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As far as words on budgets, let the forum nutter chime in...
I heard on the Fox broadcast (or maybe read somewhere here) that JCDC/Jota's budget for the WEC and LM was on the order of $3 million USD.
For a comparison, on the 2003 Road Atlanta sprint race broadcast (which is up on You Tube on the ALMS' page there), ADT Champion Racing spent $4.5 million USD on their ALMS season and Le Mans.
There's caveats, though. Champion ran more but predominantly shorter races than Jota/JCDC did. And the big one is that those totals and the difference between them doesn't account for 15 years worth of inflation.
Also, we might also have to take in account that the cars and engine deals aren't the only cost. There's travel, lodging, spare parts and payroll. The most recent numbers I can remember on that front was Muscle Milk Racing saying that their budget (and maybe Rebellion's at the time) was roughly equivalent to a NASCAR Xfinity Series team's.
It's safe to say that Kolles is spending significantly less than that. Thing here is that I think that $1.5 million or so is reasonable for a car (again, inflation vs say LMP900/early LMP1), but I'm unsure of who'd pay $750+K for an engine deal for a thus far unproven engine unless they know something we don't.
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