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2012 World Endurance Championship calendar announced (24 posts)

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DamionShadows said 1 year, 6 months ago:

@prisoner-monkeys I was asking why they didn’t use the ENTIRE ILMC calender on the basis of establishing the series, but you answered my question anyways. I guess if they cut MONZA I shouldn’t be too upset with Petit LeMans, and you make a good point about too many cars and safety concerns. It’s just that PLM is the only financially viable race for me to go to, and it saddens me to know there will not be any Audi’s, Peugeot’s, or Aston Martin’s (all of which were in the ILMC) among the ALMS field.

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Calum said 1 year, 6 months ago:

Rounds 2-6 are brilliant!
10 races is perfect, there’s a North American round that will appeal to many, and we have China which appeals to the car manufactuers, plus the money spinner Middle Eastern round to keep the championship bosses happy – maybe would have been better to have a round in India instead – great little circuit which would also appeal to the car manufacturers because of that infamous 1bn people market!!
Everyone can be happy with the calender!

I think I’m going to love this series! Bring on a Jaguar, Mclaren or BMW LMP1 to make it perfect!

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Alianora La Canta said 1 year, 6 months ago:

The ILMC calendar for 2011 included some events that combined with LMS races. The LMS declined to further that arrangment for 2012 as they were having to turn away one-off LMS entrants to squeeze the ILMC and LMS cars onto the grids at all three (Silverstone, Spa and Imola). So any round the LMS plans to use next year cannot appear on the WEC calendar.

Sebring doesn’t have that problem but Petit Le Mans does (it had to organise a qualifying round for LMPC and GTC runners and this caused a fair bit of dissatisfaction with the fanbase). Hence WEC is trialling sharing Sebring, and only Sebring, with ALMS this year. There is some indication that WEC, in the long run, wants to run the American round – wherever it is – on its own, so that it can have full control over the regulations at all of its rounds. What effect this has on ALMS is unclear.

Nonetheless, scheduling any WEC event to clash with Petit Le Mans is stupid, since it’s the second-biggest sportscar race in the world. Could WEC not have delayed the Asian rounds for two weeks to enable both races to get attention? As it stands, most people will ignore the Bahrain round in favour of PLM, except to decry the whole idea. Going to a race for reasons that appear to be due to another series’ difficulties is bad enough as it is (why not Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Qatar?)…

10 races strikes me as too many. The teams need to be able to afford getting around the world and also to repair their cars after crashes (sometimes it can take weeks, especially if a write-off is involved). It would lead to teams having to miss rounds because suppliers haven’t been able to give them components in time.

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Prisoner Monkeys said 1 year, 6 months ago:

plus the money spinner Middle Eastern round to keep the championship bosses happy – maybe would have been better to have a round in India instead

Endurance racing has a much greater following in the Middle East than Formula 1 does. For instance, this year’s LMP2 class at Le Manes was won by Karim Ojjeh, a Saudi national.

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Keith Collantine said 1 year, 5 months ago:

Not much change in the version announced by the FIA today, Fuji now after Bahrain:

17/03 USA 12 Hours of Sebring Sebring*
05/05 BEL 6 Heures de Spa‐Francorchamps Spa‐Francorchamps*
16-17/06 FRA 24 Heures du Mans Le Mans
25/08 GBR 6 Hours of Silverstone Silverstone*
15/09 BRA 6 Hours of Sao Paulo Interlagos
29/09 BHR 6 Hours of Bahrain Sakhir
14/10 JPN 6 Hours of Fuji Mount‐Fuji
TBA (Nov) CHN 6 Hours of TBA TBA*

http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/pressreleases/wmsc/2011/Pages/wmsc-071211.aspx

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Victor_RO said 1 year, 5 months ago:

And the clash with Petit Le Mans is removed, but teams that run the WEC and want to do that race as well still face a nightmare of logistics, basically 3 days at most to fly their kit from Japan to the USA… or send separate cars and split the team between the two events.

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Keith Collantine said 1 year, 5 months ago:

@Victor_RO Well that’s a minor improvement at least.

And this is all assuming the Bahrain race happens, of course.

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Keith Collantine said 9 months ago:

The Chinese race has been put back one day to the 28th of October:

The season finale of the inaugural FIA World Endurance Championship will take place in China one day later than planned with the 6 Hours of Shanghai now on Sunday 28 October. With a busy track schedule the date change was made for technical reasons to allow the circuit staff to prepare the circuit for the arrival of the FIA WEC. The change to Sunday was also made to accommodate a support race that will feature some Chinese celebrities from the world of music and TV.

Gerard Neveu, FIA WEC Chief Executive Officer, said: “Whether we race on Saturday or Sunday doesn’t really matter and we will have a great show both on and off the track, including the celebrity race which will help attract the Chinese fans to the circuit. China is very important to the championship as it is the fastest growing economy in the world. Shanghai will provide the perfect backdrop the big party to celebrate the end of a great first season of the FIA World Endurance Championship.”

This weekend (24-26 August) sees the final European round with the 6 Hours of Silverstone. The FIA WEC then heads to South America for the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo (13/15 September) before crossing to Asia for the final three races – 6 Hours of Bahrain (27-29 September), the 6 Hours of Fuji in Japan (12-14 October and the 6 Hours of Shanghai (26-28 October).

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ajokay said 8 months, 3 weeks ago:

Put back by a day. I wonder at which point it will be cancelled completely like so many other series Chinese races this season?

How will putting the race back by one day make any difference? Track action starts 2 days before anyway, with the teams and media having been there several days before that.

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