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Zak Brown: Innovation key to WEC’s manufacturer success

Formula 1 sponsorship guru Zak Brown believes that the innovation allowed by the FIA World Endurance Championship is the key to it becoming a “manufacturer playground”.

#2 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid: Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, Marc Lieb leads the field to recon lap

#2 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid: Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, Marc Lieb leads the field to recon lap

Eric Gilbert

Speaking exclusively to Motorsport.com at Le Mans – where Brown’s own LMP3 team United Autosports just missed out on victory in the new ‘Road to Le Mans’ event – he spoke of how the WEC is gaining momentum with the diversity of technology its ruleset encourages.

“Sportscar racing is on the up globally – particularly Le Mans and WEC,” said Brown. “Lots of manufacturer involvement, Ford is now in with the new GT. LMP1 has its three factory teams, and it’s good to see Toyota pick up the pace this year, and it would be good to see a couple more manufacturers in LMP1, but overall it’s a very strong grid.”

Watch Zak Brown’s interview with James Allen…

“Manufacturers are the backbone of motorsports, and they put a lot of spend into the sport – the product is great and there’s lot of fans here,” added Brown. “I think it’s doing really well.

“In order to expand, I don’t think they need to do that geographically, I just think they need to increase their fanbase – WEC’s app and social efforts are very good. They’ve got momentum, they kinda need to keep doing what they’re doing. Momentum builds more momentum.

“I think the manufacturers are spending, if not quite Formula 1 money, that kind of level. What I like about it here is that they develop different technologies. So while the rules embrace certain types of technology, you’re not pigeonholed into a specific type – they can execute it in different ways.

“You see a really high level of innovation here. It’s good, it’s always been a big manufacturer playground. You do look at someone like Audi, in respect of Mercedes and Porsche, and ask ‘where should they play?’ but they get fantastic return here.”

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