2012 World Endurance Championship calendar announced
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The FIA has finally released the calendar for the 2012 World Endurance Championship:
Sebring 12 Hours (March 17)
Spa 6 Hours (May 5)
Le Mans 24 Hours (June 16-17)
Silverstone 6 Hours (August 25)
Interlagos (September 16)
Fuji 6 Hours (September 30)
Bahrain 6 Hours (October 20)
China (November 11/18)Perhaps most notably, the Bahrain 6 Hours clashes with the Petit Le Mans.
wow, that bahrain clash is horrible..
other than that, it looks ok (especially that interlagos race! endurance around there would be interesting)
Yeah, a good calendar despite Bahrain. Not just the clash, but going there in the first place is bad enough.
It would be nice to see Monza on the calendar, or maybe Road America or Road Atlanta.
So they’re having an endurance race (probably on the awful endurance circuit) at Bahrain that clashes with one of the best endurance races on the calendar.
Smart.
Putting a six-hour race at Bahrain up against the fantastic Petit Le Mans is a hilariously dumb move.
That aside, this is a pretty good calendar.
China is going to be Shanghai, presumably? That and Bahrain make it a pretty weak end to the season.
But the bottom line is it’s great to see a proper endurance racing championship again.
The track in China has been TBA last year and this year for a long time and they picked Zhuhai on both occasions anyway. So it’s a safe bet that they’ll be back there for the third year running.
The Bahrain/Petit Le Mans clash is probably the worst thing about the calendar, but the rest of it sounds rather good. When it comes to F1 races, the only confirmed clash between the WEC and F1 calendars is Sebring.
Putting a six-hour race at Bahrain up against the fantastic Petit Le Mans is a hilariously dumb move.
The organisers reckon “they didn’t have a choice”.
China is going to be Shanghai, presumably? That and Bahrain make it a pretty weak end to the season.
Shanghai or Zhuhai.
And while they might not be the best circuits for Formula 1, endurance racing is a very different beast.
I wonder if they will use the Paddock Circuit for Bahrain? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/Bahrain_International_Circuit–Paddock_Circuit.svg/1000px-Bahrain_International_Circuit–Paddock_Circuit.svg.png
I don’t see why they would. V8 Supercars used to race there, and it wasn’t very good. Even for Bahrain. It just removed all the interesting corners from the circuit.
Sounds good to me, all the classic tracks seem to have come too early though. Then again, not sure I’d want to be racing Silverstone or Spa in mid-November. I’m quite surprised there isn’t a race at Monza, that’s something of a staple for endurance series isn’t it?
@george – the series is still in its infancy. Since this is now an FIA-sanctioned championship, they will have the opportunity to expand further. But first, the series needs to be established. I do not think it is conicidence that the first four races of the championship are all established events, and of the last four, three are brand new and one is being revivied (the Fuji 1000km race has not been held regularly since 1992). Once 2013 comes around, they could reasonably open the championship up further to include more races. They just want to use 2012 to get established.
@prisoner-monkeys If they wanted to use 2012 to get established, why didn’t they just use the calender from this year? The 2011 ILMC calender used most of the potential 2012 WEC races anyways.
I can understand the dates being a conflict, but why should Bahrain (who, to my knowledge, has never had a major endurance event) get the nod over Petit LeMans (which is an established event)? I guess it all comes down to who’s got the most money >:(
If they wanted to use 2012 to get established, why didn’t they just use the calender from this year?
They have. Five of the events are taken from the ILMC calendar – Sebring, Spa, la Sarthe, Silverstone and (possibly) Zhuhai (WEC organisers have indicated that this is their preferred circuit). Monza was left off the calendar because the organisers decided to limit the series to three races in Europe.
can understand the dates being a conflict, but why should Bahrain get the nod over Petit LeMans?
The organisers of the WEC knew they were not going to Petit Le Mans from the outset. If they did, the race at Petit Le Mans would see the ALMS grid and the WEC grid join together for the race, and the circuit wouldn’t be able to handle a grid of over fifty cars and maintain the FIA’s circuit grading. Besides, they also wanted to limit the calendar to one race per country. If Petit Le Mans was included, Sebring would not be.
It also looks like the 6 hours of Silverstone will be the event that is used for the support Formular Renault 3.5 race, after the WSR calendar was confirmed with no full event at Silverstone, as it has since 2007.
http://motorsport.beneverard.co.uk/news/formula-renault-3-5-to-support-6-hours-of-silverstone/
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