The endurance championship will officially return in September for its eighth edition. With Season 7 in the history books, it is already time to think about the new year of racing. which will be the first on Le Mans Ultimate here at e-Racing Series. Get ready to hit the track in September in an Hypercar or in a GT3. We already unveiled the first big news of the upcoming year, let’s break down everything else you need to know. This year will continue to use a sign up phase that will take place in August. In the first phase, as in previous years, we will send out invites to the teams, indicating the classes we think suits them better. By replying to our invite inside the timeframe that will be indicated below, drivers will benefit from a discount on the entry fee. When this first sign up session will be over, public sign ups will open. In this second stage, teams can freely sign up. In case you’ll not receive an invite, In order to apply for a spot teams must send a request to ersracedirection@gmail.com, bringing proof of your palmares in endurance championships across the simracing community. This is the complete schedule for sign ups: In the first days of September, the full entry list will be published. The time separating the end of sign ups and the first preseason race will be used to fill the vacancies in the grid. During this phase we will prepare invitations for the teams we know well and who participated in all the races last season, If you think your team deserves an invitation, send a request to ersracedirection@gmail.com, bringing proof of your palmares in endurance championships across the simracing community. This year, as we move to another platform (Le Mans Ultimate), all cars will be the original ones from the game. Hypercars will be divided into PRO and AM, so will be GT3s. So 4 classes in total, with no LMP2 as middle class. Here is the complete list of cars that we will see on track: GT3: We will tend to accept all entries in a specific class, but some limitations will be applied to newbies to the championship or known lineups which we know they doesn’t suit to a specific class. Season 8 will use the original tracks from Le Mans Ultimate and the competition hours will stay the same as Season 7. While iconic track such as Bahrain, Imola, Sebring, SPA, Le Mans and Interlagos will stay, the eSport Endurance Series, will return to COTA and Fuji after a few years absence. Fuji was raced in Season 1, 7 years ago! Race day will still be Saturday, with the start of the weekend at 13:00 Server Time (Rome time). It will then be one hour later than last year. Here is the full detailed schedule of the championship: *qualy on Friday evening prior to the race We have made a few adjustment on the official championship rulebook, here you will find a small summary: Tyres allocations: Since Le Mans Ultimate manages the tyre sets used per weekend (Qualy + Race) we will implement this to the eSport Endurance Series. So we will have limited tyre sets for the weekend, depending on the race length. Prizes: This topic will remain unchanged from last year. So we will continue to guarantee prizes for every category (so all 4 categories – Hypercar PRO and PRO-AM and GT3 PRO and PRO-AM), but this year there will be only for each class winner with the amount to be communicated at the end of the subscription phase in any case not exceeding €100 per team. Timetable: This year we will delay our timetable by an hour. Our official weekend will start at 13:00 Server Time (Rome Time). All the Race Sessions (except from the 24h of Le Mans which stays at 15:00 ST) will start at 14:00 ST. The practice servers will be open for the whole race week from Monday to Friday from 9:15 PM (21:15) Rome time to midnight (24:00). BOP: BOP will be the official one used by the game. Driving Times and Drivers Categorization: Since Season 4, we introduced the drivers categorization (Gold, Silver and Bronze) and split PRO and PRO-AM championship has been held since then. This year, a new degree of drivers categorization will be introduced, with stricter rules regarding both teams categorization and the introduction of minimum and maximum driving times, depending on race length, car class and driver rating. After the positive test of the last 24hrs of Le Mans we decided to go for a live race direction for the entire Championship. This means that every RD decision will be taken during the Race so… no more waiting for the RD Report! This is a very important update and we think this is an important step to give you a better experience during Season 8! So, now you know a little bit (actually a lot) more about Season 8. We are gonna have a few surprises along the way: The one we can already announce is that we are working at a new, powerful website! We acknowledge that our current platform is not perfect, so we are perfectly aware that this is a core update to bring you! New website will be available before the official start of the season and we hope you will love it! Last, but not least, HERE you will find the new Rulebook! We kindly suggest you to have a deep look at it! Server details will be shared on the championship HUB page when LMU Driver Swap will be available for hosted servers! Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and to join our Discord community, where we tend to post some sneak peeks and anticipations.
Signing up to Season 8
Cars, classes and schedule
Races, tracks and official schedule
Rules Updates
Live Stewarding
Final Thoughts
Be Ready, Season 8 is coming!