Quote:
Originally Posted by Speed-King
I'm currently on a rewatch of the 2003 ALMS season, and even there the gap between Audi and the privateers was relatively small and the Audi actually was beaten repeatedly by Panoz (the years before), the Dyson MG-Lolas and (I think in 2005) Zytek. The Audi was a very good and especially in the enduros a dominant car, but nowhere near as unbeatable (by anyone than other factory teams) as during the Diesel and Hybrid eras.
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There's two reasons for that; budget and regulations.
In the early 2000s, the development of the sports prototype had reached the end of its cycle - I mean, how much can you really do with an open sports prototype? The main decision was which of the obscenely noisy and powerful engines you put in the back of it (or the front, in the case of Panoz). On top of that, the only budget the Audi board needed to sanction was slightly bigger one than the opposition, which they mostly spent on reliability and serviceability on the R8 as opposed to outright speed.
2006 was when the development curve really got opened up; and then between 2007 and 2018, there were always at least two major manufacturers forced to use R&D budgets on new technologies to beat each other.
When the dust settles on the current climate, we may well be left with something much simpler like the mid 90s again.