[KFA-R]

Originally Posted by Wouter Melissen

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.

yes, i can see a repeat of the group C situation myself.

personally it would be nice to see the prototype cars look more like a road going vehicle, its been done before, the Merc (i wont mention the fact it flipped several times ) looked very much like the road going car and was able to keep up with the likes of the BMW and the Toyota that it was racing against, not to mention it was clearly beeting the audi R8R. however as soon as the R8 was born, it has (as we can all clearly see) changed it forever. i would like to see a change back to more road going cars for the LMP1 class but the catch would be (as you have already mentioned) development would basically stop! i am seeing this in F1 and i dont want it to happen in LM racing. however, another catch is, they sisnt stop the development in Group C, that leads me back to the first point. its all a big circle!

Toyota? you saying that gives me the impression you think their F1 days are limited. i dont think we can rule them out of F1 just yet, give them this year, if they fail again then we can start talking about them pulling out more seriously.

for the deisel engines in this class, the organisers wanted to see a competitive car, they got it in the first year and now have 2... might this rule change you speek of mean the end of the deisel advantage?