Pascal Vasselon: “A completely realistic new schedule”

What do you think of the new version of the calendar WEC 2019-2020?

This is a pragmatic and realistic solution, because it does not count on the possibility of having races before August, which is reasonable. Having a race before Le Mans was important, especially considering Test Day was cancelled. It was supposed to be Silverstone, but we clearly asked for the Spa option to be evaluated and a solution was found. Finally, having the eighth and final race after Le Mans is not a bad idea. It was impossible to put it before.

Why Spa more than Silverstone?

We have references there for preparation for Le Mans. And Silverstone caused logistical problems. The possibility of holding a meeting on the last weekend of August, shortly before Le Mans, was discussed, but this posed a real problem for us in converting the cars. Between a high downforce race and a low downforce race, we need to rebuild part of the car, including the front and rear crash structures. Materially, this requires time.

Are you going to use your low downforce kit at Spa?

Indeed, this will be important, since we should currently be (Wednesday April 8, Editor's note) testing our low downforce car for the first time, at Paul-Ricard. We then had to keep this kit until Le Mans, both for the 6 Hours of Spa and for our traditional shakedown on this same circuit.

Will this kit be, aesthetically, very different?

It's going to be different, but it's not a new concept, the car was just an evolution of the one used during the 2018-2019 campaign.

Were you for or against the return of WEC seasons to a single calendar year?

We welcome the return to a classic calendar because we had all discovered certain negative aspects of the season over two calendar years. Already, the offseason was becoming very short. We then found ourselves with small, stupid things like prize ceremonies 4 or 5 months after the first race of the following season. Finally, the most important thing concerns the budget, because Le Mans is undoubtedly the race requiring the most spare parts.

This is where we want to have the six bodies we need, the three sets of suspensions or even for Michelin to bring all the tires available in the range, including “Rain” tires in large quantities. The fact remains that when Le Mans is the final and there are technical developments between two campaigns, we throw away a whole stock of parts. When Le Mans is in the first third of the year, we use all of this for the remaining races. Question of budgetary optimization, having races after Le Mans with the same regulations but much more interesting.

This also gives you more room to finalize your LMH…

Delaying the start of the 2021 season to March is very reasonable. The schedule in place for the arrival of the Le Mans Hypercar category was not realistic. We were all trying to believe that it was going to work, but there were significant risks that we would not be able to homologate the cars and be ready for the beginning of September. Many of our suppliers have obviously stopped, so we no longer knew we would be ready in July (for the first tests. Editor's note). There we will have a little more time, which will also allow us to reduce costs. We are on a new, completely realistic schedule.