[Wouter Melissen]

Originally Posted by KFA-R

whoops! i'm sure if they continue to win they will stay powered by the oil burner! hehe

will we ever see a full on assult at LMP1 by Porsche with these current rules? the spyder could very well be the testing ground for the larger car... i say this because they have been quiet for a long time, that is very unusal for them.

It is expected that both Porsche and Acura will launch a LMP1 campaign in the next few years. There are two important decisions expected from the ACO for the future. Firstly the ACO is talking to the teams about the lap times in the race. They want cars not to lap faster than 3:30 and last year the diesels dipped well below that and with Peugeot having sorted the problems, the times could be even quicker. So the ACO is already talking to the teams / manufacturers about measures to slow the cars down for 2009. Whether this will involve both diesel and petrol engines, I do not know.

A bigger issue is the prospected new LMP1 regulations for 2010. The ACO has made clear that they want prototypes that look more like production cars than the current cars. The information has been sketchy (literally) and include nothing more than a sketch of a car that looks like a DP, which was not received very. Nothing is certain right now and that is a stumbling block for manufacturers to develop brand new cars, which might be obsolete from 2010 onwards.

It is believed that Audi, Peugeot, Porsche and Acura will be joined by Aston Martin, Corvette and Toyota at the turn of the decade. It looks set to become a very interesting period for endurance racing, which might get the FIA worried again like Group C did some 20 years ago.