February is a month that is awaited by the endurance fans with certain expectation, as most of the rumors brought through the end of 2017 and early 2018 are confirmed or refuted, and the ACO press conference that presented the FIA World Endurance Championship entries solved most of the questions to this point.
36 cars will take the full season of the worldwide competition, and some points obviously catch the attention, like the LMP1 grid increase, new and returning contenders and much more.
LMP1 - 10 cars
Toyota now is the only manufacturer from the hybrid club with 2 TS050 Hybrids, surrounded by the non-hybrid troop that sees ByKolles staying with a single ENSO CLM P1/01 and the return of Rebellion Racing after a year in LMP2, repeating the Rebellion R-One strategy and keeping the ties with Oreca for a new prototype, dubbed Rebellion R13.
While that, the promise of a fairer competition ground between manufacturers and privateers brought some new names to the class, like TRS Manor with two new Ginetta G60-LT-P1 and SMP Racing and Dragonspeed coming with three BR Engineering BR1, also debuting this year.
LMP2 - 7 cars
The second prototype class loses entries due to the moves to LMP1 mentioned above but also will feature other prototypes from the new global spec, leaving behind the picture of an Oreca Cup.
Jackie Chan DC Racing is the only team not limited to a single entry and along with TDS Racing and Signatech Alpine, they form the group of those who stayed there. Dragonspeed with a late Oreca entry is joined by Racing Team Nederland as the newcomers who stepped in from ELMS, while Larbre Competition returns to prototypes with a Ligier after short lived stints with a Morgan LMP2 and a Corvette C7.R GTE.
LMGTE-Pro - 10 entries
Almost no changes in the top production class other than new and updated cars, like the updated Ferrari 488 GTE Evo and the new Aston Martin Vantage GTE.
The highlight of the class is BMW Team MTEK joining with the M8 GTE to face off the factory teams of Ferrari (AF Corse), Ford (Chip Ganassi), Porsche and Aston Martin, being the one with less changes.
LMGTE-Am - 9 entries
Another class keeping a good chunk of the field from last season while also bringing new names for 2018. Dempsey-Proton increases their presence with two Porsches while Gulf Racing, Spirit of Race, Clearwater Racing and Aston Martin Racing keep single car entries between Porsches, Ferraris and Astons.
TF Sport comes from ELMS with a single Aston Martin while Japanese squad MR Racing confirms a single Ferrari after tests at the end of 2017, and Porsche Supercup team Tolimit steps into FIA WEC as Project 1 with another 911 RSR GTE.
PHOTO: FIA WEC
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