WEC News: Tire warmer ban for 24 Hours of Le Mans

The Automobile Club de l’Ouest has outlawed tire warming for next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, opting not to bring them back for the FIA WEC’s marquee event.

WEC CEO Frederic Lequien said last month that a repeat of this year’s decision to lift the tire warmer ban exclusively for Le Mans was under consideration, but that a decision had not yet been reached.

However, Article 6.5.5. of the supplementary regulations for the French endurance classic, released last week, state that “any process that involves a direct or indirect attempt at modifying the temperature of a tire (compared to the ambient temperature) is forbidden.”

Lequien said in November: “Le Mans is very specific because of the differentials in temperature [between day and night], also the different categories and also the differences in driver skill,” he said.

“When you exit the pitlane at three in the night and the temperatures are quite low, it is doable, but the drivers need to adapt to this, and for this, we need time.”

“For the moment the decision is not taken for Le Mans: we need to discuss again and again to make sure it is doable.”

United Autosports boss Richard Dean said: “I preferred running tire warmers, but I understand the reasons for the rule.

“We ran without them at the Daytona 24 Hours a couple of years ago and it was below freezing during the night, so it can be done.”