IMSA State of the Sport: WeatherTech Series Adding LMP3 Class for 2021

From Autoweek

IMSA president John Doonan, in a “State of the Sport” address, confirmed Wednesday that a fifth class will join the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s existing Daytona Prototype International, Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2). GT Le Mans and GT Daytona classes.

The new class, LMP3, has been racing in separate IMSA-sanctioned races for several years. The LMP3 cars were made by several manufacturers to common specifications, and introduced with a Nissan V-8 engine, though Nissan, because it is not a paying sponsor, hasn’t been recognized by IMSA.

There’s a new LMP3 car being built by three manufacturers, and those new cars will make up the WeatherTech class, along with “Evo” (short for evolution) versions of updated current cars. The LMP3 cars look like the LMP2 cars but are slightly smaller. IMSA is expected to use its Balance of Performance index to control the speed of the LMP3 cars to slot in just slower than the LMP2s.

IMSA can use the extra cars on the grid. Last weekend’s six-hour race at Road Atlanta drew 28 entries, including just two LMP2 cars. Next year the field is expected to be reduced—not just in IMSA, but most forms of motorsports—by the personal and financial hits from the COVID-19 virus. The LMGT class, for instance, is expected to have four entries. And it will likely take a while to rebuild the LMP2 class, which has no manufacturer involvement, so all the investment must come from sponsorship or, more common, from an amateur driver’s pockets.

For perspective, 15 cars entered the last LMP3 race, at Virginia International Raceway. The fastest lap was 1 minute, 41.75 seconds by Kyle Kirkwood. The fastest lap of an GTLM cars at VIR (there were no other Prototypes in the races) was 1:41.333 by Nick Tandy in a Porsche 911.

In other news from Doonan’s address: