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Originally Posted by Dead-Eye
I agree up to a point (and so does Henri Pescarolo actually - he said after Le Mans that he doesn't expect to run the same laptimes, just to be close enough to pick up the pieces if the factories do run into trouble). We will never see how equivalent the rules actually are until there is a petrol LMP developed with the same kind of budget. But right now the situation is so that even when the diesels have massive problems, they can usually catch back up to the petrol cars again with ease. That can't be right.
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I'm not sure, the massive difference in lap times might be legit. It might not be, as you say it is hard to say until we have a petrol effort of similar quality to the diesels. Having said that, I think the petrol criers caught a very lucky break in that the ARX-01e has only raced once this year. Highcroft definitely had a chance to pick up the pieces at Sebring! Ok, granted Audi had their old car and I don't think Peugeot was pushing at 100% with their new car. On the other hand, the ARX-01e package had practically no testing so I'm not so sure if that car was running to it's full potential either.
We'll have to see if the ARX-03 will hush some of the other team owners at least a little. I doubt it will be a diesel slayer, but it could be faster than the other petrol cars given that the HPD will have factory car ancestry. Of course, if it is not beating the diesels, there will always be complaining. Maybe the volume of the complaining will be less though. Porsche and others joining in 2014 might be the real moment where teams will have to stop playing politics and actually work to get to the front of the pack.