#Do Formula E and IMSA pose legitimate threats to steal manufacturers from WEC?

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gentle kestrel
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Porsche was the only manufacturer who left WEC to focus on IMSA and Formula E, Lamborghini didn't go to Formula E and withdrew from IMSA after last year, and Alpine is going to neither

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Here's my ranking of the 6 manufacturers from last year who haven't announced their WEC withdrawals (yet) in terms of how likely they are to leave

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  1. Peugeot
  2. BMW
  3. Cadillac
  4. Aston Martin
  5. Ferrari
  6. Toyota
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For Genesis I have no idea if they would leave or not, it would depend on how they perform in the next 2-3 years

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For Ford and McLaren it's mostly unknown but I think they will most likely stick around to the end of the era

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Zak Brown wants to keep McLaren's F1, IndyCar, and WEC programs, as he wants to stay in the three triple Crown motorsports

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For Ford, unless their finances tank I don't think they will consider pulling the plug on their Hypercar program

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For Peugeot, if they can't get results this year and their finances get worse, they will probably withdraw

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For BMW, the decision is technically up to WRT, but they are heavily backed by BMW. I heard that BMWs aren't selling that well outside of North America, so BMW could pull the plug on their Hypercar program if their financial situation gets very bad

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For Cadillac, they seem to be very interested in WEC and IMSA, but if developing their F1 engine puts too much of a strain on their finances they will probably leave WEC

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Aston Martin gives the least amount of support to their Hypercar program out of all 8 current manufacturers, so the decision to withdraw or not technically falls on Heart Of Racing Team. If they can't perform in the next 2 years they would probably consider leaving

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For Ferrari and Toyota, those 2 are the least likely to leave out of the current grid because they are the most successful brands in Hypercar. It would make zero sense for Ferrari to pull out while they're riding high both in the sport and financially, and Toyota was the only big manufacturer that stuck around to the end of the LMP1 era, so Toyota will definitely do the same with Hypercar

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If we do end up with 30 cars or less on the WEC grid in the future due to withdrawals, they will probably bring LMP2 back at least for the time being