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Originally Posted by Artur
Was it really confirmed by Toyota?
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2012: "Toyota is spending as much as 40 million euros ($50 million) on entering its TS030 hybrid at Le Mans and six other endurance races this year, according to Leupen"
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...mans-race.html
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Even if they did expend that, why would Audi/Porsche be spending +triple of that? To me it doesn't make any sense, tbh. If Toyota really expends 50 m a year, I wouldn't imagine Audi putting more than 60 m into it. The biggest part of the costs are quite the same for everybody, I would guess. Audi just seems to use more of wind tunnel time, isn't it?
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It might be deceiving in a way that Toyota might be able to do things more efficiently as they're the only one that can do everything in-house at the TMG Cologne base. I'm sure at least Audi needs to out source a lot more.
But look at the Le Mans entry list and see which team has just two cars. No, one additional car probably wouldn't cost 50M but it is the most obvious thing about Toyota's more restricted/limited budget.
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Anyway, the two things(Audi allegelly expending x3/4 more than Toyota, which would mean F1-like budget) doesn't make any sense to me. It's just my humble opinion and I, obviously, can be wrong, but it would quite shocking, to me, if the situation is like that tbh
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There was that one figure from Racer.com and Marshall Pruett that claimed Audi spends 250M usd. That I don't believe, but all other figures mentioned in the media have been more consistent and in the 100-150M range.
I'm also wondering if it is really a healthy sign with the top teams apparently not even being able to lure title sponsors. Clearly the ROI is enough for now and WEC has a lot more potential but it always remain a niche.