WEC beginner's guide

the FIA World Endurance Championship which is commonly abbreviated to WEC was founded in 2012 and consists of the prestigious 24 hours of limo race being an endurance racing series WEC and not only pushes the cause and drivers to the limits in terms of speed but also the drive the stamina and the car's reliability and efficiency in the races the grid is extremely diverse with 38 teams that runs 60 cars there are also three drivers per car the cost themselves are very different to each other with some rivaling the performance of f1 cars while others are based on road going cause I will put timestamps for different parts of the video in the description so that you can easily skip to specifically what part you want to watch let's begin the guide by looking at the cars in more detail the cars are split into four classes LM p1 LM p2 GTE Pro and GTE AM the lamont prototypes a custom race cars built around a technical specification whereas the Grand Touring endurance cars a touring cars based on production sports cars all of the classes run at the same time in the same race you can think of it as one big race composed of several mini races there is an outright winner and a winner for each class let's delve deeper and learn about the classes more thoroughly starting with the fastest LM p1 LM p1 consists of closed cockpit race cars built specifically for endurance racing the class is spit further into two subcategories the LM p1 hybrids and the LM p1 non hybrids the hybrids are only for manufacturer teams whereas the non hybrids are only for private or independent teams that do not have the backing of a major car manufacturer the only thing they can get from a manufacturer is a supply of engines as of the 2018 to 19th season toyota gazoo racing is the only LM p1 hybrid team remaining there are 5 privateer teams to make a 16 class the technical regulations are very open so teams can create very different cars to each other for the engine the teams can use any type of cylinder configure a that can be either petrol or diesel the only engine restrictions are that the non-hybrid cause of a maximum capacity of 5.5 liters and all engines must be four-stroke the minimum weight is 875 kilograms for the hybrids and 830 kilograms for the non hybrids fuel wise the cause up to have fuel tanks of a certain size and more importantly fuel flow is regulated it must be below the maximum per lap limit and the maximum instantaneous fuel flow which means that power is limited and the chassis is restricted to within a certain set of dimensions and the cars numbers must be white on a red background all mechanical elements of the car must be covered by bodywork and the gearbox must be a sequential with no more than seven forward gears only five engines can be used per car over the course of the season the speed difference between the hybrids and the non hybrids is around two or more seconds per lap let's move on to lmp2 these cars are also closed cockpit race cars built specifically for endurance racing similar to the lmp1 non hybrids the lmp2 teams are independent of any car manufacturers which means that they don't make the engines themselves there are almost 20 cars in the class some of them are almost identical this is because they do not have the freedom that lmp1 cars have due to the regulations forcing them to keep costs down for the engine all lmp2 cars must use the same 4.2 liter v8 that produces 600 horsepower the minimum weight is 930 kilograms the lmp2 teams are also restricted in their chassis they have to choose a chassis from a choice of poor manufacturers this is why some teams have the same chassis their numbers must be white on a blue background the gearbox must be a sequential with up to six forward gears feel wise there is a common fuel tank capacity and all of the engines have the same fuel flow lmp2 cars are generally a few seconds off the pace of lmp1 cars however in some circumstances it is possible for the top lmp2 cars to beat some lmp1 cars now let's look at the GTE cars on the other side of the WEC garage let's begin with the fastest GTE Pro the GTE pro teams are all manufacturer teams unlike the limo prototypes the GTE cars are touring cars that have to be based on Road legal production cars that have a minimum number produced per year to qualify for example Porsches car is based on the 911 Ferraris car is based on a 488 and Aston Martin's car is based on the Vantage because of this the grid is extremely diverse with there being a huge variety of chassis drivetrain layouts and engine layouts engines used must be the same ones found in the production cars and the maximum capacity for naturally aspirated engines is 5.5 liters while the maximum capacity for cars using any form of forced induction is 4 liters there are also some other regulations the minimum weight is 1245 kilograms four-wheel drive is banned the cars must have yellow headlights to distinguish them from the lamorne prototypes at night the numbers must be white on a green background and special materials such as carbon fiber magnesium and titanium are banned from being used on the car except for spoilers and wheels as the cars are based on production cars the teams are allowed to modify their cars once every two years to keep up with the production car these cars are naturally much slower than the LMP cars with caps being in the region of over 10 seconds per lap the final category is GTE AM or amateur this class is very similar to GTE Pro however there are a few key differences while the GTE Pro teams are all manufacturer teams GTE AM teams also consists of privateer teams that used cars from the manufacturers the GTE AM cars also faced the same restrictions as the GTE Pro cause the main difference is that these cars are the GTE Pro cars from the previous year of racing so the GTE AM drivers are racing with year old cars compared to the GTE Pro drivers this means that the performance of the cause is not two different with there being some mix between the two classes during qualifying though most of the time the GTE Pro cars are ahead the other difference is with the drivers GTE Pro teams can use a driver of any FIA grade whereas GTE AM must use lower graded drivers so they were all of the categories I will explain how the driver grading works in more detail because all of the classes apart from GTE Pro have restrictions regarding the grades the FIA categorizes drivers based on their previous achievements and their age there are four rankings bronze silver gold and platinum bronze drivers are amateur drivers with little experience and success people over 30 who have no single-seater experience will also be categorized as bronze next up is silver for this a driver must have to satisfy at least one of the criteria listed by the FIA an example of one requirement is to have one a non-professional racing series such as the Porsche gt3 Cup Challenge they are still classified as amateur drivers after that is gold these drivers are any drivers that compete in a national or international FIA series and meet one of the FIS criteria an example of one requirement is to have competed in Formula two since 2012 and to have at least achieved three podiums in one season these drivers can sometimes be considered professional and sometimes amateur the top tier drivers are platinum they are professional drivers that have to satisfy at least two of the criteria some examples of these requirements are to have a Formula one super license also have finished in the top five of the Formula e championship in lmp1 or drivers except bronze drivers are permitted in lmp2 a two or three driver line-up must consist of at least one silver or bronze driver in GTE Pro the choice of drivers is completely free in GTE AM a two or three driver lineup must include at least one bronze driver and one bronze or silver driver there is both a minimum and a maximum driving time per race for all the drivers it Aries with the rank of the driver to keep the field as level as possible it also stops the team from only using one driver for a race now let's look at the venue's the cars race at and the procedures of the race weekend the race weekend takes place over three days on the first day there are two practice sessions for all cars where the teams test the course in different conditions such as day and night under timed runs on the second day there is a third practice session and then qualifying the lamont prototypes and touring cars are separated for their qualifying sessions the sessions last twenty minutes each and determine the order of the grid on the third day there is the race the races vary in length the minimum length of a race is six hours because the races are so long cars make many pit stops during the race the time they take ranges from seconds to minutes this variation occurs because of different jobs that need to be done at different pit stops when a cop aids the crew can change the driver that tires the brakes they can clean the car adjust the error and even replace broken parts the list just goes on this is why there is such a difference in pit stop times the pit lane speed limit is 60 kilometres an hour now let's look at the championship in point scoring system there are eight races around the world and eight different championships there's one drivers championship for each class and one team's championship for each class for most races WEC uses the FIA standard point scoring system however unlike other Motorsports every car that finishes below second place gets half a point this is because just finishing the race itself is a huge achievement for both the car and the driver hence the name endurance racing the two exceptions to the point scoring systems are sobering and limb on select summarize there are four classes within the same race two of which a custom race cars and the other two a touring cause the lmp1 cars are very free in terms of development and near the speed of f1 cause whereas the lmp2 cars are made with sets asses and engines the GTE cars have to be based on production cars and the GTE AM cars are one year and race with amateur drivers only there is a three-day weekend and the race is a minimum of six hours there are eight different Championships and points are awarded according to the FIA system with a couple of exceptions and that was my guide to watching WEC what is your favorite category comment below [Music]

Channel: Vehicle Valhalla

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Id: fTdiEZ3PQr4

Length: 11min 31sec (691 seconds)

Published: Tue May 28 2019