WEC, and customers came to you, and asked, we would still like to try and win an opportunity to go Le Mans – via Asian Le Mans Series or European Le Mans Series – Would you support that?

“This is for us customer racing.

“We separate quite clearly for our customers where we support and spend money: The Nurburgring 24 Hours, we have support in DTM, and we have it in the IGTC.

“This is where we support whether it is with cash, drivers, tyres, parts, or cars, sometimes whatever is the most efficient way to support teams.

“This is where we have a support for somebody else.

“Here at Spa, GT World Challenge, where you can see a team is named Mercedes AMG team, whatever – then you know, there’s support for the team somehow.

“And for all other national racing whether it’s British GT, GT Masters in the Gt World Challenge Asia, GT World Challenge America through to Sprint in Europe, those GT3 series are just customer racing.

“So we send, from a strategic perspective, the driver to support and to showcase what our cars can do, or to bring some knowhow to teams.

“We do same in Australia and it will be the same also in Asian or European Le Mans Series.

“This is something where we just need to know also in advance from our customers, their plans if they want to attend. And then we need to set up the support engineers.

“This is where we are really confident that we can do something on short notice, because we have everything in place in Europe, also in Asia, we just need to add it on our calendar and then here and there there’s some more budget needed also to fulfil the logistics but I think it’s accessible in the short term.”

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