2024 ESPLAR Elite Series Season

The **2024 ESPLAR Elite Series Season** will be the 51st season of the top class of the Evanshire Super Pro League of Auto Racing. As with the previous season, the 2024 season will begin at the Saturn 400 in Ishmira, and end with the Evanshire 700 in Camberwell.

As the 2023 ESPLAR season went mention-only due to real life circumstances, Kailu Wieczorek enters the season as the incumbent champion, but he is not defending the championship this season as he has gone off to Formula Sigma for Williams. The current incumbent Teams Champion is Saihara Motorsports. The 2024 season will be contested in 30 races spanning 6 continents, and races such as Naoned, Silverstone and Gdansk will be joining the likes of Yavapai, Talladega, Indianapolis, Camberwell and Calder Park this season.

## Season Preview

The 2023 ESPLAR Elite Series season was the turning point in the development of stock car racing. Ever competing with the likes of IFRC's Formula NX, Formula Sigma, the World Endurance Championship, the European Touring Car Championship, and other series, ESPLAR experienced the biggest jump in viewership the likes of which were never seen before. From 14.5m viewers per race in 2022 to an astonishing 144m viewers per race in 2023, not counting in-person track attendance, the series is expected to enter a new "Golden Age," though it is under pressure from Formula NX, which despite the unexpected exit of two time champion Naoto Kazami, has managed to garner the most views, with drivers such as Ethan Keiderman and Taniko Shimamura eyeing Formula NX's incredible 700kph speeds at tracks such as Casmoringnan in Tyleiden and recently added Dnipro Raceway in Ukraine. Many countries are also constructing tracks that will suit both Formula Sigma and Formula NX, though Formula Sigma remains at legacy tracks such as Spa, Monza, and Silverstone for the time being while Formula NX type circuits are constructed there.

As for ESPLAR, Tier 3 and 4 series returned in full force, returning motorsports to the pre-BNV20 days in North America. A major schedule realignment following the 50th season of ESPLAR racing occurred, with tracks that earned spots in the 2024 calendar including Naoned, returning ESPLAR to France after the previous year's event was canned due to repairs on the Paris Autodrome following a snowstorm.

Thanks largely to the competitive championship, which saw its first rookie title winner since 2018, sponsors have been flocking to ESPLAR in droves. Hoyoverse is now not just sponsoring a car, but also an entire team, though they came short in becoming a title sponsor for ESPLAR Elite Series. Another prominent sponsor jumping into ESPLAR is Yostar, but are not sponsoring a car or driver this season, though they are joining efforts to add a race date in Macau to join the growing number of street circuits that are landing into the ESPLAR calendar, such as Miami and (for Tier 2 atm) Trois-Rivieres.

The 2023 season began at Ishmira and ended at Evanshire, but the surprise of the season was Kailu Wieczorek, who was the most consistent driver of the field despite managing just 4 wins on the schedule out of 31, with 18 top 5 finishes. A 4th place finish at Evanshire sealed the first rookie champion since 2018, and the first Polish champion in ESPLAR history, but he was gone after 2023, with Williams in Formula Sigma his destination. With teams like Saihara and Greater Kanto picking up the pieces from the absolute tear of consistency, his former team Podkarpackie Racing is just picking up the pieces of his departure, which is expected to doom them to just being a midfield team at best. The "Samurai Rivalry" between Saihara Motorsports and Greater Kanto Motorsports is widely expected to become a forefront once again, with Motegi and Okayama already sold out on the first day of ticket sales. Saihara is only just getting stronger in terms of its driving lineup, with Naoto Kazami, having won the 2023 Evanshire 700 in a spectacular upset, expected to contest not just the races at LVIR and Evanshire, but also the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with him successfully lobbying the IFRC to ensure a break between the Polish and Ukrainian rounds of the Formula NX calendar. With his victory at Evanshire, Naoto Kazami only has two races left to obtain the Grand Jewel of Motorsports, the Indianapolis 500 (which he will be contesting in 2024 when he flies back from Poland, and in 2025), and the 24 Hours of Le Mans (which he will contest between 2024 and 2030 if he does not win it in his first attempt). Although Monaco is not on the Formula NX calendar or the Formula Sigma calendar due to repaving, it will be back in 2025.

This season promises to be the most competitive yet, with the two major front runners being, once again, Greater Kanto and Saihara Motorsports, who are destined to rekindle the rivalry from last season. Teams such as Team Maxima, Team Nitra, Hennivan Racing, and to everyone's surprise, Scandinavian Motorsports, Podkarpackie Racing and Danubian Racing are expected to be among the frontrunners as well. Parity is expected to be prominent throughout this season as no team shows clear superiority over the other, and the gap between the Samurai Two and the rest of the field has been shrinking since the offseason, even with loosened technical regulations with respect to engine power and aerodynamics. With many new tracks, how fast teams and drivers will adapt will be ever more important this time than last season.

## Preseason Changes

### Major Rule Changes

* After undergoing a major bodywork change for the 50th season, ESPLAR introduced major technical regulation changes for the 2024 season. Continuing on from the "exciting but safe" vision from 2023, ESPLAR made updates to the interior of the Gen 8 car, improving safety while also improving the durability of the engines that plagued many of the smaller teams in previous seasons. As a result, reliability problems are expected to be all but a nonfactor.
* Aerodynamics underwent an upgrade, and preseason tests show that the 2024 car could reach speeds of up to 240mph in tracks such as Talladega and Daytona. Daytona will be hosting the Tropicana 400 this season in place of Pensacola as part of the track-swap deal.

### Schedule Changes

After several tracks returned to the 2023 season as part of the 50th Season, a major realignment occurred as part of ESPLAR's effort to stabilize the schedule to 30 races per season.

* Darlington will host the ESPLAR All Star Race this season.
* Brands Hatch was removed and replaced with Silverstone.
* There will be only one Australian race this season, as Barbagallo was removed to shorten the 2nd leg of the International Tour to only 6 races.
* The Streets of Manhattan race was moved to the Miami International Autodrome, where WEC and IFRC host the Atlantic Grand Prix this season.
* Grand Detour Raceway in Quincy, Illinois will take a one year break for repaving, with its race date moved to South Boston in Virginia.

### Team Changes

* Unlike in 2023, where many teams came and went, there were very few changes in terms of team and driver changes. The only major change in terms of teams was of Pacific Racing Oceania, which ceased to exist after the 2023 season. The team picked to replace them was ESPLAR Lites team Kligennacht Motorsports, which for the 2024 season was renamed to Starlight Racing.
* Sponsorship changes from 2023:
	+ Hoyoverse will be sponsoring 2 teams - Greater Kanto Motorsports and Team Maxima. Team Maxima will have both of their main sponsors on different cars this season, while Greater Kanto will have Hoyoverse alongside Sunrise.
	+ SEGA will be sponsoring 5 teams, but Team Nitra will be their main team as in 2023.
* In terms of drivers, the following changes occurred:
	+ Eltina Kalthran and Julius Kostra moved to Formula Sigma, joining Kailu Wieczorek there. Replacing them are Tier 2 rookies Edgar Krassvek of Holland, and Kalusz Mierczek of Bialystock, Poland.
	+ Edel Kjaersgaard moved to Formula Beta to obtain the super license for Formula NX. Lushian Hofland, Scandinavian Motorsports' test driver, was promoted to the #33 car, which was renumbered to his #35.

### Media Coverage Changes

FOX, NBC, ABC and CBS return to split the ESPLAR calendar. NBC will cover the first 6 races, the final three races, and jointly the Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix with FOX, with them Races 21-27 and the All-Star Race. CBS will cover races 7-15 except for Race 9, and ABC will cover races 16-20. ESPLAR will then rank their coverage average ratings (except for the All Star Race) and determine which two will split the 2025-30 media rights period. NBC is considered the odds-on favorite, but are hot on their tail by both FOX and CBS. The decision on who will split the TV contracts will be made on November 2nd, 2024.

In other countries:

* Canada: ESPLAR extended its contract with TSN until 2026. ESPLAR planned to launch its own channel dedicated to ESPLAR-oriented programming in 2025 but infrastructure issues in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut is expected to delay this switch.
* Mexico: ESPLAR en Espanol was launched in companion with its US counterpart, with studios at Juarez.
* LATAM: Instead of negotiating with the various TV companies across LATAM, ESPLAR maintained its cheap streaming service instead, and was part of the Estrella streaming program there.
* EMEA (general): ESPLAR expanded its English-language streaming service to Africa and began airing its TV channel in Kenya.
* Poland: Polsat was awarded ESPLAR coverage for all races to accompany its streaming service which was launched 3 years ago. Prior to this, ESPLAR coverage was limited to Eurosport and did not cater to Polish speakers.
* Ukraine: Smarahdovyy Sport Channel 8 (Emerald Sports) won the contract to broadcast all ESPLAR races in 2024, taking over from XSPORT. ESPLAR launched its streaming service last year and will also begin offering services in Crimean Tatar language, alongside Ukrainian and English.
* North Caucasus: ESPLAR is hard at work at launching services catering to the speakers of the numerous languages there. This work is done with the help of former ESPLAR drivers Kira Eronthade and Kirmie Sylonie who are spearheading the expansion of ESPLAR coverage throughout Eurasia.
* Philippines: ESPLAR bought out previously-independent CNR (Channel ng Racer) which was rebranded to Circuit Television. Circuit Television broadcasts in Tagalog and English in Luzon, and also broadcasts in Cebuano in Visayas and Mindanao. It plans to add Maguindanao and Chavacano to its lineup in Mindanao, and Bikol and Ilocano in Luzon. Ilonggo, a regional Visayas language, is currently not in its plans but will be added if local viewers across Panay and Negros request its addition.

### Other Changes

* The first 2 practice sessions were reduced to 60 minutes from 90 minutes, owing to the increased speeds of the cars. Likewise, the third practice session was reduced to 45 minutes from 60.
* ESPLAR competition director Caius Ghirleni is expected to step down at the end of this season.

## Schedule

ESPLAR Elite Series will contest the following 30 races in the 2024 season. The calendar was released on September 8, 2023. Like in past years, there is a month long summer break in June, and a break before the Evanshire 700.

## Points System

The points system for the 2024 season retains the 2023 format. Under this system, all 42 drivers earn points. After 2023 had no double points for Evanshire, the 2024 edition will return to the double points race that defined the 2000s and 2010s. This was done after a narrow victory for reinstating double points for that race only. However, as per tradition, all championship contenders entering the Evanshire 700 are locked into the race by default, and only need to set qualifying laps regardless of the position they end up qualifying in.

* 15 bonus points are awarded for:
	+ Pole Position
	+ Leading Most Laps
	+ Hard Charger (most positions made up by end of race from starting position)

## Notes

* The 2024 ESPLAR Elite Series is a semi-clean state "reset" of the ESPLAR Universe following a 3 year hiatus of the series.