This is it! The start! It wasn’t the Daytona 24 Hours in January any more than it was the Spa 6 Hours nearly two years ago. The much-heralded golden era of sportscar racing finally begins with this week’s opening round of the World Endurance Championship at Sebring.
There have been Le Mans Hypercars racing since the opening round of the 2021 WEC, and LMDh machinery came on stream with this year’s IMSA SportsCar Championship curtain-raiser in January. But the Sebring 1000 Miles on Friday is the first time that they will race together. Convergence has finally arrived after more than three years of hype.
That golden era, brave new world or whatever you want to call it is founded on the ability of racing cars built to two different cost-effective rulesets to compete in both the world’s most important sportscar series and at the big races associated with them, the Le Mans 24 Hours and Daytona included. It explains why there are five major manufacturers competing in the Hypercar class of the WEC this year – that’s Toyota, Ferrari, Porsche, Peugeot and Cadillac – and more to come. And that’s not counting the fledging car makers in the fight, the likes of Glickenhaus, Vanwall and possibly Isotta Fraschini, which for the moment are best described as garagistes.
That’s why what some might argue is a support race to the Sebring 12 Hours IMSA round on Saturday is
