Driver line-up adjustments a key piece of the 2025 WEC puzzle

Looking at the Hypercar entry list for the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship, several things stand out. Aston Martin’s Valkyries have finally arrived, Lamborghini’s SC63 is nowhere to be seen, and Cadillac’s effort has expanded.

However, the biggest change comes in the driver columns. With the majority of the cars in the field now established and improving only via incremental updates, the factory teams are beginning to get creative in pursuit of podiums, race wins and of course, titles.

Some drivers have stepped away, and others have shifted teams or cars within the same team. Factories are also beginning to experiment with smaller, two-driver crews for the full season, exploring the potential performance benefits that consolidating your roster can bring.

Just two of the works teams head into the campaign with identical full-season driver line-ups, reigning Hypercar manufacturer’s champion Toyota and double Le Mans winner Ferrari. And both hope it’s a strategy that will pay off come the end of the season in November.

Ferrari is counting on stability to complete the mission left incomplete last year. JEP/Motorsport Images

At Ferrari, in particular, the upcoming season brings with it so much promise. With stability in its driver roster and some key updates focused on reliability for its challenger, this could be the year when it all comes together.

The aims are clear for the new season: win Le Mans for a third straight year and put together a title-winning campaign with its two factory cars. Through 2023 and ’24, speed has been there; what was missing was consistency and standout results outside of the “main event” in France for the works-entered 499Ps.

The car has just one win in the shorter races, and that came at Lone Star Le Mans with the third car run by AF Corse. By Ferrari’s lofty standards, that’s not good enough. Thus, tireless work has been ongoing behind the scenes at Maranello ahead of the Prancing Horse’s third year in Hypercar.

Nevertheless, James Calado — who shares the No. 51 499P with Alessandro Pier Guidi and Antonio Giovinazzi — feels the Italian OEM has made the right decision when it comes to its driver strategy.

Rather than shuffle the pack, bring in new faces, or reduce its full-season pool, it has chosen to remain loyal to the six drivers that have been with the program from the start and, lest we forget, delivered two of the brand’s biggest sporting results this century over the past two seasons. On the face of it, that doesn’t seem surprising, but look at Porsche: both Dane Cameron and Andre Lotterer lost their drives last year after winning titles. It’s a cutthroat business at this level.

“I want to stay with what we have for the whole season,” Calado told RACER. “I wouldn’t want anything different. I wouldn’t want someone to miss out and then come back in, and have things change. You’re a team at the end of the day, so for me, it makes sense that we all stay together for the whole year.”

There are pros and cons. A clear plus to trimming down a driver line-up for the shorter races (beyond the obvious cost-saving element!) is an individual increase in track time and perhaps less compromise on car setup.

However, physically, it’s tougher for the drivers without a third pair of hands — particularly in more challenging climates — and there are occasions where strategically, having two drivers can be a disadvantage.

It’s also worth noting that there is a significant level of anxiety in the paddock that the driver market will become significantly more volatile than it already is if more factories begin to experiment further.

“Maybe on track time it helps a little bit, but it depends on the driver,” Calado added when asked about the benefits of a smaller line-up. “Some drivers like to build up and take a long time to get up to speed; others are on it straight away. We’ve got simulators we can use all the time, though, so for me doing it with two drivers is quite tough. I think Antonello (Coletta) is happy with three, and we are.

“And keeping the same teammates is important too. I have been with Ale (Pier Guidi) for so long (since 2018) and with Giovi (Giovinazzi) now too, it would be tough to split me and Ale up, that’s for sure!

“In terms of results last year, what you see on paper, it’s not good,” he continued. “But we were super strong — we showed pace and we were there at the front. Unfortunately, some of the races we didn’t finish — we had some bad luck and with only eight races you need to consistently score to be at the front. We know this, but that’s why I am looking forward to this year because we know we have a good baseline and we know what we need to do to chip away.

“When you look at it closely, Spa we could have won, Imola too; Austin we had a DNF and Fuji we had a hole in the floor from the first lap. That’s four races in which we had the potential to pick up big results, instead, it’s a lot of points we lost.

“I have no doubt we learned a lot, and we have improved from these experiences.”

Accounting for differing driver weights is a contentious issue. Motorsport Images

Another ongoing debate that concerns drivers is weight parity. Previously, in the LMP1 Hybrid days, the differences in driver weight were equalized by ballast. If the average weight of the driver line-up (including equipment) in each LMP1 car was less than 80kg, ballast was added to the car to take the average driver weight plus “driver ballast” to 80kg. This has since been removed from the regulations in the current era.

However, there appears to be a movement to re-introduce this measure, and sources have suggested to RACER that we may see driver weight ballast return in time for the opening round of the 2025 season in Qatar. The addition of mandatory driver weigh-ins to the latest version of the Qatar Prologue timetable is another sign that change is coming.

“It’s absolutely necessary. It’s been outrageous,” one Hypercar driver, who wished to remain anonymous, told RACER. “We have a situation where drivers who weigh significantly less can offset BoP ballast. It’s crazy that it hasn’t been thought about in recent years.

“It’s taken Max Verstappen expressing concerns and saying he won’t do Le Mans because of it, for them to look at introducing it.”

When asked for comment on this subject last week in Fiorano, Ferrari’s head of endurance race cars, Ferdinando Cannizzo, responded cautiously but did confirm that it’s being looked at by the rule makers.

“At the moment, we don’t know (if the rules will change). It’s in process,” he said. “We will see how they will implement it. But it’s difficult for me to comment.”