General Motors hopes to make an announcement next month on the future of its sports cars – Corvette and Cadillac – as far as the ACO and its World Endurance Championship program.
That’s the latest word from Laura Klauser, the company’s sports car racing program manager.
“We don’t have anything confirmed,” she told Sportscar 365. “We’ve been working our butts off trying to figure out all of this and be able to fully commit and go down the path. These are several-year commitments in all of the platforms so we want to set ourselves up, get ready to do that and as soon as we’re ready to say ‘yes, we’re good to go,’ that’s when the announcements will come out.”
Klauser expects to have separate announcements for Corvette and Cadillac, saying “my fingers are crossed that there should be something, sometime in September, probably just one (brand announcement) at that point.”
She says GM is “still waiting to understand” what’s going on in Europe with the ACO, “and I don’t know if that’s going to be part of the ACO announcement (on Friday).”
According to Sportscar 365, GM isn’t fully committing to either a GT3 future with Corvette or its expected Cadillac LMDh involvement, waiting instead for clarity from the ACO on its future GT structure in the FIA World Endurance Championship and at Le Mans.
While GTE-Pro is confirmed for 2022, Sportscar 365 predicts only a single GTE class for Am class entrants in the 2023 WEC season, before a transition to GT3-spec cars in 2024.
Klauser tells Sportscar 365 that it’s “pretty important” to have some sort of GT pro class at Le Mans for Corvette Racing to continue competing in the French endurance classic.
“It’s part of how we’ve represented the brand and the way we’re able to bring our team and know we have the best of the best running the car for us,” she said. “Is it a deal breaker if we can’t? I don’t know. We’re not ready to say that. But it is something that we’d like to see the opportunity to continue having that set up the way we are. If we have to switch vehicle platforms, so be it.”
GM’s only formal commitment in its factory sports car portfolio so far has been for the 2022 Le Mans with GTE-spec Corvette C8.Rs.
“We know what next year (in WEC/Le Mans) looks like,” Klauser said. “(The ACO) has been pretty clear with us on that. This is all stuff that plays into it and not knowing is making it hard to commit because you want to make sure you have the balance and you meet all of your goals.”
Source:
sportscar365.com
Related:
RUMOR: Corvette Racing’s New GT3-Spec C8.R Expected in 2024
Laura Klauser Offers Update On the Corvette C8.Rs Conversion to GT3 Specs for 2022
GM Still Working Out Details for 2023’s Corvette Racing Program
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She needs to start getting consistent with her messaging, time now. This on-again, off-again, then back on again to ‘we don’t really know but we are likely committing one brand’ garbage needs to stop, especially when the talk of the town recently was a commitment to a C8.R GT3 platform.
Which one, Laura? No disrespect to the Cadillac racing fans out there, but last time I checked, the Corvette is way more recognizeable in the endurance sports car racing arena.
So is ACO no longer collaborating with IMSA? She makes no mention of IMSA. At one point there was agreement between the two on classes. Wonder what Fehan has to say.
Doesn’t seem like the new GM Sportscar regime is getting much traction with the ACO, FIA or IMSA.
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