COVID-19: The Impact On WEC

Over the course of 2020, we have seen the impact that COVID-19 has had as it has ravaged through the society worldwide. We have heard about how it has impacted other sports, such as football or Formula One, but how has it impacted the World Endurance Championship? We spoke to Daniel Lloyd of SportsCar365 and Davey Euwema of Motorsport Weekly to find out.

Daniel Lloyd tells the story of the suspension of the 2019-2020 season which happened just days before the race at Sebring in March 2020, when President Trump put in place a travel ban from Europe. This ban was put in place overnight, with half of the WEC personnel were already in hotels in the United States and the other half due to fly into the country in the coming days.

"The teams had all arrived, unloaded their trailers and most of the drivers had flown over. People were sat in their hotels as the news filtered in that the race was cancelled because the United States was putting in place a travel ban on people coming from the EU that night. It meant that while a lot of us were already over there, we would struggle to get back, whilst other people hadn't even come out yet. It was chaos."

- Daniel Lloyd, journalist for SportsCar365

"Because Sebring got cancelled and everyone had already paid for flights, hotels, freight and shipping, they had basically paid to do a race that had never even started. Then, when Bahrain got added onto the calendar to complete the number of races required in a season, everyone had an extra race's worth of costs from the missed Sebring round. It was quite a big unintended consequence of the COVID pandemic", said Daniel.

The WEC's 1,000 Miles of Sebring was cancelled in March.

Photo credit: DailySportsCar.com

After the cancellation of Sebring, the season was suspended with the races at both Spa-Francorchamps and Le Mans rescheduled for dates in August and September, although behind closed doors, obviously. The race at Bahrain was also added onto the calendar, as Daniel said, to meet the requirement for the minimum number of races for the championship.

However, according to Davey Euwema, other than the rescheduling of races, the on track event was not affected all that much. In fact, Davey said "motorsport came back a lot quicker than I thought it would. When it all went downhill in March, I thought 'this is going to take months', which to be fair it did. However, we were back racing again in August, which if you had told me that when the race at Sebring was cancelled, I wouldn't have believed you"

The revised WEC calendar after the cancellation of Sebring in March

Photo credit: WEC

Something that both Davey and Daniel iterated in their interviews was the efficiency of the WEC testing and bubble system that it implemented for its remaining races.

According to Daniel there was "a separate bubble for reporters and for team members, where reporters weren't allowed into the paddock - much like the F1 system. We could only go into the media centre and all interviews were done over a video link, although occasionally we could get a face-to-face interview with the drivers in a special room that they had set up so that we could meet across a large table."

This is something that Davey repeated too, adding on the fact that there was testing, with a negative test result required before you could arrive at the circuit, as well as regular temperature checks, hand sanitisation and of course, masks. Both journalists also mentioned just how well choreographed it was in Bahrain, with a special testing facility set up outside the airport especially for the WEC.

However, the main worry for those within the sport is the financial impact that COVID-19 has.

"I definitely think that the COVID-19 pandemic will have a long lasting knock on effect to both the teams and the series. We have already seen some of the financial implications of the pandemic in motorsport, not just in WEC but also in IMSA, where Porsche has ended its entire GTE programme and even pulled out of running its two GTE cars at Le Mans. In fact, a lot of teams pulled out of Le Mans."

- Davey Euwema, Journalist for Motorsport Weekly

"We have also seen some of the impacts in WEC too, with the calendar being restructured from being the 'super-season' which runs over two calendar years back into its singular calendar year arrangement, like it was prior to 2018-2019. With COVID-19, it is not sustainable for teams to do such a long season, so they have brought it back to what it was before with six races between March and November. That has helped to lessen the financial impact of COVID, along with some cost-cutting measures" says Davey.

The 2021 calendar (Left) & the Aston Martin Valkyrie to be entered into the hypercar class next season (Right).

Photo credits: WEC & Autocar

However, Daniel is optimistic for the future, "With the new LMH and LMDH classes coming into the WEC, it should also allow more teams to enter the series at a lower price than what the LMP1 and LMP2 classes offer. This should help to prevent a mass exodus of teams and also prevent the need for the regulations to be carried over, like with Formula One".

We are also optimistic for the future, after all it is nice to have racing back.