The Automobile Club de l'Ouest announced last year that it will not be able to accommodate LMP2 cars in standard WEC rounds in 2024, restricting the class to the Le Mans 24 Hours and regional championships such as the European Le Mans Series.
It means there will be just two categories in WEC next year, Hypercar and the new LMGT3, a major departure from the four-class structure that had been prevalent since the rebirth of the series in 2012 until the end of last year.
The ACO had already phased out GTE Pro after the 2022 season, while the GTE Am category is also being dropped next year in favour of a GT3-based class as part of a major overhaul of the championship.
While the addition of BMW, Lamborghini and Alpine to the Hypercar division next year, coupled with the expected variety in the new LMGT3 category, is expected to lead to a further surge in WEC's popularity, some question whether the series' new structure goes against endurance racing's multi-class ethos.
Multiple LMP2 race winner Gabriel Aubry, who tested for Hypercar newcomer Isotta Fraschini earlier this year, has voiced his disappointment about the move to drop the secondary prototype class from the championship.
"The history of endurance racing is multi-class, right? So having just two classes into the race to me doesn't make a lot of sense," Aubry, who competed for Vector LMP2 team this year, told Autosport.
"We've seen from the 60s, maybe six or seven class racing together and it's part of our racing where we have to play with the traffic, driving in a higher class and also in the lower class managing the hypercar coming to you. So I don't want that history and that part of racing to go away from WEC.
"We are not doing sprint races, we are doing 24-hour races with multi-class racing. We are living together on the same track and this is what is so unique to endurance races."
Source: Autosport