The latest round of Balance of Performance changes for the GTE classes have been announced by the ACO. Porsche and Ford gain some extra weight while BMW, Aston Martin and Corvette shave off a few pounds.
The threat of changing BoP always looms large over the GTE classes in the World Endurance Championship, especially so at Le Mans. The ACO announced earlier today that more BoP changes were incoming and that Porsche and Ford would be gaining some weight.
Having locked out the front row in GTE Pro qualifying, with the pole-sitting car 1.5 seconds ahead of the sister car, and claiming the top five spots in GTE Am, Porsches across the board have been handed an extra ten kilograms in weight for Saturday’s race in an attempt to even out the field. Their nearest challengers, Ford will be gaining an extra eight kilograms following the #66 car’s performance to qualify third.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the class, the Corvette C7.R, the BMW M8 GTE and both the old and new Aston Martin Vantage are all receiving weight breaks. The two newcomers, the BMW and Aston Martin will be shedding ten kilos apiece (for Aston Martin that covers both GTE Pro and GTE Am), and the IMSA Corvette entries dropping a mere five kilograms. Aston Martin Racing were around five seconds down on the fastest Porsche in GTE Pro qualifying, and as a result, have been allowed a minor turbo power boost (believed to be their second this week) on top of their weight loss.
The Ferraris in both classes will start the race at the same weight at which they qualified. They have, however, been given an extra kilogram in their fuel allocation.
It remains to be seen how this will affect tomorrow’s race, and indeed the Overtake Motorsport predictions. The 2018 24 Hours of Le Mans kicks off at 3 pm local time on Saturday, June 16th.
