United Autosports who has been a front-running team and champions in the FIA World Endurance Championship in the LMP2 class will switch to IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship from 2024 onwards after the ACO and FIA agreed to drop the class from the 2024 WEC season. The two-time LMP2 champions announced the move quite shortly after it was known the class will be removed.
United Autosports are co-owned by the McLaren Racing boss Zak Brown and former Le Mans GT2 class winner Richard Dean, and since the team got founded in 2009 they have been quite successfully in the LMP2 category in different events. Last year they became the first team to have taken the 24 Hours of Le Mans LMP2 category win and won two titles the same year in WEC and European Le Mans Series.
For this season the team is running a two-car effort in the WEC, ELMS, and Asian Le Mans Series but also fielding four cars in the LMP3 category in the Michelin Le Mans Cup. The team has confirmed they will be running a full season with two Oreca-Gibson 07 LMP2 machines in IMSA while also continuing to compete in ELMS and ALMS next year but will also make a bid to join the 15-car LMP2 grid in Le Mans as the class will continue to race there despite not being officially racing under the WEC.
The team first raced in IMSA in 2018 at the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona with a Ligier-Gibson JS P217 piloted by Fernando Alonso, Lando Norris, and Philip Hanson. The most recent visit to IMSA was last season at Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring with the #22 car. The driver line-up for the 2024 IMSA season is not yet known but looking at the current WEC line-up we can expect Filipe Albuquerque, Oliver Jarvis, Tom Blomqvist, and Hanson will continue to race in the IMSA program.
