For those who haven’t kept up with the ever-nebulous nature of prototypes in global endurance racing, here’s the long and short of it. The FIA and ACO jointly proposed the Le Mans Hypercar class in 2018, which was intended to bring prototypes more in line with manufacturers’ roadgoing hypercars — at least in appearance — hence the name. It was a play toward the nostalgia many fans share for the days of the McLaren F1 GTR, Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR, Porsche 911 GT1, and Toyota GT-One in the mid-to-late ’90s. The new regs also involved some vague homologation production car element, and were supposed to reduce costs compared to the outgoing LMP1 regulations.

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In time we came to learn that it didn’t save constructors as much money as they wanted, and the homologation thing was more of a weak suggestion than a legal requirement. That gave IMSA a lane to evolve its DPi — Daytona Prototype International — spec used in American sports car racing to LMDh. It employs a selection of spec chassis from common suppliers, as well as spec kinetic energy recovery systems to actually keep costs down.

Toyota’s GR010 Hybrid hypercar won its first event, the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, last weekend.
Toyota’s GR010 Hybrid hypercar won its first event, the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, last weekend.
Photo: Toyota
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Major manufacturers seemed eager about hypercar at first but that enthusiasm soon fizzled out. Toyota, Aston Martin and Peugeot were early commits. The FIA then decided to let LMDh cars compete in World Endurance Championship races including Le Mans, which angered Aston because suddenly it was paying many times more money to develop a hypercar that was now going to be performance balanced with far cheaper IMSA-based prototypes. The British automaker cancelled its plans. Nobody took its spot until Ferrari came swooping in out of nowhere in February.

That brings us to today. Last weekend, Toyota’s GR010 Hybrid hypercar, the first entry from the class to hit the grid, won the Spa 6 Hours despite starting the weekend slower than LMP2 machinery. It’ll take years for other automakers to join them: Peugeot’s hypercar is set to arrive in 2022, while LMDh entries from Porsche Penske, Audi and Acura are planned for 2023 (as is that Ferrari hypercar). And then there are all the other big names rumored to join one of the two classes, like Alpine, BMW, McLaren, Cadillac and Hyundai.

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The decision to go with the LMDh car rather than a hypercar makes sense for Porsche, as it’ll allow the brand to compete on both sides of the pond. Plus, it’ll sell customer cars to privateers, too.

“We are delighted that we were able to get Team Penske to form this partnership,” says Oliver Blume, Chairman of the Executive Board of Porsche AG. “For the first time in the history of Porsche Motorsport, our company will have a global team competing in the world’s two largest endurance series. To this end, we will be setting up team bases on both sides of the Atlantic. This will enable us to create the optimal structures we will need to take overall victories at Le Mans, Daytona and Sebring, for example.”

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I wouldn’t mind a throwback red-and-yellow livery again when that day comes.