Wow, lots of work there. Nice one. I thought that, for 2002, there was an extra couple of corners inserted between the dunlop bridge and the esses, thus extending the lap times slightly. The performance of the Audis (and others) in '02 was, therefore, even more impressive. Might also help to explain the Panoz thing, though they also struggled with their new car in 2001 and had to go back to the old LMP roadster, which they subsequently developed. Hence, improvement was slow.
I agree that 2003 should be good, though I would like to see more competitive works entries. I think that's why 1999 is held in such high regard: Toyota, BMW, Mercedes and Audi all seemed capable of winning and there was a good 'supporting cast', including the Nissan R391. From a personal point of view, I've always liked closed cars, and there were more of those in '99.
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