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Photo: Rick Dole/IMSA
General Motors has ruled out selling Cadillac V-Series.R cars to customers in the FIA World Endurance Championship or IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for the time being according to GM sports car racing program manager Laura Wontrop Klauser.
Klauser confirmed the brand’s current stance at Lusail International Circuit, site of this weekend’s WEC season-opening Qatar 1812km, where the manufacturer has a single factory entry in the Hypercar class.
“Customer cars are not happening. That one I can say, yes,” she told reporters in Qatar.
“We need to pay attention to what we have and work with what we have. It doesn’t make sense for us to go down that path at this point.”
Cadillac is the first LMDh manufacturer to officially signal its intentions of not making customer cars available, although Acura had made previous indications that it was also not currently in position with its ARX-06.
When asked why Cadillac made its DPi-V.R available to customers, Klauser replied: “different car, different program.”
Klauser would also not be drawn to the possibility of a second Chip Ganassi Racing-run Hypercar entry in the WEC next year, amid recent developments of Andretti Global’s Cadillac-backed Formula 1 program being rejected by series’ management.
GM motorsports competition engineering director Mark Stielow previously told Sportscar365 that costs was a key factor in the decision not to add a second WEC entry for the 2024 season.
“Thankfully that’s not my area,” Klauser said in reference to Cadillac’s proposed F1 engine program.
“Our plans for this year have been announced in terms of what we’re doing so we’re focused on making the best of what we have. We’ll figure out 2025 when it makes sense but we’re not there yet.”
So far, Porsche is the only manufacturer to have provided LMDh cars to privateer teams, with three customer Porsche 963s lining up for Saturday’s WEC season opener and an additional two competing in the WeatherTech Championship.
However, Head of Porsche Motorsport Thomas Laudenbach admitted, in hindsight, they would have likely waited until the second year of the platform to offer cars, rather than their nearly parallel rollout of factory and customer machinery in 2023.
Hertz Team JOTA became the first customer Porsche 963 effort, which debuted at the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps last May, prior to the rollout of cars fielded by JDC-Miller Motorsports and Proton Competition.
“I think if we would have to decide again, the same situation knowing about the complexity of the car, knowing about the [spec] components which were new to us, I think we would not provide customer cars in the first year,” Laudenbach said.
“That does not mean it was the wrong decision to provide customer cars; don’t get me wrong. It’s just about doing everything at [once].
“We clearly learned this was tough so I think if we would have to do it again, we probably would have done it a year later.”
Laudenbach added: “We’re proud of what we’ve done there because no other brand put this together. No other brand provides real customer cars. We have customer cars on the grid, which I think is great.”
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