WEC 2025

[Tvetovnato]

Nobody gifts lemans. Toyota spent the whole early 2024 season hiding their true performance to have better bop at lemans, only for them to throw it away again, like the year prior.

Toyota was the faster car both years at lemans.

Fully agree. I really hope this is something they take a look at for this year.

And I am fine with some cars being a bit heavier/less powered than others at some venues, it’s totally OK as that is the name of the game now. My point is that they must not make it too extreme by basically taking some cars completely out of contention which is what happened today and was obvious before it even started.

On to Imola!

[Wouter]

Official: Max Verstappen with own team and Aston Martin in GT3 championship

Max Verstappen will participate in the GT World Challenge Endurance this year with his own team Verstappen.com Racing.
It will be with an Aston Martin GT3, which is run by 2 Seas Motorsport.

Verstappen.com Racing, the official racing program of four-time world champion Max Verstappen, has announced its 2025 program and drivers. One of the most exciting initiatives is the transition of sim racing talent into real-world GT3 racing. Max has handpicked one of Team Redline’s top drivers, Chris Lulham, to make this significant leap.


...

Max, who is known to take his passion for racing very seriously, in 2022 established Verstappen.com Racing supported and powered by Red Bull, that nowadays competes in GT3 racing, rally and sim racing with a mix of experienced and emerging drivers on real and virtual racetracks.

Off track, Max continues to be driven, focused on building a foundation to support teams and drivers on their journey to success. Max highlights the next chapter in the Verstappen.com Racing project:

“It has always been my dream to support young drivers and for a while now, I have been trying to create the possibility of a sim driver to progress to real world racing. With Chris Lulham, now being promoted from Team Redline sim racing to our GT3 Sprint and Endurance Racing, teaming up with Thierry Vermeulen, who has been competing for Verstappen.com Racing for a few years now, we take it to the next step.”

Verstappen adds: “We go racing all together, partnering with professional support teams in challenging championships. Of course, there is still a lot to learn to maximise our performance with the cars and drivers. The goal is to be competitive and fight in the top of the field. It is great that we now make it happen for a sim racer to take it up against established racing drivers. I am very excited for the year ahead!”

Chris Lulham said: “It is a really exciting prospect and I can’t wait to get started. We already had a very thorough and busy off-season preparing for what is coming. It is an unbelievable chance and I can’t wait to make the most out of this opportunity.”


An article on Verstappen.com

An article on Autosport.com

[Wouter]

Thanks for removing/deleting the articles about Max his own team is from now on participating in the DTM
and GT World Challenge Sprint and Endurance this year sponsored by Red Bull.

[CMSMJ1]

Thanks for removing/deleting the articles about Max his own team is from now on participating in the DTM
and GT World Challenge Sprint and Endurance this year sponsored by Red Bull.

You're welcome.

Let's see them into an appropriate thread, and not in the RB Team one - as they are not on topic.

[Wouter]

Thanks for removing/deleting the articles about Max his own team is from now on participating in the DTM
and GT World Challenge Sprint and Endurance this year sponsored by Red Bull.

.
You're welcome.

Let's see them into an appropriate thread, and not in the RB Team one - as they are not on topic.

.
You are welcome to move it to an appropriate thread. I couldn't find one. I think this is great news.
Where can I post it in what thread so I can delete it here?

Edit: I just saw my first post is posted again here. I will also move it to another thread once I know which thread.

Edit 2: I just saw you moved it into the WEC thread. I didn't see that because the title is still the RBR team thread.
A pity that many Max fans don't visite the WEC thread and don't see this news.

[CMSMJ1]

Thanks for removing/deleting the articles about Max his own team is from now on participating in the DTM
and GT World Challenge Sprint and Endurance this year sponsored by Red Bull.

.
You're welcome.

Let's see them into an appropriate thread, and not in the RB Team one - as they are not on topic.

.
You are welcome to move it to an appropriate thread. I couldn't find one. I think this is great news.
Where can I post it in what thread so I can delete it here?

Edit: I just saw my first post is posted again here. I will also move it to another thread once I know which thread.

Edit 2: I just saw you moved it into the WEC thread. I didn't see that because the title is still the RBR team thread.
A pity that many Max fans don't visite the WEC thread and don't see this news.

No worries Wouter - and yes, agreed - a shame we don't always recognise other series.

[r85]

Official: Max Verstappen with own team and Aston Martin in GT3 championship

Max Verstappen will participate in the GT World Challenge Endurance this year with his own team Verstappen.com Racing.
It will be with an Aston Martin GT3, which is run by 2 Seas Motorsport.

Verstappen.com Racing, the official racing program of four-time world champion Max Verstappen, has announced its 2025 program and drivers. One of the most exciting initiatives is the transition of sim racing talent into real-world GT3 racing. Max has handpicked one of Team Redline’s top drivers, Chris Lulham, to make this significant leap.


https://imgur.com/dRNNISF.png ... https://imgur.com/UbWeHYc.png

Max, who is known to take his passion for racing very seriously, in 2022 established Verstappen.com Racing supported and powered by Red Bull, that nowadays competes in GT3 racing, rally and sim racing with a mix of experienced and emerging drivers on real and virtual racetracks.

Off track, Max continues to be driven, focused on building a foundation to support teams and drivers on their journey to success. Max highlights the next chapter in the Verstappen.com Racing project:

“It has always been my dream to support young drivers and for a while now, I have been trying to create the possibility of a sim driver to progress to real world racing. With Chris Lulham, now being promoted from Team Redline sim racing to our GT3 Sprint and Endurance Racing, teaming up with Thierry Vermeulen, who has been competing for Verstappen.com Racing for a few years now, we take it to the next step.”

Verstappen adds: “We go racing all together, partnering with professional support teams in challenging championships. Of course, there is still a lot to learn to maximise our performance with the cars and drivers. The goal is to be competitive and fight in the top of the field. It is great that we now make it happen for a sim racer to take it up against established racing drivers. I am very excited for the year ahead!”

Chris Lulham said: “It is a really exciting prospect and I can’t wait to get started. We already had a very thorough and busy off-season preparing for what is coming. It is an unbelievable chance and I can’t wait to make the most out of this opportunity.”


An article on Verstappen.com

An article on Autosport.com

It would be incredible if this works out, the talent pool in sim racing is huge and it will be interesting to see who adapts best to driving real cars.

[Wouter]

Max was yesterday at the Monza circuit for the first time as a team owner to watch his Aston Martin Vantage GT3 cars
which were being tested at the circuit for the upcoming saison.

[Fred]

Nobody gifts lemans. Toyota spent the whole early 2024 season hiding their true performance to have better bop at lemans, only for them to throw it away again, like the year prior.

Toyota was the faster car both years at lemans.

I agree that Le Mans is never gifted, there’s still a huge challenge winning it even with a pace advantage. A pace advantage is still a huge boost that can’t be understated though, there’s a reason the fastest car wins Le Mans the majority of the time unless there’s reliability issues. Especially recently.

However, you can’t really argue that Toyota had a pace advantage at Le Mans. It’s only some Ferrari fans that don’t think they had a BoP advantage, especially in 2023. There’s a reason that people supported Toyota’s boycott of the awards ceremony in 2023 due to this, including Porsche. Similar with 2024, I recently rewatched Le Mans over the winter break and the only point in time that Toyota was fastest in 2024 was for 1-2hrs after the safety car in the morning. The pace differential was smaller in 2024 though.

The only reason they were close at all was because of the safety cars and (well deserved) penalties reeling the Ferrari’s back in. Not to mention plenty of unpenalised actions from them. It wasn’t as egregious as 2023, and more people will defend Ferrari here, but they still had a clear advantage. Ferrari ran very messy races both years, whereas Toyota had pretty clean races up until the last 2hrs, and yet Toyota still wasn’t able to keep up. If you remove the mistakes and penalties from Ferrari plus the safety car periods, they would’ve dominated both years.

[Tvetovnato]

What bothers me the most is that both Ferrari and Toyota all of a sudden got a lot quicker than they were during the Le Mans test a week before the race, and after Le Mans, Toyota was ”magically” back to their normal 2023 pace for the remainder of the year to challenge for the title. I hope the BoP setters don’t fall for this again.

[dialtone]

Good victory at Imola, terrible track as we all know already, so boring race overall except maybe for the last couple of hours.

Buemi defense on Fuoco, while great, just show the track is awful for racing anything but karts.

Despite the many complains on BoP I think it's pretty good now, avg pace from best stints from each constructor from reddit thread here https://www.reddit.com/r/wec/comments/1 ... ar_report/:

Ferrari #51 - 93.943
BMW #20 - 94.050
TOYOTA #7 - 94.062
ALPINE #36 - 94.214
PORSCHE #6 - 94.255
PEUGEOT #94 - 94.363
CADILLAC #12 - 94.633
ASTON MARTIN #009 - 95.734

Looks pretty close to me, Ferrari at this point just has better tire management as they were the only ones able to run the softs consistently the last 2 hours, but they are starting to get pretty close.

[AR3-GP]

Good victory at Imola, terrible track as we all know already, so boring race overall except maybe for the last couple of hours.

Buemi defense on Fuoco, while great, just show the track is awful for racing anything but karts.

Despite the many complains on BoP I think it's pretty good now, avg pace from best stints from each constructor from reddit thread here https://www.reddit.com/r/wec/comments/1 ... ar_report/:

Ferrari #51 - 93.943
BMW #20 - 94.050
TOYOTA #7 - 94.062
ALPINE #36 - 94.214
PORSCHE #6 - 94.255
PEUGEOT #94 - 94.363
CADILLAC #12 - 94.633
ASTON MARTIN #009 - 95.734

Looks pretty close to me, Ferrari at this point just has better tire management as they were the only ones able to run the softs consistently the last 2 hours, but they are starting to get pretty close.

Ferrari had 1 second in hand during qualifying. In the race they never went any faster than they needed to because you are punished in the BOP for the next round for showing too much speed. So there's no point taking the stint averages into consideration. That obfuscates the pace due to many factors. 2 of the cars were trapped behind slower cars for most of the race due to mistakes putting them down the order. The race winning car spent most of the race fuel saving. They ran the slower soft tire but it didn't matter that it was slower because they had the pace in hand thanks to the BOP. The lead car triple stinted tires, got slow towards the end, and it still didn't matter. The pace they showed was "artificial" because of using worse tire strategies which made them slower, but still faster than anyone else. How they didn't get the 1-2-3 is classic Ferrari.

Why does Ferrari have less weight and more power than both Porsche and Toyota in Imola where 95% of the circuit is below 250km/h? Are they proud of winning like this? Ferrari wouldn't beat Toyota here on a level playing field. When Toyota won all the races in 2023, they had more weight and less power than everyone. That's what you call meritable. Winning despite BOP penalty. Ferrari's victory is hollow because they had a significant performance advantage while also running with less weight and more power than their direct rivals (Porsche and Toyota).

Was laughing so hard when Coletta said Qatar and Imola were the result of Ferrari's winter developments. They were running 20+kg lighter than Toyota and Porsche in Qatar (the most weight sensitive circuit on the calendar), They got more power and less weight than Porsche and Toyota for Imola. Whatever, yeah winter developments...

This is your winter development:

2024 Imola:
Toyota: 1060kg, 516kw
Porsche: 1033kg, 508kw
Ferrari: 1041kg, 510kw

2025 Imola
Toyota: +5kg (1065), -16kW (500)
Porsche: +20kg (1053), -5kW (503)
Ferrari: +4kg (1045), +0kW (508)

Toyota and Porsche were kneecapped. +20kg for Porsche? -16kW for Toyota?

Ferrari at this point just has better tire management

lol. It is a choice to be blind.

After two races, Toyota is 39 points behind Ferrari, which is already assured of heading into the Le Mans 24 Hours at the top of the manufacturers' standings. "Ferrari was in a class of its own," Floury (Toyota) concluded. "It's been the same in Qatar.

"There is a very high risk that this will continue for much of the year and that the title will be decided by mid-season. So for sure there's a lot of frustration. Last year we were fighting for the championship with Porsche, and this year we are both fighting between P6 and P14, and the cars are the same, the tyres are the same, the teams are the same, the drivers are the same..."

Make of that what you will...

"We're not happy with eighth and 11th," analysed Thomas Laudenbach (Porsche). "The team fought hard and did a great job. We now need to step back and take a closer look at everything. The performance differences between the various Hypercars give us pause for thought!"

[dialtone]

Ferrari had 1 second in hand during qualifying. In the race they never went any faster than they needed to because you are punished in the BOP for the next round for showing too much speed. So there's no point taking the stint averages into consideration.

You've changed your reply enough times I suppose... You started accusing me of being a newbie (in one of your previous versions), and then in the same paragraph talked about #83 being 1s slower than the other Ferraris because they missed 1 practice session, LMAO. Meanwhile Ferrari #50, with apparently 1s of pace in hand, couldn't pass a Toyota with 75 laps old tires on triple stint while having half that age itself.

This sentence about no point in looking at the pace or stint averages is also weird...

It was explained by ACO competition director Thierry Bouvet and FIA technical engineering director Thomas Chevaucher that, in Hypercar, both the 10 best laps of each car and 60 percent of a car’s best laps will be taken into account when calculating the BoP, in a bid to include both peak performance and performance over a stint.

stint performance is exactly what is going to be looked at as well as single lap pace in 2025.

Cadillac went into this race with favorable BoP and were nowhere during the race. In F1 we have had plenty of cars with insane difference in performance in quali vs race, including multiple Ferrari cars just in the last 10 years. But somehow this isn't valid for WEC, in WEC the gap between quali and race must be exactly the same, and it absolutely never happens that a tire that works for a car doesn't work for another, in F1 all tires work exactly the same for all cars at all temperatures, no differences. And of course all drivers are exactly identical in qualifying performance.

Just the hate for Ferrari is too strong, not sure what they did to you.

[Fred]

Good victory at Imola, terrible track as we all know already, so boring race overall except maybe for the last couple of hours.

Buemi defense on Fuoco, while great, just show the track is awful for racing anything but karts.

Despite the many complains on BoP I think it's pretty good now, avg pace from best stints from each constructor from reddit thread here https://www.reddit.com/r/wec/comments/1 ... ar_report/:

Ferrari #51 - 93.943
BMW #20 - 94.050
TOYOTA #7 - 94.062
ALPINE #36 - 94.214
PORSCHE #6 - 94.255
PEUGEOT #94 - 94.363
CADILLAC #12 - 94.633
ASTON MARTIN #009 - 95.734

Looks pretty close to me, Ferrari at this point just has better tire management as they were the only ones able to run the softs consistently the last 2 hours, but they are starting to get pretty close.

Ferrari had 1 second in hand during qualifying. In the race they never went any faster than they needed to because you are punished in the BOP for the next round for showing too much speed. So there's no point taking the stint averages into consideration. That obfuscates the pace due to many factors. 2 of the cars were trapped behind slower cars for most of the race due to mistakes putting them down the order. The race winning car spent most of the race fuel saving. They ran the slower soft tire but it didn't matter that it was slower because they had the pace in hand thanks to the BOP. The lead car triple stinted tires, got slow towards the end, and it still didn't matter. The pace they showed was "artificial" because of using worse tire strategies which made them slower, but still faster than anyone else. How they didn't get the 1-2-3 is classic Ferrari…

They very clearly have their preferences. It’s been as clear as daylight to everyone, including many of the tifosi, that Ferrari has had a massive pace advantage in the first 2 races this season, as well as at the past 2 Le Mans. Just comparing the BoP between the same race each year (noting that Ferrari was fastest in Imola last year too) showcases the obvious advantage they have over everyone. There’s not much point conversing with them.

I wonder how long the ACO can keep this up for though? If Ferrari keeps getting preferential treatment in a supposedly equal class, other manufacturers will leave and new ones won’t join. The ACO might value having Ferrari on the grid over any other manufacturer, but they need to realise that the other manufacturers combined is far more valuable than Ferrari on their own. A lot more fans will leave if only Ferrari stays than those will if Ferrari leaves. Toyota is already getting upset and saying that if this carries on, Ferrari will win midseason and that that isn’t sustainable going forward.

[dialtone]

Spa 2025 BoP



I'm sure complaints won't stop given Toyota didn't get the love some people here wanted it to have. Ferrari got punished worse though, so maybe folks here will be happy?