With the World Endurance Championship back this weekend for their first post-Le Mans round of the season, Luca began reminiscing about a WEC round that failed to materialise.
This weekend, Interlagos will see the WEC Hypercars and LMGT3 vehicles compete for six hours on a track beloved by the motorsport community. It has not been on the schedule since the 2014 season finale. Since its inception in 2012, WEC has raced at a vast array of high profile tracks.
Just on this season's schedule, there are Losail, Imola, Spa-Francorchamps, Interlagos, Circuit of the Americas, Fuji, Sakhir and of course, Le Mans. In past seasons, they have raced at Algarve, Mexico City, Monza, the Nürburgring, Sebring, Shanghai and Silverstone. Another well-known track very nearly joined that esteemed list for 2021.
February 6 2021 was initially set to be the return of international prototype sportscar racing to the African continent. Image: www.24h-lemans.com
After WEC attempted to transition to be more of a "winter series" (like Formula E) with Le Mans as the finale, their preliminary 2020-21 season schedule had a round at the Kyalami circuit in South Africa listed. But of course, we all know what happened when the pandemic hit, and the series was forced to revert back to a more traditional annual calendar.
What resulted was that Kyalami vanished from the schedule, and it would appear there has been no attempt to revive it. Which is a shame really, because endurance races have quite the history at the track.
From 1965 to 1973, it was the main event of the South African Springbok Trophy Series before for 1974, it became part of the World SportsCar Championship - what we know now as the World Endurance Championship today. In order to align it with all the other rounds bar the Le Mans 24 Hours, they lowered the race length from nine to six hours, or the equivalent of 1,000 kilometres.
Unfortunately after that one running as part of the WSC, it once again became a non-championship race. High level sportscar championship racing returned from 1983-84 and then had another run from 1998-2000, but then from 2001-18? Nothing. It was only when the SRO Motorsports Group showed an interest in reviving the event as part of the Intercontinental GT Challenge that it returned.
After four runnings of the race with GT3s being the top class rather than prototypes, it vanished from the IGTC schedule and is now part of the South African Endurance Series. The race really struggled to find its home in motorsport, and it may never will thanks to a few factors.
First, logistics. In the last years of IGTC's presence at the race, only 13 cars turned up, a couple of which were only for that event. A major factor in that was perhaps the distance, but they have no issues getting to Mount Panorama.
The layout of Kyalami as it has been since 2016. Image: Dr Enslin via Wikimedia Commons, available for distribution under the CC-BY SA 4.0 license
There will be other reasons as to why Kyalami has not been able to fix itself on the international motorsports calendar, but probably more political than anything else. It may very well be a long time before international level racing returns to Kyalami.
As we established in our Recreating The 24 Hours Of Le Mans article, there are three LMDh cars and four current-gen GT3 cars but also, of course, the Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit. GT3 cars are already accounted for on Assetto Corsa Competizione with Kyalami also in the sim, but there are no prototypes, and that is half the battle when it comes to replicating WEC.
The configuration from the 2016 redesign features some incredible corners that feel amazing with high downforce cars.
However, the one thing AMS2 does not have going for it is driver swaps. For a proper endurance race, that is obviously needed, but as developer Reiza Studios are steadily improving AMS2, online driver swaps should be part of the endurance features being added. Until then, perhaps solo endurance racing will have to suffice - handing over the car to an AI driver is possible, after all.
As an avid iRacing user, I would hope one day Kyalami gets added to the service so I can do a race there as part of the Global Endurance Tour in my beloved Cadillac V-Series.R. A high-downforce car like the prototypes would be incredible to drive Kyalami, with corners like Sunset, Mineshaft and the Crocodiles all being high speed, flowing and undulating, suited perfectly for these sorts of cars.
Can you think of some other motorsport races that never ended up happening? Let us know your thoughts on Twitter @OverTake_gg or in the comments below!
This weekend, Interlagos will see the WEC Hypercars and LMGT3 vehicles compete for six hours on a track beloved by the motorsport community. It has not been on the schedule since the 2014 season finale. Since its inception in 2012, WEC has raced at a vast array of high profile tracks.
Just on this season's schedule, there are Losail, Imola, Spa-Francorchamps, Interlagos, Circuit of the Americas, Fuji, Sakhir and of course, Le Mans. In past seasons, they have raced at Algarve, Mexico City, Monza, the Nürburgring, Sebring, Shanghai and Silverstone. Another well-known track very nearly joined that esteemed list for 2021.
February 6 2021 was initially set to be the return of international prototype sportscar racing to the African continent. Image: www.24h-lemans.com
After WEC attempted to transition to be more of a "winter series" (like Formula E) with Le Mans as the finale, their preliminary 2020-21 season schedule had a round at the Kyalami circuit in South Africa listed. But of course, we all know what happened when the pandemic hit, and the series was forced to revert back to a more traditional annual calendar.
What resulted was that Kyalami vanished from the schedule, and it would appear there has been no attempt to revive it. Which is a shame really, because endurance races have quite the history at the track.
Endurance Racing At Kyalami
After three years of racing at the Grand Central airport, the annual South African Nine Hour Endurance Race moved to Kyalami for 1961, using the same layout which would go on to host the F1 South African Grand Prix between 1967 and 1985. For the first four runnings along with the previous three at Grand Central, it was a non-championship event.From 1965 to 1973, it was the main event of the South African Springbok Trophy Series before for 1974, it became part of the World SportsCar Championship - what we know now as the World Endurance Championship today. In order to align it with all the other rounds bar the Le Mans 24 Hours, they lowered the race length from nine to six hours, or the equivalent of 1,000 kilometres.
Unfortunately after that one running as part of the WSC, it once again became a non-championship race. High level sportscar championship racing returned from 1983-84 and then had another run from 1998-2000, but then from 2001-18? Nothing. It was only when the SRO Motorsports Group showed an interest in reviving the event as part of the Intercontinental GT Challenge that it returned.
After four runnings of the race with GT3s being the top class rather than prototypes, it vanished from the IGTC schedule and is now part of the South African Endurance Series. The race really struggled to find its home in motorsport, and it may never will thanks to a few factors.
First, logistics. In the last years of IGTC's presence at the race, only 13 cars turned up, a couple of which were only for that event. A major factor in that was perhaps the distance, but they have no issues getting to Mount Panorama.
The layout of Kyalami as it has been since 2016. Image: Dr Enslin via Wikimedia Commons, available for distribution under the CC-BY SA 4.0 license
There will be other reasons as to why Kyalami has not been able to fix itself on the international motorsports calendar, but probably more political than anything else. It may very well be a long time before international level racing returns to Kyalami.
Virtual Lifeline
Anyway, after that minor bleak detour, we can now focus on how to bring it to life in a sim if it cannot be done in real life. Of course, Assetto Corsa mods will be out there for the track - like this one from @Prototype_ - as well as the cars, but when it comes to officially licenced first-party content, there is only one sim currently offering this experience: Automobilista 2.As we established in our Recreating The 24 Hours Of Le Mans article, there are three LMDh cars and four current-gen GT3 cars but also, of course, the Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit. GT3 cars are already accounted for on Assetto Corsa Competizione with Kyalami also in the sim, but there are no prototypes, and that is half the battle when it comes to replicating WEC.
The configuration from the 2016 redesign features some incredible corners that feel amazing with high downforce cars.
However, the one thing AMS2 does not have going for it is driver swaps. For a proper endurance race, that is obviously needed, but as developer Reiza Studios are steadily improving AMS2, online driver swaps should be part of the endurance features being added. Until then, perhaps solo endurance racing will have to suffice - handing over the car to an AI driver is possible, after all.
As an avid iRacing user, I would hope one day Kyalami gets added to the service so I can do a race there as part of the Global Endurance Tour in my beloved Cadillac V-Series.R. A high-downforce car like the prototypes would be incredible to drive Kyalami, with corners like Sunset, Mineshaft and the Crocodiles all being high speed, flowing and undulating, suited perfectly for these sorts of cars.
Can you think of some other motorsport races that never ended up happening? Let us know your thoughts on Twitter @OverTake_gg or in the comments below!
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