New order

The ACO and IMSA recently released the regulation set that will govern the global platform top class prototype, and it has proven popular

- Andrew Cotton

Earlier this year, the ACO and IMSA announced they had completed their assessment into the global platform prototype and early in May unveiled the first details of the programme.

Labelled at Daytona in January as ‘LMDh’ for Le Mans Daytona… (the h has yet to be defined), the minimum weight has been fixed at 1,030kg and maximum power output defined at 500kW. These two parameters ran hand in hand earlier in the process, so it was natural to keep them in step. The hybrid system for the LMDh category appears to be relatively tame, housed on the rear axle only, although the effect on overall lap time is anything but tame. Offer any racing team an extra 30kW of power for the full lap and they will gladly accept it.

These details have taken a long time to arrive, and the path to this conclusion has been anything but straightforward, due to complications introduced by the FIA mid negotiation that skewed the pitch and left manufacturers and technical working groups in total disarray as plan after plan was introduced.

World in motion

The original concept was that the ACO, FIA and IMSA organisations produce a global platform car that could compete in the key races of the US-based IMSA series, including Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen, and the Petit Le Mans, as well as the key race from the FIA World Endurance Championship; the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Such a programme would offer a huge return on investment for both teams and manufacturers and would have allowed manufacturers to make a solid case to their board members to build cars. Things were progressing nicely until, inexplicably, the ACO, along with its partner, the FIA, veered off course and headed down the road of Hypercar.

ACO representatives had turned up at Daytona in January 2018 and explained the low-cost concept, as covered in