[Gingers4Justice]

It's never too early to speculate, and this year it seems we're starting a little later than usual! Let's take a look at where we are so far.

Perhaps the most interesting point of speculation at the moment is to start with LMP1 and ask who will be joining Hulkenberg in the third 919. It seems a pretty safe bet that Porsche will be taking one of Makowiecki, Christensen and Tandy, but that's not to say they will take two of those three. Is there another high-profile signing waiting in the wings?

And then there's Nissan, who will also be after a big name. Strangely enough, McLaren's driver announcement could hold the key on both fronts - logic would suggest that if Button loses his F1 seat, that a full-time role at Nissan would be his next more. But links with Porsche refuse to die down.

We should be looking at just under a dozen factory LMP1 cars with two or three privateers joining them, assuming Nissan will bring three cars. The situation continues to look bleak on the privateer front with SARD and OAK confirming they won't be there next year, but with so many factory cars, we're hardly going to lose much sleep over that. For next year, at least.

LMP2 will be very interesting. With the 32-car cap in the WEC, the emerging school of thought suggests that this will result in around 8-10 full-season entrants, and no more. KCMG, Strakka-Dome, SMP, G-Drive and ESM are the dead certs, and depending on how many cars those teams bring, that could be all that's guaranteed for the class in terms of the WEC entrants. That means there could be a lot of high quality LMP2 entrants which won't make the cut. Jota, Signatech-Alpine, Thriet by TDS, Greaves, Sebastien Loeb and Morand - somebody could well miss out here. If there's going to be any controversy, it's going to be here.

Another interesting point to make about LMP2 is that we could see as many as nine different chassis models in this class in the form of the Orecas (03R and 05 Coupe), DOME, HPD, SMP, Ligier, Zytek, Morgan and Pilbeam.

GTE-Pro should be predictable. Manthey haven't confirmed they'll be in the WEC next season, but expect them to confirm two cars for the 2015 season soon. So we should have the 6 cars from AF Corse, Manthey and AMR, with Corvette to join them. At this stage, the only level of intrigue will come from whether Risi will throw their hate into the ring.

GTE-Am should include the usual line-up of Proton, Prospeed, AMR and various AF Corse conglomerates. We could see two new brands in the class though. V8 Racing are being linked with an entry with their Corvette into the WEC and the SRT Vipers could find themselves in the ELMS. I'd expect the ACO to look favourably on those entries for the sake of variety - if they come together and those teams want to go to Le Mans, they should get an entry.

And last but not least, Garage 56. Any potential G56 projects have done well to keep themselves quiet up to now and you suspect there's not likely to be anything realistic here if nothing's been announced yet.

I'm sure I've missed plenty out here, and feel free to correct me with any mistakes I've made.