Photo : Arnaud CORNILLEAU - ACO

 

There are separate technical and sporting rules for each category, although some rules apply across the board, such as the 4-hour minimum for each driver and averaged driver weights, which avoids penalising heavier drivers.

The LM P1 category

The new regulations governing the LM P1 category (Le Mans Prototype 1) came into force on 1st January 2014. Their aim is to make motor sport more relevant to series production cars, and they put innovation at the very heart of the challenge by allocating a given quantity of energy to the entrants instead of imposing a technical specification.

Thus, the solutions used by the four manufacturers racing in 2015 are completely different. Audi, winner of the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2014, has chosen diesel fuel unlike its three rivals and it harvests the energy generated under braking by means of an inertia flywheel. Toyota, the reigning World Endurance Manufacturers’ ccategory in 2014 after a 16-year absence, has opted for batteries which harvest energy from braking and from the heat generated by the turbocharger. And finally Nissan, which is making its comeback to the Sarthe in 2015, has explored a totally different path to its rivals with a front-engined, front-wheel drive car! hampion uses super-capacitors to store the energy recovered, while Porsche, back in the blue riband endurance.

Because of these different designs there have to be equivalences between the technologies to put the entrants on an equal footing. The values were decided last year and have been frozen up to, and including, the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Private teams, which don’t have the human and financial resources to develop the complex energy recovery systems, haven’t been forgotten by the new regulations as they can enter a car without ERS in the LM P1 category.

In 2014 the LM P1 category (closed cars only) was split into two groups (LM P1-L and LM P1-H). This year there will be a single category, LM P1, and for the first time since 2011 it has received 14 entries.

In order to limit costs the number of tyres allocated for the Le Mans 24 Hours has been restricted to seven sets (rain tyres not included), two front and two rear, for free practice, qualifying and the warm-up, and 12 sets for the race itself plus four extra tyres over the whole event in case of extra time.
 

With the same aim in mind, the number of engines has been limited to five for all the hybrid prototypes entered for the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) for the full season (7 for newcomer Nissan), and 2 (+1 joker) for the Le Mans 24 Hours for the third cars entered by Audi, Porsche and Nissan.

Minimum weight (without driver on board and without fuel):