The Asian Le Mans Series has revealed their 2023-24 racing schedule.
The series will stick to their concept of four-hour races, but will expand to five races, on three different tracks.
The season starts at Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia in December, where two rounds will be run. That is the first step towards Southeast Asia, which was the original area for the series, until COVID-19 put a hold to that.
All the cars and equipment will then be packed down again, and moved to Dubai Autodrome for a single race on 4 February, followed by two races at Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi on 10-11 February.
The winners of the LMP2 and GT3 categories will get an entry to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which is the first time that those cars can be used in the race, instead of the teams having to invest in GTE material for that race.
The Asian le Mans Series has had a lot of success for the past couple of years, with the racing being done in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. There was a total of 48 cars on the entry list for this season, and the organizers hope to keep that momentum, but also move a bit east once again, with the teams hopefully doing that extra bit of travelling. It is quite some journey to Sepang, which is much further away than “just” the Middle East, so that could potentially be a stumbling point. But time will tell.
The ACO and SRO will start their collaboration, which was announced prior to the 2021 season. SRO already have series running in Asia, and has a lot of contacts with several tracks, plus they are going to try and promote the series even more in those areas. And they are behind the GT3 category and the whole BOP system, which is a plus for the ACO.
The full 2023-24 schedule looks like this:
