[WEC] LMP Future Regulations (was Le Mans EVO rules - now hypercar rules)

[wolfhound]

It seems like the FIA and the ACO are looking to allow hydrogen electric cars in the future but are trying to figure out how to do it. I suspect they will need a factory team in garage 56 with such a power plant to start with.

http://www.motorsport.com/wec/news/w...riving-843146/

[Gingers4Justice]

Agreed J-Jay, I think 2.) is inevitable if 1.) fails.

But when you say "it would be interesting to see if the ACO's demand for factory dollar overrules their desire to keep themselves alone at the top of the endurance tree", I would add that the ACO have been forced to accept that before. The Big Bust of the 1990s resulted in Le Mans being fought between regulations from IMSA and Stephane Ratel.

The ACO are notoriously obtuse, but can very quickly become cooperative when things get desperate.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

No it certainly doesn't justify a $250m budget. It isn't really about current road relevance, but rather about future tech. We've seen it transfer before, and current generation hybrid systems are now appearing on road cars too. So it does work. But not at this price.

They appeared on the road cars first.

[wolfhound]

There are plenty of P2s around and could be used short term with the engine regs opened a bit but they need to have at least 2 top class P1s. I would suspect that about 4 or 5 factory teams is ideal as any more than that and somebody will be finishing outside the top ten. With 4 or 5 factory squads if you loose one there should be still enough to have decent races.

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

Agreed J-Jay, I think 2.) is inevitable if 1.) fails.

But when you say "it would be interesting to see if the ACO's demand for factory dollar overrules their desire to keep themselves alone at the top of the endurance tree", I would add that the ACO have been forced to accept that before. The Big Bust of the 1990s resulted in Le Mans being fought between regulations from IMSA and Stephane Ratel.

The ACO are notoriously obtuse, but can very quickly become cooperative when things get desperate.

Yeah, I should have put when instead of if. But I do think that the wind in the ACO's sails from the WEC will keep them going for as long as logistically possible (and maybe a bit longer than that even) before they suddenly find their pragmatism.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Matt

They appeared on the road cars first.

I knew someone would try and split hairs and miss the point. As manufactures have credit racing for the tech, it's safe to say the current generation cars have had an impact. And that's the point.

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

I knew someone would try and split hairs and miss the point. As manufactures have credit racing for the tech, it's safe to say the current generation cars have had an impact. And that's the point.

That's not hairsplitting. That's the absolutely crucial question that needs to be answered before there can be a decision on the future of P1. There needs to be enough tech transfer to make funding racing out of the R&D budget worthwhile. If there isn't then the current ruleset is untenable, because that kind of money is not going to come out of the marketing budget (which is where most racing programs have been funded from in recent years).

Of course, manufacturers have claimed that there is significant tech transfer from the track to the street, but we do not know a) how true this is or if it's just PR speak and b) if it wasn't just an internal ploy to sell the racing program in question to the board.

[Giba]

Reading the ACO press release, noticeable how they mention about cost cutting and hydrogen technology. With both those reasons/excuses for other OEMs not joining the series it seems to have Peugeot and BMW in mind or I might be reading too much into it.

[andrewn]

I've not posted here for ages as I'd basically lost interest in the LMS/WEC, but Audi's withdrawal gives me an excuse to vent...

Why, time and again, do governing bodies/promoters believe their own hype? I, as a passer by, could have told ACO 5yrs ago that LMP1 (and for that matter LMP2) was on a hiding to nothing! In LMP1's case the blind focus on manufacturers and related hybrid tech was always only going to end up with a very small pool of willing/able participants. It's a well rehearsed argument but F1 IS the only game in town for "mass" manufacturer involvement on a global stage, therefore why was WEC trying to buck that trend and pandering to the manu's at the expense of the privateers/garagistes? IMO you have to go back as far as the early/mid 2000's to recall the richness of LMP1 with Pesca, Courage, Zytek, Ginetta, Lister, Rebellion, Lola, AMR-Lola and of course Audi and Peugeot. You had open top, closed cockpit, normally aspirated, turbo, V6, V8, V10, diesel and the rules, briefly, were loose enough to (1) make the cars look different and interesting and (2) give the best privateers at least a sniff of overall victory.

To cut a long story short I stopped following in earnest 5 or 6 years ago when I could see how this was all gonna end, i.e. costs skyrocketing, cars that all look the same, over reliance on 1 or 2 manu's. If I could see it coming then why couldn't the ACO?? Rant over.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by wolfhound

It seems like the FIA and the ACO are looking to allow hydrogen electric cars in the future but are trying to figure out how to do it. I suspect they will need a factory team in garage 56 with such a power plant to start with.

http://www.motorsport.com/wec/news/w...riving-843146/

Thanks for posting this! I was going to in another thread but saw it here. And I think that statement ties in to what is posted below by Giba-

Originally Posted by Giba

Reading the ACO press release, noticeable how they mention about cost cutting and hydrogen technology. With both those reasons/excuses for other OEMs not joining the series it seems to have Peugeot and BMW in mind or I might be reading too much into it.

My thoughts as well.

[chernaudi]

Hydrogen is probably how Audi might come back into the WEC. Problem is that's a few years away, Audi Sport probably aren't gonna be willing to spend what they've spent since 2014 on it without some major ROI, and even then, it's not a guarantee.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by MoMedic9019

Most of the quoted 250m budgets is engineering and R&D...

The actual totals are higher...both VAG programs are in the 700 million dollar range when combined

Gonna need a source for that.

[BrentJackson]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

Hydrogen is probably how Audi might come back into the WEC. Problem is that's a few years away, Audi Sport probably aren't gonna be willing to spend what they've spent since 2014 on it without some major ROI, and even then, it's not a guarantee.

The WEC's current rulebook won't last that long. If Toyota bails (and we know all too well that their commitment level isn't exactly high, it never is) the LMP1 category is as dead as the Dodo bird, and without major changes the Toyota vs. Porsche show isn't gonna last. It sure as heck won't last to 2020 or whenever hydrogen-electric LMP1s are in any way, shape or form viable.

They're gonna need the DPi in a season or two, whether they like it or not. And if IMSA has any brains and any desire to get something out of this, they'll toss the doors open to another couple American firms (and Ginetta, because they deserve another chance after the ACO screwed them after they got the P3 idea off the ground) to make DPi-eligible chassis and tell the ACO (and Oreca and Onroak, whose desires to control the chassis market have led to pretty obvious nepotism on the part of the ACO) to take it or leave it. But being that the ACO's arrogance and IMSA's nearsighted stupidity caused the mess that is the 2017 P2 rules in the first place, I'm not betting on IMSA putting their foot down or the ACO trying to be proactive at the expense of their chosen ones.

[MagVanisher]

Cost-cutting and applying hydrogen technology are very conflicting upon reading it. Putting those two concepts to the top class would be a disaster if ACO couldn't enforce it.

[chernaudi]

Well, IMSA lost Audi in the prototype ranks because of nearsighted gains in money from OEMs and little in the way of long term ROI kickbacks, and the ACO lost Audi because of costs, rushing an agenda, and other nearsighted behaviors. Sound familiar? Like 1992?

[carbsmith]

Originally Posted by andrewn

I've not posted here for ages as I'd basically lost interest in the LMS/WEC, but Audi's withdrawal gives me an excuse to vent...

Why, time and again, do governing bodies/promoters believe their own hype? I, as a passer by, could have told ACO 5yrs ago that LMP1 (and for that matter LMP2) was on a hiding to nothing! In LMP1's case the blind focus on manufacturers and related hybrid tech was always only going to end up with a very small pool of willing/able participants. It's a well rehearsed argument but F1 IS the only game in town for "mass" manufacturer involvement on a global stage, therefore why was WEC trying to buck that trend and pandering to the manu's at the expense of the privateers/garagistes? IMO you have to go back as far as the early/mid 2000's to recall the richness of LMP1 with Pesca, Courage, Zytek, Ginetta, Lister, Rebellion, Lola, AMR-Lola and of course Audi and Peugeot. You had open top, closed cockpit, normally aspirated, turbo, V6, V8, V10, diesel and the rules, briefly, were loose enough to (1) make the cars look different and interesting and (2) give the best privateers at least a sniff of overall victory.

To cut a long story short I stopped following in earnest 5 or 6 years ago when I could see how this was all gonna end, i.e. costs skyrocketing, cars that all look the same, over reliance on 1 or 2 manu's. If I could see it coming then why couldn't the ACO?? Rant over.

The sports car World Championship has always been a manufacturer supported series. If you were running a privateer focused championship it wouldn't be the WEC, the travel and marketing is far too expensive.

After all those years of trying to balance the needs of factory diesels and petrol privateers in one category the ACO and FIA made a clear divide between customer car racing with LMP2 in regional series and manufacturer/constructor based racing with LMP1 in WEC to allow themselves more freedom in raising the top international sports car category to something "world championship" level in speed and technology without destroying the smaller scale series by using the same regulations. They knew the costs would skyrocket with that approach, that's why they split things up. The new LMP2 cars should actually be more powerful and quicker than the privateer LMP1 cars when the WEC was created, to give you an idea of where we sit.

Also before you completely crap on the idea of this world championship remember that back in the "good old days" before WEC and LMP1H you were lucky if any manufacturer ran a full schedule in any series. It's not perfect but the international profile and competition level of sports car racing is much higher than what it was a few years ago even without Audi.

[chernaudi]

Originally Posted by BrentJackson

The WEC's current rulebook won't last that long. If Toyota bails (and we know all too well that their commitment level isn't exactly high, it never is) the LMP1 category is as dead as the Dodo bird, and without major changes the Toyota vs. Porsche show isn't gonna last. It sure as heck won't last to 2020 or whenever hydrogen-electric LMP1s are in any way, shape or form viable.

They're gonna need the DPi in a season or two, whether they like it or not. And if IMSA has any brains and any desire to get something out of this, they'll toss the doors open to another couple American firms (and Ginetta, because they deserve another chance after the ACO screwed them after they got the P3 idea off the ground) to make DPi-eligible chassis and tell the ACO (and Oreca and Onroak, whose desires to control the chassis market have led to pretty obvious nepotism on the part of the ACO) to take it or leave it. But being that the ACO's arrogance and IMSA's nearsighted stupidity caused the mess that is the 2017 P2 rules in the first place, I'm not betting on IMSA putting their foot down or the ACO trying to be proactive at the expense of their chosen ones.

And both IMSA and the ACO have their heads so far up their own asses that both classes might be dead by the time Audi would want to come back.

But hopefully that will make rules sensible for all like about 15 years ago.

[wolfhound]

Bruno Famin of Peugeot believes there should be a lower cost alternatitive for manufacturers in LMP1. This might be possible with a lower weight limit. The interview happened before Audi announced their departure.

http://www.motorsport.com/wec/news/p...-lmp1s-842453/

[Giba]

Originally Posted by wolfhound

Bruno Famin of Peugeot believes there should be a lower cost alternatitive for manufacturers in LMP1. This might be possible with a lower weight limit. The interview happened before Audi announced their departure.

http://www.motorsport.com/wec/news/p...-lmp1s-842453/

Ironic, wasn't it Peugeot that so heavily pushed for Hybrids in the first place and Audi say that you should be able to win without a hybrid system but a lower weight?

[Coach Ep]

I can see the creation of P2 Pro and Am classes in not too long. Factories can join Pro, with more freedom to aero and - most importantly - other engines allowed (like a "DPi+"). This will fill the gap between P1-H and current P2 (and also serve as safety net if/when the remaining mnfs. end their P1-H projects). Privateers will go to the P2-Am class.

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by wolfhound

Bruno Famin of Peugeot believes there should be a lower cost alternatitive for manufacturers in LMP1. This might be possible with a lower weight limit. The interview happened before Audi announced their departure.

http://www.motorsport.com/wec/news/p...-lmp1s-842453/

Also interesting is his views on the world championship, Famin clearly believes it's not worth it, basically suggesting it should be a 'Le Mans championship' instead of a global one.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Coach Ep

Also interesting is his views on the world championship, Famin clearly believes it's not worth it, basically suggesting it should be a 'Le Mans championship' instead of a global one.

That's largely because Peugeot is not a world wide brand, but mostly European. you'll find less Peugeots in China, Bahrain and Japan than you will in Europe. So they're just arguing about their own markets there.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by MagVanisher

Cost-cutting and applying hydrogen technology are very conflicting upon reading it. Putting those two concepts to the top class would be a disaster if ACO couldn't enforce it.

I think we are saying the same thing, but at the moment cutting edge fuel (such as hydrogen) and a cost effective series are conflicting requirements.

Richard

[hondafan37]

Originally Posted by wolfhound

Bruno Famin of Peugeot believes there should be a lower cost alternatitive for manufacturers in LMP1. This might be possible with a lower weight limit. The interview happened before Audi announced their departure.

http://www.motorsport.com/wec/news/p...-lmp1s-842453/

I like very much the Bruno Famin's idea, the battles between Porsche, Audi and Acura in ALMS 2007 and 2008 were fantastic. I would like to see a non-hybrid LMP1 with 780 Kg. or lighter.

[CTD]

I wonder if it is possible to balance both the Hybrids with the Lightweights!?
If the hybrid goes, I'm sure that Toyota will do the same.