WEC: Races in Europe may replace Middle Eastern rounds

      The likelihood is increasing that the 2026 World Endurance Championship will conclude in Europe. The organizers of the WEC, the French company Le Mans Endurance Management (LMEM), have to once again adjust the season calendar due to the sharp escalation of the situation in the Middle East.

      It is about the fact that the stages in Qatar and Bahrain will be replaced by races in Barcelona and Monza, and last weekend in São Paulo, the championship teams already received the revised version of the calendar, although it still needs to be approved at the upcoming meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council scheduled for July 23.

      In the spring, LMEM already had to make urgent changes to the season calendar, which ultimately started not in Qatar, but in Imola. Now, after the September "6 Hours of Fuji," it is proposed to return to Europe and hold a race in Barcelona on October 18.

      Then, according to the new plan, the season finale will take place on November 7 in Monza – this date was originally scheduled for the "8 Hours of Bahrain."

      The difficulty is that the WEC stage at the Catalan circuit will coincide with the finale of the European GT World Challenge series, which will take place in Portimão. About two dozen drivers compete in both championships, as do the teams WRT, Garage 59, and AF Corse.

      As a result, the SRO Motorsports Group, the promoters of the leading European GT3 racing series, have to find ways to minimize the consequences of such unpleasant overlaps. One option suggests holding the GT Challenge race on Saturday, October 17, so that its participants can make it to the start of the WEC stage in Barcelona the next day.

      It is said that Stefan Ratel, the promoter of the GT World Challenge, is willing to go for this, for which LMEM is very grateful to him. But the consequences of the WEC calendar adjustment do not end there: if the races in Qatar and Bahrain were supposed to last 8 and 10 hours respectively, then the stages in Monza and Barcelona can last a maximum of 6 hours – taking into account both the seasonal factor and the characteristics of these tracks.

      According to the WEC regulations, the winners of such races receive only the standard 25 points, while more prolonged stages award 38 prize points. Accordingly, some drivers and teams will find it much more difficult to make up for the gap from their competitors if they were hoping to improve their standings towards the end of the season.