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Old 10 Sep 2016, 22:47 (Ref:3671603)   #36
Maelochs
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P1L seems to be a dead class. The only question about the class at any race is when will the Kolles break, and will one or zero Rebellions make it to the finish—or if they both finish, will one or both lose a lot of laps to some mechanical issue?

No one else want to join, and there really isn’t any benefit I can see. It is such a non-issue class that there can’t be any real PR benefit. I think both Rebellion and Kolles are the classic “We want to race and we can write some of it off as advertising, so let’s go;” except neither team has the budget to do enough testing to field reliable cars.

I have nothing against the class, but if a class with three cars from two teams and Zero prospects for expansion isn’t a defunct class ....

FIA could use a DPi-based ruleset: modified P2 chassis with free bodywork and motor, and no factory teams. AXR is sort of a Chevy team, but wouldn’t get the benefit of being called a Chevy team, any more than AER gets any benefit from Rebellion.

Mazda couldn’t enter at all ... but it could provide an engine and tech support for the engine—as I am sure AER does. A way to manage that would be to set a max engine lease price, and specify that the engine provider could only provide engineering support.

The hope wouldn’t be that WSC cars—or teams—cross the pond, but that some teams might want to step up to a class which allowed a little more engineering freedom than P2 (which will be 100% spec) without the overwhelming cost of P1H.

Are such teams out there? I have no idea. But such a class wouldn’t be far from current P1L, and might be a little cheaper (assuming a P2 chassis would be cheaper than the modified P1 chassis the class uses now.) if it flopped ... well P1L has been flopping for a few seasons anyway, so trying something new literally couldn’t hurt. ACO has basically nothing to lose because the class is effectively null already.

Of course, there would be some issue regarding rules for Le Mans--probably the only race where P1L would matter to WSC teams. The benefit might be that a team like AXR or Wayne Taylor or ESM might be able to see some benefit to running nearly identical cars on both sides of the pond, which they wouldn't be able to do in P2 (they'd need different engines and bodywork.)

Might be a crappy idea. I don't care. it is all pointless musing about a dying class which seems to me to be a failure---and I don't care if it stays the same, goes away, or becomes something else.
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