Hyper reality

A decision to bring the DPi and Hypercar regulations under the same umbrella was announced at Daytona and the initial reaction was rapturous – but now comes the hard work of drawing together two totally different concepts

- ANDREW COTTON

It’s been a long time coming, but finally IMSA and the ACO sat down at Daytona in January to announce that their separate prototype classes would be brought together. This news was welcomed by all parties, including manufacturers, but then immediately the hard work started to meld these vastly different regulations together.

This story goes back a long way. The ACO and IMSA were working together on a set of regulations that would have united their series before the ACO veered offcourse and introduced the Hypercar concept in 2018. At the time, Porsche and Toyota were indicating that Hypercar is what they wanted; extreme hybrid technology for lower cost than the current LMP1 cars. The ACO delivered before Porsche abruptly cancelled its programme.

At that point the ACO could have changed direction, but it didn’t, and instead at the following Le Mans in 2019 it reaffirmed its commitment to Hypercar, believing that other manufacturers would join. Those interested included Ferrari, McLaren, Aston Martin and Ford, but they all wanted a different base concept and at the time of the ACO’s reaffirmation they still had different agendas.

Hyper market

In a bid to keep the whole thing together the ACO, and its partner the FIA, had already agreed to accommodate four different concepts; hybrid prototype, non-hybrid prototype, hybrid road car platform and non-hybrid road car platform. This would all be cost-controlled between €20m-€30m, and performance balanced.