[chernaudi]

Exaggeration on Dagys' part or not, I can see it happening. The ACO are on a tight rope right now. They already PO'd/alienated Audi Sport over the ERS incentive that would've forced them to run a gasoline engine, which Audi Sport and VAG considered redundant unless they could go a different route with their hybrid system (and with Audi spending so much time and money on a battery hybrid system, I didn't see that happening).

Toyota don't want the hybrids dumbed down just to get Peugeot or anyone else in. And chances are, according to Hindy at Midweek Motorsports FB page, Porsche might pull out soon, irrespective of what the ACO do.

The whole ERS incentive rules and pushing for huge hybrid systems out of the gate, while also jacking up costs with the fuel flow formula which combined with the hybrids to fuel a huge tech/R&D war that frustrated Audi, and is also seemingly getting on Porsche's and Toyota's nerves with what direction that the future rules might go.

Also, the ACO need someone to replace Audi or anyone else who might leave. And yes, I'm damn sure aware that the ACO have pulled the nationalistic pride card more than a few times over the years, including the original diesel rules which intended to get Peugeot or Renault back to LM. Of course, they didn't anticipate Audi Sport stealing that march a year before Peugeot's return. But the rules, due to the development costs involved, have discouraged other manufacturers from entering.

I know that a lot of people what to blame Audi Sport and Porsche Motorsport for dumping upteen hundreds of millions of dollars into their programs over the past few years, but what did you expect them to do, treat this like a BOP formula where they could get away with spending as little as possible a la DPI? They wanted to win, as did Toyota. And with the ACO's format, it was basically all in or go home, with very little middle ground.

Of course, that's what I didn't like about the turn that the current formula took. The end of 2014, as everyone now understood the rules and how to exploit them, opened a Pandora's box.

I said this in 2014, at the same time I said it about IMSA's combined LMP2 and DP formula: If they get it right, it'll be great, if they don't, it could be a disaster waiting to happen. And there's not much margin for error.

Now we have history repeating itself, barely three years later, with the ACO in a tight rope/damned if they do, damned if they don't situation.

Sadly, though, just like with World War II being a legacy of problems left unresolved from World War I, and the world is still facing problems left un-fixed from both World Wars, if we don't learn from history, we're doomed to repeat it.

And Sadly, this is symptomatic of how the ACO do things: come up with a new formula to replace a tired one, things ramp up, then the sport goes bankrupt when factory teams decide to leave/scale back/take a break. However, in the past, this usually happens every 10-15 years or so. But this tech war has accelerated things, especially as things already weren't hunky-doory back in 2014 to begin with.

And even though I respect people like Graham Goodwin, Marshall Pruett, Hindy and to a lesser extent John Dagys (he goes a bit overboard with the bombast to get people to view articles that often don't actually live up to the headlines, especially since he left Fox Sports and went independent), sadly, the future of the WEC and the LM24 isn't in their hands. It'd probably be better if it was, but it's not. They can only let us know what's going on as they find out, and they have no control over what the ACO, FIA, and the teams do.