The Pro-Am Prototype Class Is Benefiting from the Convergence of Several Factors Pointing to Larger Fields in 2024
June 15, 2023
By Mark Robinson
IMSA Wire Service
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Amid the tremendous growth and momentum of the IMSA WeatherTech Championship has come the quiet but steady expansion of the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class.
From four full-season entries just two years ago, the Pro-Am prototype class has doubled in size to eight regulars in 2023. And here’s a news flash: LMP2 is likely to become even larger and more competitive than ever. That’s just fine with the current crop in the WeatherTech Championship.
“From our standpoint,” says Kyle Tilley, owner of Era Motorsport, “the more competition, the better. It just pushes everybody to a higher level.”
Impetus for the expected influx of competitors is three-fold. IMSA announced earlier this year that the current-generation LMP2 cars will remain eligible to race in the WeatherTech Championship through 2025. Then last month, IMSA revealed that Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) would end its three-year run as a WeatherTech Championship class at the conclusion of this season. Finally, last week, the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) confirmed that LMP2 will no longer be part of its series starting next season, aside from 15 entries reserved for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
It’s left a number of prominent Pro-Am prototype teams searching for a place to land, and the WeatherTech Championship is an attractive answer. United Autosports, a periodic WeatherTech Championship LMP2 and LMP3 competitor the past couple years as it focused on WEC, has already announced intentions to field a two-car WeatherTech Championship effort for 2024. Riley Motorsports, currently a WeatherTech Championship LMP3 entrant where it won the 2021 championship, said this week it expects to move along with driver Gar Robinson to LMP2 next year.
“I know of at least four other cars that want to go a full season next year,” Tilley said, “so I think it’s gonna be good.”
The projected expansion is a far cry from less than three years ago, when a single LMP2 raced at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca during the pandemic-influenced 2020 season. That car was entered by longtime IMSA stalwart PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports, whose team principal Bobby Oergel says the stability of the IMSA LMP2 platform makes it an attractive proposition for customer teams moving forward.
“The category regulations kind of stopped moving around so much,” Oergel explains, “and then all of a sudden you see instances of solidarity, if you will, and teams like mine and a handful of others say, ‘Well, we can invest in that; we know we’ve got a future.’ IMSA being able to outlay the fact that it will run for two more years as-is, that’s just a beautiful thing.
“I think it’s got a long future if it’s allowed to have it,” Oergel adds. “There’s definitely a point in time where equipment has to get renewed, but to be fair, if it’s not broke, let’s not fix it.”
Both team leaders agree that another important factor in LMP2’s popularity is that the car is just plain fun to drive.
“The car itself always gets rave reviews from anyone that drives it with every team,” says Oergel. “To me, it’s one of the best things you could do for the bang for the buck. If you look across the board, across the globe, the amount of talent that has come out of the category but has continued to stay in it, that is impressive.”
“Anybody who drives the P2 absolutely loves it!” chimes in Tilley, adding that the prospect of driving in the pillar IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup events makes the LMP2 opportunity more enticing. “You have these iconic events such as the Rolex 24, Sebring Twelve Hour, Watkins Glen Six Hour and then obviously Petit Le Mans. I raced professionally for a number of years and those were all events which I always had on my bucket list, so I think you ask any endurance racing driver out there, those are all events that they would love to compete in.”
The increased competition is great, Oergel and Tilley agree, but both know they’ll need to step up their games to remain near the top of the class. Era is considering expanding from one to two cars in LMP2.
“We’ve had so much interest from European teams,” Tilley says. “We have four cars (in inventory) right now, so it would be pretty easy for us to expand to a two-car team. I think that would give us an advantage because we can try different setups and strategies across two cars. It could give us a little bit of a leg up.”
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