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Old 17 Jul 2017, 15:00 (Ref:3752163)   #7985
chernaudi
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chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!
Fact is whatever happens on the 28th will happen, and there's really nothing we can do about it. We and the WEC, especially LMP1, is kinda at the mercy of what Porsche will do.

If they stay, things will be fine for one more year. If not, I can't accept that as a good sign. I may not be Porsche's biggest fan, but they do make a sizable investment into the sport.

We have to remember that the biggest impact that the ACO faced when Audi Sport left wasn't a lack of cars on the grid. The biggest subtraction that came when Audi left was advertising, promotion, fan and brand activation. All of that was gone when Audi Sport left, and we saw the impact of that at Le Mans.

It harmed the WEC and LM from those stand points, but it didn't kill the LMP1 class. If Porsche or even Toyota leave, that can be a big problem.

I question if the WEC would lose it's world championship status. The WEC is more than LMP1. In the GT classes alone, we have as of now at least four manufacturers in the series (Porsche, Ferrari, Ford, Aston Martin). If that WC status covers the whole series, you have twice the number that the FIA recommends for them to give the WC endorsement right there, and I don't think that the Porsche GTE program is going anywhere.

We could see LMP1 go from having a dedicated manufacturers' championship to maybe having a combined teams' championship, just like what sort of happened this year when Rebellion left to go to LMP2.

These are the possible implications of Porsche leaving LMP1 at the end of the season, or maybe even next year when the program is originally slated to end. Either way, this is a big deal as far as maintaining the status quo.

One benefit could be, granted it would probably also take Toyota leaving, would be to open up LMP1 as far as the number of competitive entries in a way we haven't seen in recent times with a surge of privateer teams entering.

But since LMP1 is supposed to be a factory haven, is that exactly a sign of health based on that statement?
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