33 cars are confirmed for next year’s FIA World Endurance Championship season 2019/20.
There are many returning teams in the field, as well as some new names. The drivers haven’t been announced, only the teams.
Rebellion Racing, Team LNT, Toyota Gazoo Racing and SMP Racing will all show up with two cars. Team LNT has Lawrence Tomlinson as their team boss, and he’s also the boss for Ginetta. They have chosen to come with two cars. So, eight cars in total.
United Autosports is the only one with Ligier model in LMP2, and will compete with a single Dallara in the form of Cetilar Racing. But they’re not the only ones in the class, instead they’ll be accompanied by Racing Team Nederland, Signatech Alpine Elf, Jackie Chan DC Racing, JOTA, Cool Racing as well as Danish High Class Racing. The Danish team will race in FIA WEC for the first time, which also secures them at least a spot in the 24 hours race at Le Mans next year. There are a total of eight cars in the class.
In GTE Pro, AF Corse, Porsche and Aston Martin Racing each have two cars, even though we lost Ford and BMW, there will still be a battle of six Pro cars.
GTE Am will be a showdown of high quality teams
AF Corse (x2), Red River Sport and MR Racing all will drive a Ferrari 488 GTE EVO. Team Project 1 doubles up their Porsche programme and will come with two cars. They will be joined by the regular Dempsey-Proton Racing with two cars, as well as Gulf Racing. Furthermore, TF Sport and Aston Martin Racing will come with an Aston Martin Vantage each. That makes up a field of eleven cars in total.
As usual, it’s also possible to only drive some certain rounds, if there are still garage spots left. So we’ll wait and see if Corvette shows up once or maybe twice. But the team has yet to confirmed it.
As opposed to last year, TDS Racing #28 will no longer be a part of the field, since Francois Perrodo has chosen to return to GTE Am. We won’t see DragonSpeed either LMP1 or LMP2. Bykolles Racing Team has also chosen to pulled back from a full season and instead will focus on developing a new car for the 2020/21 season.
As we previously mentioned, BMW and Ford won’t return to GTE Pro. Overall, there is status quo in LMP1 (where there were eight cars for the majority of the season; apart from the supposedly two Ginettas). LMP2 has an extra car, GTE Pro loses four, and GTE Am has two more. Overall, we end up with 33 cars, which is one car less than this year’s full season (minus the two aforementioned Ginettas).
FIA WEC 2019/20 will start in a month time, with a Prologue on Circuit de Catalunya.