MOTORSPORT: 2012 World Endurance Championship green lit

The new World Endurance Championship this year is the first long distance sports car series to have world title status since the demise of the World Sportscar Championship at the end of 1992.

The eight-round series starts with the Sebring 12-Hour race in Florida in mid-March, followed by the Spa Six-Hour in Belgium in early May, the Le Mans classic in mid-June,  with the remaining rounds in Britain, Brazil, Bahrain, Japan and China.

Toyota's petrol-electric hybrid coupe has been shaken down at French circuit Paul Ricard this month by the three drivers who will drive the Japanese giant's sole entry – Austrian Alex Wurz, Frenchman Nicolas Lapierre – a prolific winner in the now-defunct A1 GP open-wheeler series, including at Sydney's Eastern Creek - and Japan's Kazuki Nakajima.

Toyota will only contest selected rounds of the championship this year, with its debut expected at Spa.

Allan McNish, who raced for Toyota in sports cars and then F1 and is now part of the awesome Audi line-up, has predicted at the Autosport International show in Britain a new era of glory for sports car racing with the introduction of the World Endurance Championship.

McNish said there were 64 entries for Sebring, almost double the 33 on the grid there three years ago.

"Toyota [returning, although not at Sebring] is superb news," he said.
"I drove for them the last time they were in sportscars and then in F1, and they'll be very keen to bring this [series] title – and Le Mans – back to Japan.

"Audi and Peugeot want it too of course, and then you have Honda coming in with the HPD [Honda Performance Development and a driver line-up including Australian David Brabham].

"It's setting up to be new glory years for sportcars, with four manufacturers in LMP1 and droves of cars in GT, including McLaren.

"The thing that brings it all together is the World Endurance Championship. As a driver you always want to fight for the biggest prize, and now you have that title.

"If you look at it in 2008 we [Audi] beat Peugeot by six seconds at Petit [Le Mans], by 13 seconds at Sebring in 2009, and again by 13 seconds at Le Mans. That's less than 0.1 seconds per lap over the distance.

"That is how competitive it is. If you wait four times [behind traffic] you've lost Le Mans.

"The maximum speed difference between [Audi and Peugeot at Le Mans last year] was about one tenth of a second. If you slip up once it's gone – but you also have to be on the attack all the time or it's gone as well.

"The [Japanese] manufacturers coming in have really extended the boundaries of what we call the norm, and I'm really looking forward to further big steps at the front in the next few years."

McNish, who survived a 250mh crash at Le Mans last year with only a graze, said the bigger grids would create traffic problems – and accidents would be inevitable.