2011 24 Hours of Le Mans, LMS and ALMS news.

[FastDriver]

i need to get that spa track for rFactor, i used to race it all the time on another game i had an it was awesome

[RacingManiac]

Mulsanne's Corner News, May/June 2011

The ACO has taken the step for do balancing before Le Mans. Most gas cars are now lighter with bigger restrictor(lol @ AMR with no help from ACO for their slow turd of a car). Diesels have gotten a restrictor size reduction and Peugeot have gotten more weight...Audi is probably laughing right now....

Apparently they are not supposed to do something like this so close to the actual race as per their rule(something about notice period), but ACO is ACO and they can do whatever they want....

[henk4]

Mulsanne's Corner News, May/June 2011

The ACO has taken the step for do balancing before Le Mans. Most gas cars are now lighter with bigger restrictor(lol @ AMR with no help from ACO for their slow turd of a car). Diesels have gotten a restrictor size reduction and Peugeot have gotten more weight...Audi is probably laughing right now....

Apparently they are not supposed to do something like this so close to the actual race as per their rule(something about notice period), but ACO is ACO and they can do whatever they want....

The 15 kg relates to the Oreca 908 and not the factory cars.

[faksta]

autosport.com - Le Mans News: Highcroft withdraws from Le Mans

So its official....

That's a shame given their blasting performance at Sebring.

[RacingManiac]

Yeah that really sucks since it'll be interesting to see how they perform relative to the Toyota, Pescarolo and Aston, I was expecting them to be the fastest petrol car.

As I've mentioned I think this decision was made a while ago as Highcroft never came up with any money(even at Sebring) and Wirth was not going to foot the bill themselves to let Highcroft run the car. Really a shame to let that car sit out conceivably for the rest of the year....

[faksta]

Yep, so it joins Dome S102 and Epsilon Euskadi which would be great to see on track again, but we hardly ever will.

[Chernaudi]

Panoz MotorSports Group has sold control of Mosport International Raceway and Mosport Park to a group lead by Ron Fellows.

It seems that they want to follow through with some of the changes that PMSG wanted to, such as building a hotel near by and a resort type desination, similar to what PMSG did to Road Atlanta. Hopefully, they'll also fix that guardrail, too.

[henk4]

2012 will see the introduction of the FIA World Endurance Championship. The basis will be the ILMC calendar, with everything scheduled around the Le Mans 24 hours. Jean Todt will wave the starting flag next weekend.

Questions:
What will happen to the FIA GT World Championship? Will it remain operational for all classes except GTE?
What will happen to the current ALM and LMS schedule? Will their programme be totally separated from the World Championship or just continue as it is today?

[Chernaudi]

New FIA/ACO sanctioned world championship proposed:

AUTO RACING - LE MANS: FIA, ACO Set To Launch World Endurance Championship

My thoughts:

This has great potential, if it's carried out properly.

Having a legitimate WSC is something that many thought would never happen again after it's meltdown almost 20 years ago. And it was down to the ideocy of Balestre, Mosley, and Eccostone getting involved. Thankfully, Jean Todt isn't Max Mosley or JM Balestre, and he's successfully stood up to Bernie as FIA president. M. Todt is no ideot, and he saw the orginal WSC implode in '92/'93, and obviously doesn't want to repeat that mistake.

And this may be a shot in the arm for the ALMS, as with at least one (maybe two) rounds if Sebring and/or PLM are included, it could get them to see the light and get Don Panoz, Scott Atherton, and Scott Elkins to throw out their reservations over the GT3 cars in the ALMS and get rid of the GTC and LMPC classes sooner rather than later.

However, this depends on something that sportscar racing has never had much of--stable rules. The ALMS' issues are largely due to instability in the ACO's rules, and, especially, IMSA's reactions to them. IMSA should've seen their issues coming and got their heads out of the sand earlier than they did. If the FIA/ACO can come up with a reasonably stable set of rules that IMSA can adopt that make sense, then this could be a big reprive for the ALMS, LMS, and other similar regional series.

Then there's the fact that Ratel and Peter don't entirely see eye to eye, and haven't for nearly 15 years, after Ratel turned the BPR series into the orginal FIA GT championship.

This has great potential to work, but as the late Dale Ernhardt said about NASCAR and corporate geed, "they can't get too greedy." IMSA did during the big factory years of '06-08, and look at they fight they've had to right the ship, though better managment would've helped big time there, too.

If the ACO and the FIA can manage this, it'll be a great spectical, but if not, it'll end up like the mid '90s, where a potent but ill-conceived rules package sent the series and LM spiraling out of control in as little as 18 months.

[henk4]

one important thing is mentioned in the press release

"The Automobile Club de l’Ouest hereby agrees to integrate the Le Mans 24 Hours into the calendar, but the event remains the exclusive property of the ACO and is not a participant in this agreement."

This will keep the door open for them to still set the rules for THEIR event, and let's face it, if there was no 24 Hours, there would be no prototype-sportscar racing

[csl177]

I disagree, Henk. While the Lemans 24 hours is THE endurance event and the ACO will protect their singular asset in ways we've all come to expect, there are enough other important endurance races to ensure that prototypes have a place to compete. For manufacturers they're important as "halo" vehicles that sell technology, for promoters outside of France they're "halo" attractions and sell race tickets.

[Klemmel]

How do you guys plan to watch the race without being there in person? This year I actually planned to pay for a streaming service, but on the official site (Club PASSION 24 LiveBar) I can only find "exclusive, live ranking and French commentators".

Would be nice with some video to go with the excellent RadioLeMans (site not working for me atm, but found it here: TuneIn Web Tuner).

Edit: Seems like it should be possible to watch the whole race on various Eurosport channels online for 5€, anyone got some experience with this service?

[Ferrer]

My plan is to watch it on Eurosport.

In the telly.

[Matra et Alpine]

I recorded the Eurosport streaming service for the full 24 hours when I went 2 years ago to watch when I returned So Eurosport is good coverage usually !!!

[RacingManiac]

For US(and maybe Canadian?) Speed will have the full race between TV and online.