[WEC] Porsche GTP / Hypercar: factory and customer

[chernaudi]

Well I'd bet that Audi Sport made their decision to pull out of the WEC well in advance of when they announced it. Maybe winning LM or being in serious contention for the manufacturers' title last year might have seen the program out until it's original proposed end this season. But that's a question without a solid answer. But it seems that decision when it was made revolved around returns on investment as much as Porsche's decision might (success vs dollars spent in the case of Audi).

I'm saying don't be surprised if the decision for Porsche to leave was in actuality made well in advance of when its announced. If they stay, fine, things will be golden for one more year at least. If they don't, I won't be one bit surprised. Not to mention that Marcus Shruig, the guy who "broke" this story with an opinion article, has been right in recent times for a guy who writes opinion/editorial articles for Motorsport Akutell/Auto Motor und Sport. He predicted Nissan's pull out, and Audi Sport's pull out. And he was pretty much right both times.

And unfortunately, I'm used to more bad news than good coming out of auto racing in recent years. Promised programs that never materialize or fade away almost overnight, rules packages that fail to deliver, teams going broke (or being run by crooks), and more rumors of negative stuff coming true than positive ones.

Would it be nice if Porsche could at least offer up 919s to privateers? Absolutely. But Porsche kinda got burned with the RS Spyder program due to not recouping the cost to the extent they hoped (though Porsche kinda priced themselves out of the market with a LMP2 car that was at the time more expensive than a privateer spec LMP1). And even if you take the hybrid system out of the 919, it would probably be as difficult for a privateer team to run as running an Audi R10 or hybridless Audi R18 (2011 or the 2012 "Ultra"). Personally, I think the era of running customer spec factory backed cars pretty much went bye bye in the top class when the Audi R8 went out of the picture. That car was easy to service and repair, had excellent performance and support, and was basically almost impossible to kill.

But that was a different time and place in history, and modern LMP1s are much more complex, especially at the factory backed car level. Not to mention expensive. The RS Spyder was a LMP2 car that at the time retailed for 1.5 million USD. Expensive for a LMP2 car, but that's probably a ton cheaper than even a 919 with no hybrid system.

Irrespective of if Porsche stay or go, the reasons supporting an exit are well known. And I'm to the point of posing the question: We know the gist of the 2020 regs, and though stuff might change, we know the basics. Why run an old car just to fill in the time when it's probably better to focus on the coming regs, seeing also as the current regs have played themselves out and there's no prospect of a customer car deal?

And even though it was random when they did it (you usually don't cancel a program when you're in the middle of a test session that you flew from France to Florida to do), I don't think we should've been surprised that Peugeot pulled the plug on their LMP1 program. IMO, on surprising thing was the randomness of the timing, but probably not the decision itself.