12th January 2022
Ben Miles
The World Endurance Championship has revealed a record-breaking 39-car entry list for the 2022 season, the second year for the top-level Le Mans Hypercar class. Headlining the grid are the debuts of Peugeot in LMH and Penske’s entry to the LMP2 category as well as the absence of ByKolles’ expected Vanwall-badged LMH entry.
Update: Peugeot 9X8 to make racing debut at Monza
Updated 17:00 Friday 20th May 2022. The 9X8, the car to launch Peugeot’s much awaited return to Le Mans and its debut in the World Endurance Championship, will finally make its racing debut at the Six Hours of Monza on 10th July.
Having postponed its debut in the championship, meaning it will miss the Le Mans 24 Hours, this will be the first time we see the 9X8 in proper racing action following a comprehensive testing schedule.
Peugeot said its delays were to ensure the car was right before it raced, a pertinent point as each chassis and aero setup will be hom*ologated and unchangeable except for “joker” changes after it makes its debut.
Two 9X8s will race in Monza, with Paul Di Resta, Loic Duval, Mikkel Jensen, Gustavo Menezes, James Rossiter and Jean-Eric Vergne behind the wheel. The exact makeup of the driver lineups in each car will be announced later.
Peugeot also confirmed that the 9X8 will race in all the remaining races of the season, at Fuji in Japan and Sakhir in Bahrain.
Update: 1,000 Miles of Sebring entry list published
Updated 11:45 Thursday 10th March 2022. The FIA World Endurance Championship has released its entry list for the first race of the season, the 1,000 Miles of Sebring, with a reduction to 36 cars following the withdrawal of G-Drive.
Roman Rusinov’s Russian-backed squad quit the WEC and European Le Mans Series in protest at the banning of teams and drivers from displaying anything representing Russia or racing under the Russian banner.
The original full-season entry list also included Peugeot’s two 9X8 Le Mans Hypercars, which have not been confirmed as absent until at least after the Le Mans 24 Hours in June. That means the Hypercar class at Sebring will be made up of just four cars: two Toyota GR010s and a single Glickenhaus 007 LMH and Alpine A480 LMP1 car.
LMP2 is reduced to 15 cars with the absence of G-Drive while GTE-Pro will have five cars, two from Porsche and Ferrari and a lone Corvette C8.R.
Twelve cars will make up the GTE-Am grid, with two drivers positions still TBA, one in the Team Project 1 Porsche 911 alongside Matteo Cairoli and Mikke Pedersen and another in the Northwest AMR Aston Martin Vantage to race with Paul Dalla Lana and Nicki Thiim.
The race will see the debut of Team Penske in the World Endurance Championship. The multiple IndyCar, IMSA and NASCAR champion team is preparing for its future as the factory entrant for Porsche’s LMDh car by running an Oreca 07 in LMP2 with Penske regular and IMSA champion Dane Cameron alongside double IMSA champion Felipe Nasr and sportscar veteran Emmanuel Collard.
Update: Peugeot 9X8 will not race until after Le Mans
Updated 12:45 Friday 25th February 2022. Peugeot has announced that it will not enter its new 9X8 hypercar into the World Endurance Championship until after the flagship Le Mans 24 Hours.
Having already confirmed that the car would not race at the opening round in Sebring, the team had been told by the ACO (which organises Le Mans and the championship alongside the FIA) that it would not be allowed to race unless it raced at the second round in at Spa.
Now Peugeot has confirmed that its new hypercar will not race until after Le Mans, meaning its earliest entry would be the Monza round in July, or possibly more likely one of the Asian rounds later in the year at Fuji or Bahrain.
With the addition of Peugeot and the absence of ByKolles/Vanwall, the top Hypercar class swells to six cars, with Toyota and Glickenhaus’s Hypercars returning for a second season alongside the grandfathered Oreca-built LMP1 car entered by Alpine.
No date has yet been set for the Peugeot 9x8 Hybrid to make its race debut, but a pair of cars are on the 2022 WEC entry list. If the team races at Le Mans it will be the first time the French manufacturer has raced at La Sarthe since 2011, when it finished second to Audi in one of the greatest races in Le Mans history.
ByKolles own-built LMH car, badged the Vanwall Vandervell LMH, has not been handed a full-season place despite submitting an entry due to what the WEC described as a “documentation issue” believed to be to do with the lack of hom*ologation for the car. Having raced under the ByKolles name for several seasons Colin Kolles bought the trademark to the historic British F1 team’s name in 2021 to run the team as Vanwall.
The prototype ranks are filled by a bumper 15 LMP2 cars, including Team Penske’s first ever appearance in the category, a prelude to the American superteam’s step up to the top category in 2023 with Porsche. The legendary American IndyCar team fields a strong line-up, with double IMSA champion Dane Cameron stepping over from the team’s previous US sportscar programme with Acura, alongside former F1 driver and fellow double IMSA champion Felipe Nasr and Le Mans veteran and double class-winner Emanuel Collard.
Elsewhere Richard Mille Racing returns with its all-female entry, Robert Kubica races with Prema and former F1 driver and quadruple IndyCar champion Sebastien Bourdais returns to prototype racing with the new-to-WEC Vector Sport team.
The LMGTE Pro ranks will grow for the first time in several seasons, as Corvette Racing field a single Corvette C8.R for the penultimate season of GTE racing. They will join GT mainstays Porsche and AF Corse Ferrari in a field of five GTE Pro cars. With entries dwindling over the last few seasons the ACO has already announced its intention to switch to a GT3-based formula for GT racing in the World Endurance Championship and at Le Mans from 2024.
Thirteen cars will contest the full season of GTE Am in 2022, with cars from Porsche, Ferrari and Aston Martin. With most line-ups still to be announced the current highlights include Aston Martin regular Nikki Thiim returning to partner Paul Dalla Lana with Northwest AMR and twice Le Mans GT winner and 2014 WEC GTE Pro champion Tony Vilander racing for AF Corse.
The 2022 World Endurance Championship season kicks off in March with the second 1,000 Miles of Sebring – a double header with the Sebring 12 Hours – before moving on to Spa in May and the flagship Le Mans 24 Hours in June. The championship will race at Monza, Fuji and Bahrain as part of a six race season. Click here to read the full 2022 WEC calendar.
Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.
Read the full 2022 WEC entry list here!
WEC
WEC 2022
2022
Penske
Corvette
Porsche
Ferrari
Alpine
Glickenhaus
Toyota
