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To me it seems that you can't comprehend what I'm getting at. Whatever the return on investment is what they're after. Audi has always seemed to be motivated to be the first to do something--going all the way back to the quattro AWD system in the WRC--especially if it has practical applications in the real world outside of motorsports.
I don't see the same thing with Porsche to that degree over the years, but they said that road relevance and winning have been their main motivations this go around.
But now the problem for so many programs is money and deciding if it's money well spent for whatever returns they're getting. I don't care if the Dow Jones Industrial in the US is pulling over 20,000 points everyday, the world economy is largely stagnant.
Is being at Le Mans and the WEC helping the likes of Audi, Porsche and Toyota sell cars? Probably not. Are they getting a lot of advertising revenue out of their programs, past or present? Probably not. Are the LMP1 factory teams spending more money, even when adjusted for inflation, than ever before in any top class formula at Le Mans? Probably so.
Are they partly responsible for creating this mess? Yes. After all, the ACO let them have a hand in writing the rules. Yet, the ACO should've known that they were potentially opening a Pandora's box. And I don't think that the factory teams had in mind having to spend $150-$200 million a year every year vs spending that to start up a program for the new regs.
And as what seems to happen at least once a decade, the teams spend the sport broke, the ACO feast off of it while they can, and things go down the crapper once the factory teams depart, and the cycle starts over again.
When a team, any team, decides it's not worth their while to stay in a series, be it costs, level of success, or nothing left to conceivably achieve, they'll usually leave and go somewhere else. If their ROI is based on winning or dollars vs success/promotion/whatever they're looking for in returns, we get situations like this.
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