The ACO and the FIA have announced that Dallara, Riley and Onroak (Ligier) have all been given dispensations for the making changes to their cars ahead of the 2018 season.
2017 was the first season, where the new type of LMP2 cars started to compete, and ORECA has been well ahead on not only the car count but also the speed and reliability of them.
Photo: JJ Media
The other three constructors will be granted permission to change both their Le Mans and sprint aerodynamic body kits. The only demand from the ACO and the FIA is that the cars aren’t going to be faster than the ORECA cars, which has to remain unchanged for 2018.
The Ligier cars has had quite good speed in the ELMS races, but at Le Mans they were well down on top speeds. All 6 Ligier JS P217 were slowest of the LMP2 cars, under to be underperformed by the Riley MK30, who will be granted permission for changes too.
Photo: JJ Media
Dallara has the exact opposite problem. They couldn’t get enough downforce on the car at Le Mans, and drove lightning fast down the straight, while they were very unstable through the corners. But even their sprint kit has given them problems, where Danish team High Class Racing has had big troubles through the last few race weekends. The car worked perfect for the first two weekends, but has caused a lot of aerodynamic unbalance which made the car buffer down the straights.
All the LMP2 cars are running with the same Gibson engine, so the differences are purely down to the aerodynamic configurations of the cars.
Photo: JJ Media
The three constructor will have to provide the updates free of costs for the current teams.
The changes will apply to all cars, no matter if its FIA World Endurance Championship, European Le Mans Series, IMSA or Asian Le Mans Series, so the teams will have no option to say yes or no for the updates.
First time we will see the new kits in the flesh, will be at Daytona in January ahead of the 24 hour race, counting towards the IMSA Championship.
