The Prototype class of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship will continue in its current form until the end of the 2016 season it was confirmed as sanctioning body IMSA outlined the immediate future of the series’ classes.
“It is important to all of our stakeholders to have a clear understanding of where the TUDOR Championship is headed from a technical standpoint, which we now have established through 2016,” said Scot Elkins, IMSA’s Vice President of Competition and Technical Regulations. “This will enable our manufacturers to build race cars with these specifications and timelines in mind, and allow our competitors to make fully informed investment decisions for the future.”
The Prototype class will continue to be made up of a combination of Daytona Prototype, Auto Club de l’Ouest (ACO) spec LMP2 chassis and the DeltaWing. Only for the 2017 will a new prototype specification that unites FIA, ACO and IMSA sanctioned series be introduced.
The TUDOR Championship grid will remain a four class affair with the four current classes. However, while the P class will remain in its current form for two further full seasons both the GT Le Mans (GTLM) and GT Daytona (GTD) will change after the 2015 season. The GTD class will adopt full FIA GT3 regulations, with the obvious changes to the class’ aerodynamic regulations while all the cars will run traction control and ABS.
The GTLM class will continue to run under the ACO’s GTE regulations, a new set of which will be introduced for the 2016 season.
The oldest cars on the grid – the ORECA FLM09 – will remain the sole chassis of the Prototype Challenge (PC) class until the end of the 2016 campaign. At that point the future of the class will be considered taking into consideration the design, cost and performance of the LMP3 machinery compared to that of the unified Prototype regulations that will form the premier class for the 2017 season.
