In the last post, we took a quick look at the truly insane costs associated with the typical route taken towards a professional racing career, as well as the intrinsic value of experience gained on the way in the preceding post, especially with respect to karting.
If you are still here I believe I have some idea of what you might be thinking. Perhaps at the end of last week’s entry you asked,
“nice summary, but you’ve sort of wasted it on me; aren’t YOU convinced by your own drawing that you simply cannot reach your goal”? – You, a motorsport savant.
While that may be a perfectly fair inquiry, if you are asking this and still somehow came back here to read on, I suppose we are not on the same page at all – and we need to be, so I will address this as generally as possible now.
A word on why I think I can succeed without karting…
Delusion – dəˈlo͞oZHən
- what nearly all active drivers want me to believe I am afflicted by
- what nearly all active race engineers want me to believe I am afflicted by
- a cop-out level excuse, usually made by those lacking mettle
Firstly, I am definitely not out here trying to be a Formula 1 driver. Come on. Give me some credit. I possess some reasoning ability.
There exists a vast world of motor racing outside the travelling circus of Formula One. Particularly so in endurance racing, that is, racing in GT cars and Prototypes. While most people who race professionally in these categories unquestionably also possess karting, Formula 3 or similar Junior Formula experience, their experience seems to be a consequence of chasing their Formula 1 dreams as a squirrelly wunderkind as well as a by-product of only approximately twenty race seats existing in Formula One – which, might I add, are not necessarily awarded to drivers on merit alone. Sometimes they are not awarded on merit at all. Their experience is not, however, a result of eyeing a career in endurance racing specifically.
While such experience certainly helps, I am simply not of the belief these supposed prerequisites are quite as important as we are all led to believe when professional endurance racing is concerned.
In several previous posts on this blog, Endurance racing was represented in the drawing which appears once again below. Shown off to the side are two putatively extraneous and overly-generalized pyramids.
The smaller pyramid on the left represents Prototype racing. Essentially, LMP2 and LMP1/incoming Hypercar categories can be run professionally. LMP3 is a development category akin to low-mid level of the main pyramid.
The smaller pyramid on the right represents GT racing. This is an area which really requires its own post. There are mostly professional opportunities in the pinnacle of GT racing, the GTE category, although the future of GTE is uncertain at the time of writing. There are also surely some professional opportunities in GT3. Unusually, GT3 is a bit of a smorgasbord where a line separating professional from not professional is quite muddied.
If we ignore the “professional” bit, just how many seats are we talking, here? Well the author DGAF enough to look into this, generally speaking there are various international and national categories running GTE and GT3. Less so running prototypes, but still they exist in competition nationally and internationally. GT4 is akin to a development category but the cars run close due to a lack of aerodynamics compared to their GT cousins!
So, where exactly can a motorsport enthusiast catch a glimpse of these warlocks?
LMP1, or the incoming Le Mans Hypercar and LMDh, can be seen racing in the World Endurance Championship (WEC) and the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA). LMP2 as well as GTE can both be seen racing in the WEC, IMSA, the European Le Mans Series (ELMS), and the Asian Le Mans Series (ALMS). LMP3 cars go racing in the ELMS, ALMS, IMSA, and I am sure we will see them in various smaller series in the future.
That leaves our darling smorgasbord. The venerated gallimaufry of muddied lines between truly professional, “professional” and amateur racing driver.
GT3….exists f*cking everywhere.
GT3 racing consists of an eye-opening fifty-one homologated marques. They are being raced in World GT Challenge, Intercontinental GT challe- no, I am definitely not listing them all. Here is the TLDR: twenty-three various international and national series with fifty-one homologated marques. It exists absolutely everywhere in some form – it is enough to make you sick.
There is a point in referencing all of this.
There are so, SO many Endurance seats out there across several categories. Sure, if all seats in question were lumped together like only a maniac would do, say, into two scrawled triangles maybe only a small portion of them would be factory drives (and therefore within the sights of my own ambitions). If an outsider looking in were to perhaps apply the first degree of line-muddying referenced above, that small portion of seats would look much larger. The important bit is there are still a massive number of race seats available to professional drivers, factory-contracted to marques or not..
“There are many seats. So what? Think again, slick! The number of seats has NO bearing on the experience required to wheel one around.” – Everyone
Yes and no. Everyone is both correct and incorrect.
Karting and junior formula are unquestionably required to reach the pinnacle level of Formula One.
In the case of everything else, much like once a driver arrives in Formula One, what matters most is what he can do. GT4 for example, comfortably residing at the base of our top-right-most triangle, was originally conceptualized as a category for drivers with…
..no junior experience! Yet, the next logical step up would be GT3. Is that not interesting to anyone?
If the competitive parity within GT4 is at least partly hinged on drivers without junior racing experience, yet the only way to step up to the next logical level, in this case being the GT3 category, is to progress to the…. hugely popular GT3 category…? Do I really need to spell this out?
Notice how I said there were some professional seats available in GT3? That is because while some factories send factor- er, drivers representing their brand – to drive on a customer team…. it’s not a professional category.
I realize that last statement will trigger some people stumbling upon this entry. I am okay with that. You are entitled to your own opinion on whether or not GT3 racing constitutes a truly professional racing category. Although, if you thought it was a professional category you would be wrong.
In the case of Prototypes, if the typical requisites were in play here, why does the development category LMP3 even exist? LMP3 is the entry level into prototype racing, in much the same way Formula 4 is the entry level to single seater racing on the Modern Era side of the main pyramid above. Furthermore, in performance terms it is more similar to the Formula 3 category which is already half-way up that pyramid. LMP3 is a category which can be described as LMP2’s younger, slower, and slightly heavier sister. While approximately the same dimensions as the LMP2, she is down on power and equipped with slightly less efficient aerodynamics, and less overall grip due to tires – though still a legitimate aero-car. You love her all the same as her more svelt and refined older sister, even if she prefers flats to heels and could stand to lose a pound or two. It seems to resemble a category aimed at people without that coveted junior formula experience, much like the GT4 category on the GT side. The only logical development jump to make with respect to drivers is to the very racey, more aero-dependent LMP2 category, which is itself a mere single step below the pinnacle of LMP1/Hypercar. Please do not make me spell it out..
All of this to say – if Endurance racing has two of its own version of the pivotal starter wife…
..the need for karting and junior formula is not exactly written in stone to enter GT or Prototype racing! It is therefore a notion which is expressly rejected by yours truly. It only matters what you can do from the cockpit.
Someone very intelligent once pointed the obvious out to me.
“You can also start your career in an LMP3 without any previous experience, but would you be fast? Junior formula experience normally helps, anyway.” – Doctor AQ
There is no better way to say it, Doc. It would certainly help. Normally. Though, nothing about this story is normal. So yes, it would have been nice, but..
Think about it, precious readers. Really think about it. There indeed exist legitimate opportunities to ardently chase – even without years of karting experience on my Curriculum Vitae.
Listen, I like to keep it casual too. Here you are, though, on a seventh date FFS. Let’s make this thing official; aim, fire, subscribe.