Somewhat unbelievably, we're going into the third year of the LMH-LMDh joint 'convergence' ruleset across the FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA Sportscar Championship. The time's flown by!
At this point, it feels like the top classes in both championships have achieved some stability and maturity. Part of the reason for saying this is we've had enough time to have multiple drivers driving at least two, sometimes more, of these new top class sportscars across both series.
So, how do these different cars — potentially across the two rulesets — feel in comparison to each other? Where are the similarities? Where are the differences?
In order to find out, The Racing Line spoke to drivers from Wayne Taylor Racing, which for this year has switched from Acura machinery to Cadillac for the IMSA Sportscar Championship.
Out of the team's seven drivers for this weekend's forthcoming Daytona 24 Hours, they've all driven at least one other LMDh or LMH car. Specifically, we spoke to Jordan Taylor, Will Stevens, and Brendon Hartley, three drivers with large amounts of experience racing lots of different cars over their careers.
'More similarities than differences'
'There are more similarities than differences,' according to Brendon Hartley.
This weekend at Daytona, he'll be racing alongside Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque, and Will Stevens in the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R. However, his 'day job' is with Toyota, driving the Toyota GR010 Hybrid in WEC.
'Well, they're the same weight. Same tyre. Same aero window. In the end, the cars are all put in a very similar window. So there's a lot of similarities. The LMDhs have all rear-wheel drive.
'[On the LMHs] we have a front diff, with the LMDhs we don't. But as we've seen in WEC and also IMSA, the cars race on track, wheel to wheel, pretty similar. So yeah, I'd say there's more similarities than differences,' he concluded.
This is an important point — while the LMDhs, such as the Cadillac, Porsche, Acura abnd BMW, all of which will race in IMSA's Daytona 24 Hours this weekend, only send their regenerated elrectrical energy to the rear axle, the LMHs, such as the Ferrari, Toyota and Peugeot in WEC, send the power to the front axle, temporarily turning the powertrain into all-wheel-drive (AWD).
Phil Oakley
Does this cause the cars to feel different? No, says Hartley – because in WEC's Hypercar, the hybrid can only kick in after a certain speed.
'It's pretty minimal, because in the Hypercar category, if you're running the front wheel drive, you can't activate it until after 190[kph],' said the Kiwi.
'So it's effectively a rear wheel drive car. For the most part, until you're up to speed anyway.
'I mean that's what's the beauty of the rules. There's all these different manufacturers, different concepts and we're all competing for the same bit of racetrack.
'It's pretty fun that I've got to drive a few different cars, and I've always got a quite a big driver manual to go through and to get up to speed even if they're all very similar.
'They're all very different as well, from a systems point of view, and how you operate everything.
'But my teammates have been great getting up to speed and I'm enjoying driving the car. I haven't done too many laps yet but there'll be time in the race to get plenty of options,' Hartley concluded.
'Same steering wheel, but every knob is different'
This 'systems' point, that Hartley raises, and maybe one of the biggest differences between the various cars.
To learn more about the differences in the cars' specific systems, Jordan Taylor was on hand to answer more.
'There's so many different systems on these cars, that when you come at it from a completely different perspective, the strategies are much different,' said the American.
'So it's the same steering wheel, but every label is different, every knob does something different, the terminology is different.'
The steering wheel the LMDhs use is a Cosworth CCW (Cosworth Carbon Wheel) Mk3. This is one of the spec parts of the car provided by Cosworth to all the LMDh manufacturers, across IMSA and WEC.
But, while the wheel looks the same, the manufacturers can customise its functions to their own needs. That includes changing what individual buttons or rotaries do, creating new or custom labels, and changing the layout on the screen.
Any seasoned sim racer will know this customisable feature set well, as many sim racing wheels, the games themselves, and third party software, offer lots of customisable options.
'So it's interesting to learn the different strategy of how they've gone about the systems. And for us drivers, learning how to use those different systems in different sections, different corners, different parts of the track,' Taylor concluded.
How hard, though, is it to adjust to a new car, especially one across the different rulesets? Hartley gave his input.
'I haven't yet,' said the Kiwi when I asked whether he'd instinctively gone to change a setting that he'd normally change on the Toyota and had to adjust to change it on the Cadillac.
'I did drive the sim a week and a half ago, for that reason, to get up to speed with the controls.
'But maybe it takes a little bit more memory, brainpower, like being asked on the radio to make a setting change. Maybe it takes me another second or so to make the change, to make sure I get it right.'
And how do you learn how to make the various setting changes on the multi-function displays? Simple — by reading instructions.
'I've always got a quite a big driver manual to go through, and to get up to speed even if they're all very similar,' said Hartley.
'They're all very different as well from from a systems point of view and how how you operate everything. But my teammates have been great getting meup to speed and I'm enjoying driving the car.
'I haven't done too many laps yet but there'll be time in the race to get plenty of laps in,' he finished.
'Everyone has the same balance issues'
With the cars built to the same, or very similar in terms of the LMH and LMDh rulesets, regulations there's naturally going to be some form of crossover between the various cars.
'All the cars are relatively similar' said Will Stevens, who will be racing the #10 car with Hartley and their teammates, Jordan Taylor's brother Ricky and veteran Filipe Albuquerque.
He's also one of six drivers who will be racing for Cadillac Team JOTA in WEC, with JOTA being Cadillac's new factory team in the world championship.
Phil Oakley
'There's obviously going to be changes in the way the arrow map works,. what the car, wants doesn't want. But I think from a balance perspective, I think everyone has the same balance issues, because we all try to ultimately push the grip to the maximum we can.
'So I think the Cadillac's known to have good traction. I think that's pretty a well-known fact, that we feel good in that area. That's something that I feel coming from the Porsche to the Caddie, that I feel an improvement on.'
As Stevens mentioned, the traction the Cadillac has, especially out of low and mid-speed corners, is one of the car's strengths. This is something Taylor also alluded to, with his experience of having raced two Cadillacs in IMSA last year.
'Obviously both cars have strengths and weaknesses, but having raced the Cadillac last year, we kind of knew where it would be strong, and we can kind of instantly feel like it does have pretty good traction all the time, and tyre deg does seem a little bit better,' Taylor said.
Traction is something the Cadillac has shown to be one of its strengths over the last two years, with the car putting the rubber to the road better than some of its rivals in both IMSA and WEC.
Now, with Wayne Taylor Racing running two of the three factory Cadillacs in IMSA, and JOTA racing two Cadillacs in WEC, the drivers who last year raced a Porsche, or an Acura, or a Toyota in WEC, will be able to experience that strength first hand.
'But honestly, I can't say for sure until I get into a proper race and have long runs and and ultimately feel evolution of a race run,' Stevens continued.
'It's very very difficult to compare. We're doing such short runs here with four drivers getting through the field. You ultimately don't do many laps. So it's really difficult to get a true reading, but by the end of Sunday, I should have a better idea,' the Briton concluded.
Taylor also commented on the balance, saying the two — the Acura ARX-06 and the Cadillac – did feel different to drive when behind the wheel.
'It feels different,' he said.
'Like the way you turn in the corner. the way the steering responds to your inputs. It has a different sensation.'
'When you look at the lap times, these cars ultimately get to a very similar laptime, but the feeling and sensation is quite different which is amazing.
'But yeah, the tendencies and driving style is definitely changed between the cars. The Cadillac does feel a little bit heavier, but a bigger window to drive in. The Acura seemed like it was a narrow window to drive in, but a little bit more nimble, feeling kind of more on top of the track,' he said.
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Feature image: credit Kevin Dejewski