After an almost intolerable wait, the LMDh era is upon us. A full three years after the momentous day when a category billed as the saviour of top-flight sportscar racing was announced, the cars are finally going racing. Tens of thousands of kilometres have been completed by the four manufacturers that will go head to head in this weekend’s Daytona 24 Hours, but many questions remained unanswered in the lead-up to the opening round of the IMSA SportsCar Championship. Not least whether the machinery racing in the GTP class is ready to go twice around the clock at the self-styled World Center of Racing.
What we shouldn’t forget is that when LMDh was unveiled back on the eve of Daytona in 2020, the category was due to come on stream in 2022, in both IMSA and the World Endurance Championship. The world changed in the months that followed the so-called convergence announcement as COVID took hold and, by September and the delayed running of that year’s Le Mans 24 Hours, it had become clear that the introduction of the new breed of hybrid prototype developed around the spine of a next-generation LMP2 car would be delayed until this year.
