Quote:
Originally Posted by gert
I think for a Manufacturer's point of view there are 2 things that are important: Le Mans and the final championship.
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I say, le Mans Only.
"World Championship"? There are tons of those. I am sure there is a Frisbee World Championship, and even moerre sure of Ultimate frisbee (my computer is too far from Google so I can't check right now.)
Le Mans, though ... even people who could not care less about "world championship" (it is like the "JD Powers Award" American car companies tout---to all but insiders, it could be the "Kermit the Frog Award,") know what Le Mans means---it is the pinnacle of racing achievement. I am pretty sure if people (except in the US) only know one race it it Le Mans (Indy in the US.)
I think that is why FIA-ACO makes its deals and its stupid rules and had been getting away from it---FIA-ACO Knows it has the prime real estate.
Except, VAG started looking at budgets and RoI and decided, the people who care about racing know that Audi is a force in GT3 and Porsche is big in GTE---and the rest of the people buy because they want to impress their neighbors, and the racing stuff no longer really matters. People buying sedans and SUVs don't care about racing .... so a Le Mans win no longer pays off, at least not like it used to.
Basically, the bean-counters studied sales trends and compared them to racing results, saw no correlation, and said, "Sorry, racing is no longer effective promotion." So VAG Might be back ... but only if it can do the job for a lot less.
I guess other manufacturers have done the same math---building some super-exotic "hypercar" which likely won't move the sales needle but will cost a ton to design, build, prep, and race .... what for?