Home In the Spotlight WEC reveals unchanged 2025 calendar, firms few rule changes

WEC reveals unchanged 2025 calendar, firms few rule changes

14/06/2024

The FIA WEC has revealed an unchanged calendar for 2025 season plus notes of rule changes, as Aston Martin confirms two entries.

EIGHT ROUNDS MAINTAINED FOR 2025 AS IMOLA SECURES MULTI-YEAR EXTENSION

As the FIA World Endurance Championship continues to go from strength to strength, the 2025 season will see the championship maintain the same eight events held across four continents that formed this year’s schedule. The FIA WEC promoter has also signed a contract with Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari that will keep the Italian circuit on the calendar until 2028.

Mohammed ben Sulayem, FIA President, said: “Over the last couple of years the FIA World Endurance Championship has been enjoying an incredible period of growth in terms of both sporting level as well as popularity. With this came the calendar expansion and, last year, the series settled for an eight-round schedule that provides it with both geographical diversity as well a line-up of world-class racing venues to stage the events. It is therefore great news to have the same schedule confirmed for 2025, which for the FIA WEC means a stable base on which it can grow even further.”

Pierre Fillon, President of the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO), said: “The 2025 FIA WEC calendar is a continuity of 2024, with eight rounds scheduled on some of the world’s most famous circuits. This season is about stability and exposure in key geographical areas. 2023 was exceptional, 2024 outstanding. In 2025, we shall reach new heights, notably with Aston Martin joining Hypercar. See you next year for another amazing episode in motor sport history.”

Richard Mille, FIA Endurance Commission President, said: “The 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship calendar can be best summarised by the popular saying – ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. The eight rounds that we know from this year offer a great mixture of well-established circuits and give the series presence in both the Americas, Asia, Europe and in the Middle East, providing the perfect stage for the events of the golden era of endurance racing to unfold. At the same time, being in so many corners of the globe is great for the series, for the fans and for the manufacturers involved, giving them the chance to showcase their dream cars at so many markets.”

Frédéric Lequien, FIA World Endurance Championship CEO, said: “The 2025 FIA WEC calendar is about consolidation and creating a schedule that works for both our teams and fans. The FIA WEC is growing at an extraordinary rate but we must remain humble and by maintaining eight rounds, we are listening to our teams, stakeholders and partners by also keeping budget in mind. It is important for the FIA WEC to reach as wide an audience as possible and with eight races across five different regions, we will continue to achieve this. We are delighted that Imola has committed to the FIA WEC until at least 2028 – the circuit and city Mayor Marco Panieri have been a tremendous support and this year’s inaugural FIA WEC race there was a huge success, which we look forward to emulating in 2025 and beyond.”

BIGGER GRIDS AND NO SINGLE-CAR MANUFACTURER ENTRIES IN HYPERCAR

New grid requirements have been validated for the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship season. In order to enhance sporting fairness and optimise level playing field each manufacturer will have to enter a minimum of two cars in the Hypercar class. Two-car entries will be mandatory to score points in the FIA Hypercar World Endurance Manufacturers’ Championship, while any additional cars from a given manufacturer will take part in the FIA World Cup for Hypercar Teams. As a result, but also to accommodate the arrival of new manufacturers, the maximum grid size is increased to 40 cars, applicable to all FIA WEC races except for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which will continue to host bigger girds.

HYPERCAR HOMOLOGATION CYCLE EXTENDED

Ensuring stability of technical regulations amid new manufacturers joining the competition each year, the current homologation cycle for the Hypercar class cars has been extended until the end of 2029, with two extra development jokers, applicable for the 2028 and 2029 seasons, added.

ARRIVAL OF NEXT GEN LMP2 POSTPONED

Taking into consideration the ongoing popularity of the current LMP2 package, it was decided to postpone the introduction of the next generation of the LMP2 class car to 2028 (instead of the originally planned 2026), with new chassis and engine yet to be selected. The current generation of the LMP2 car was introduced in 2017. Due to the high volume of entries in the FIA World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class, the LMP2 class was suspended from the series in 2024, however, the cars maintained their FIA homologation. They also continue to take part in the 24 Hours of Le Mans as well as in European Le Mans Series, Asian Le Mans Series and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

Aston Martin –

Aston Martin and works team Heart of Racing will return to the top class of the 24 Hours of Le Mans with two Valkyrie AMR-LMH hypercars in 2025, as the ultra-luxury British sportscar brand bids to win the famous race outright for the first time since 1959.

Aston Martin intends to enter two of the Valkyrie AMR-LMH hypercars in all rounds of the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship [WEC], subject to its entry being accepted. This follows a regulation change by Le Mans event organiser the Automobile Club de l’Ouest [ACO] and the sport’s governing body the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile [FIA], stating that each participating manufacturer must enter at least two cars in the Hypercar class from 2025 onwards. The new rule was announced earlier this morning during the official press conference ahead of this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans race.

Aston Martin and its works partner Heart of Racing are delighted to support this change in the regulations, in the interests of working together to improve the sporting environment for the benefit of all. Aston Martin will continue to work closely with both organisations moving forward and through the duration of the Valkyrie AMR-LMH programme.

Adam Carter, Aston Martin Head of Endurance Motorsport, said: “You can trace the roots of Aston Martin’s endurance racing back to the earliest days of the brand. Indeed we first raced at Le Mans more than 95 years ago – something no other road-going hypercar manufacturer can say. We are very proud of our association with this wonderful event, and with that in mind, it’s very clear that we are committed to WEC’s hypercar concept and bringing our famous Wings back to the very forefront of international sportscar racing, including at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

“In 2025, with our works team the Heart of Racing, we intend to put two Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR-LMH hypercars on the grid, to compete alongside a fantastic array of the world’s best sportscar manufacturers, and we are doing all we can to ensure that we can fight at the front of that space. The Valkyrie AMR-LMH programme is on schedule with a significant amount of development taking place behind the scenes and ahead of the car’s track debut later this summer. We then anticipate an intensive period of testing to put miles on the car and learn all we can ahead of its planned homologation in the autumn.”

The race-optimised carbon-fibre chassis Valkyrie AMR-LMH will use a modified version of the sensational Cosworth-built 6.5-litre naturally aspirated V12 engine originally produced for the Valkyrie road car, which in standard form revs to 11,000rpm and develops over 1000bhp. The power unit is being enhanced further to incorporate the critical Balance of Performance requirements of the Hypercar class and developed to withstand the rigours of top level long-distance competition. As with the Valkyrie AMR Pro track-car, the battery-electric hybrid system that features on the road-specification Valkyrie is absent from the race car.

Development of the Valkyrie AMR-LMH is already well advanced, with recent on-track evaluation of integral systems having taken place at Aston Martin’s Silverstone testing facility and the Portimao circuit in Portugal. Heart of Racing also recently established a UK team headquarters for its WEC programme, near where the racing cars are being constructed in co-operation with Aston Martin Performance Technologies, based at Silverstone, which is overseeing the design and development of the Valkyrie AMR-LMH.

Aston Martin with Heart of Racing also plans an IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Programme for the Valkyrie AMR-LMH, to run the US-based endurance series’ GTP class. This will be run out of Heart of Racing’s Phoenix HQ in North America.

“With this new direction of the WEC ruleset we have had to bring forward our plans to run multiple cars in the WEC Hypercar class. This has obviously condensed our build-up process, but we are very excited about the prospect of having two cars in the field. We will be proud to be a part of this class, which has seen a meteoric rise in the past couple of years, and offers amazing racing and fan interaction. The challenge ahead is immense, and we are looking forward to the journey.” said Heart of Racing Team Principal Ian James.

Aston Martin’s entry into the Hypercar class ensures that the British ultra-luxury sportscar manufacturer will have a presence in all aspects of endurance racing from the gentleman racer through to the very pinnacle of the sport. Indeed, from 2025, Aston Martin will be the only manufacturer competing at all levels of sportscar and GT racing (from Hypercar to GT4) and the FIA Formula 1 World Championship.

In total, more than 240 drivers have raced Aston Martins at Le Mans over the past 95 years in 27 different chassis and engine combinations, through virtually every era. No other venue has given Aston Martin so much success, or more steadfastly proven that our DNA is forged out of the very essence of competition.