The 2023 IMSA SportsCar Championship (known for sponsorship reasons as the 2023 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship) is a planned motor racing championship, set to be the 53rd racing season sanctioned by the International Motor Sports Association, which traces its lineage back to the 1971 IMSA GT Championship. It will also be the tenth season of the IMSA SportsCar Championship since the merger between the American Le Mans Series and the Rolex Sports Car Series in 2014, and the eighth under the sponsorship of WeatherTech. The 2023 season marks an overhaul season for the championship, with a change in class structure and a new race on the season calendar at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The Porsche 963 (pictured at the 2022 Goodwood Festival of Speed) is one of the prototype race cars that are allowed to compete under IMSA’s new GTP class. It complies with the LMDh regulations.
At the end of the 2022 season, IMSA retired the Daytona Prototype International (DPi) class, which was the premier racing class in the WeatherTech Championship from 2017 until 2022, spanning six seasons. IMSA replaced it with a new class called GTP, named in tribute to the GTP class from the IMSA GT Championship in the 1980s.
GTP is the new flagship class of the championship and consists of two sister technical regulations: LMDh (Le Mans Daytona hybrid), and LMH (Le Mans Hypercar). LMDh allows choosing from a base chassis, of which there are four choices, from Dallara, Ligier, Multimatic, and Oreca, as well as a specification hybrid system on all cars, with freedom on aerodynamics, bodywork, and engine configuration. The LMH regulation allows bespoke hybrid designs and offers more mechanical design freedom in exchange for elevated development costs. As with the DPi class, GTP is regulated by a Balance of Performance (BoP) system to keep the performance range of each of the cars close together and regulate spending.
The GTP class consists of the same framework as the Hypercar class of the FIA World Endurance Championship. A collaborative alliance between IMSA and the French racing organizers, ACO, resulted in the convergence of the two organizers' top-class regulations.[1]
After initially announcing discontinuing the sub-championship entirely on August 5, IMSA later declared on September 1 that they would continue the WeatherTech Sprint Cup, a championship comprising only sprint rounds for the GT Daytona (GTD) class. The only difference was that there would be no Sprint Cup-only rounds for 2023, to combat situations such as the record-low six-car GTD entry at the 2022 Chevrolet Grand Prix.[2][3]
Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course was dropped from the calendar. The track had been a part of the championship since 2018. The event was replaced with a sprint race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, marking IMS' return to the championship for the first time since the series' inaugural season in 2014.[4]
The Raceway on Belle Isle was also dropped from the calendar as a result of the Belle Isle circuit being replaced in favor of the Detroit street circuit. The track was a part of the championship for every season of the IMSA SportsCar Championship since its inception in 2014, except for 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[4]
On December 1, 2022, it was announced that the Rolex 24 Qualifying Race had been canceled for 2023, with the race reverting to a traditional qualifying format. Qualifying will take place on January 22, the final day of the "Roar Before the Rolex 24" preseason test.[7]
Rule Changes
In response to the 2022 Six Hours of The Glen which saw several cars penalized for drive-time infringements as a result of a red flag for inclement weather, IMSA will now reduce the required drive time by a ratio of 2:1 corresponding to a percentage of the race time lost, rather than 1:1 as had been the rule previously.[8] For example: If a race is shortened by 10 percent due to a red flag condition, each driver's minimum required drive time would be reduced by 20 percent.
The minimum sprint race drive time for bronze-categorized drivers in the GTD Class has been reduced from 45 minutes to 35 minutes.[9]
As an incentive for bronze-categorized drivers to participate in qualifying in the GTD Class, teams whose qualifying time is set by a bronze-categorized driver will be permitted to change tires for the start of the race, while teams utilizing drivers of any other categorization must start the race on the tires used in qualifying.[9]
For drivers competing in more than one car during a race, the cumulative maximum drive time no longer applies to races under 6 hours in length.[8]
‡ : Herta (Daytona), van der Linde (Daytona/Sebring), and Wittmann (Daytona/Sebring) have been confirmed to compete for BMW Team RLL, but finalized driving lineups have not been announced.
Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2)
In accordance with the 2017 LMP2 regulations, all cars in the LMP2 class use the Gibson GK428 V8 engine.[36]
AWA[46]
TBA
Jr III Motorsports[51]
João Barbosa[52]
MRS GT-Racing[46]
