[WEC] Ginetta LMP1

[gert]

I understand what you are saying, but it we think back to Spa:
* the cars were there
* the cars ran (a bit?) in free practice
* the cars did not race

Probably both Manor and Ginetta knew this was going to happen at (or even before) the start of the event at Spa.
Would it have cost that much more for Ginetta/LT to allow the cars to run anyhow?
Cars that were in dare need of testing...

Even if it would have cost them money, wouldn't that still have been smarter than just park them, turn up at Le Mans untested, have the engine fiasco at Silverstone.

Unless the car turns out to be reliable and fast with its new engine (that is: if it runs at all), I can't see anyone be interested in running it.

Now what do you think is the most expensive option?

[littleman]

Why would any team or manufacturer waste time and money developing an LMP1
car.....especially a privateer outfit with no chance of overall victory.

LMP1 will be obsolete within 18 months so why bother.

[EffectiveSprinkles]

Originally Posted by littleman

Why would any team or manufacturer waste time and money developing an LMP1

Why would anyone build a racecar?

[Akrapovic]

To make a small fortune in motorsport, start with a big one.

That said, Ginettas target sales figures for the car was...optimistic, to say the least.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by littleman

Why would any team or manufacturer waste time and money developing an LMP1
car.....especially a privateer outfit with no chance of overall victory.

LMP1 will be obsolete within 18 months so why bother.

Why will they be obsolete? They might grandfather the chassis for a year so you still get 2 Le Mans out of it. Toyota might have creamed the competition this year, but every car they faced was brand new and each ran into problems while Toyota didn't. It could easily change and there's no rule that says you can't pass Toyota.

[Adam43]

It’s unlikely I’ll win so I’m not going to try? Crikey, if this was the case there would only ever be a couple of competitors in any sport, game or portentially even way of life.

Now choosing not to run because you are unlikely to complete a lap or it will do more harm for your future prospects I can see.

Anyway, if they got their act together then they do have more chance to win than at any point in sportscar history, or certainly in the last thirty years.

Oh we’ve been here before. Sorry.

[littleman]

My point was that LMP1, as a category, has been around for well over 15 years.
I think you can trace the basis of the current coupe cars back to around 2007.

Why Ginetta would want to enter the market now, when the ACO have already confirmed LMP1 will be replaced in 2020, is beyond me.

Who, in their right mind, is going to purchase and develop a car which has a maximum shelf life of 18 months.

[Akrapovic]

Ginetta (similar to Oreca and Dallara) chose to enter before the 2020 announcement. They're entering now because there's more demand for LMP1 private cars (just) than there has been before, so someone has to meet that demand.

There's nothing to say LMP1 privateer cars won't be grandfathered in for more years. That's pretty common.

[littleman]

Surely then, if you must enter WEC today you'd buy a well sorted LMP2 Oreca-Gibson whilst you await final details of the new Hypercar category.
LMP1 is now dead and we're just waiting for it to be buried.

How Ginetta expect to sell cars with that back-drop baffles me.

The new Category will be much cheaper than LMP1, far less complicated and will utilize a much simpler type of hybrid system.

That suggests to me that privateers should be able to buy and run these cars and compete with the factory entries.

[S griffin]

It was a good job Ginetta joined, otherwise LMP1 would have been smaller. A lot of the time we were wondering who else would join Toyota

[Akrapovic]

Well, without Ginetta we'd have the exact same number of cars as Spa and Silverstone. As unfortunate as it is to say it, they've only done Le Mans and they weren't a feature.

[ModelT]

Originally Posted by littleman

Surely then, if you must enter WEC today you'd buy a well sorted LMP2 Oreca-Gibson whilst you await final details of the new Hypercar category.
LMP1 is now dead and we're just waiting for it to be buried.

How Ginetta expect to sell cars with that back-drop baffles me.

The new Category will be much cheaper than LMP1, far less complicated and will utilize a much simpler type of hybrid system.

That suggests to me that privateers should be able to buy and run these cars and compete with the factory entries.

Read the ACO Press Release, cheaper for the OEM's and 3 times more expensive for Privateers

Don't you think that spells out quite clearly the ACO'S viewpoint of Privateer entrants and needing them racing?

[TF110]

Originally Posted by ModelT

[/B]

Read the ACO Press Release, cheaper for the OEM's and 3 times more expensive for Privateers

Don't you think that spells out quite clearly the ACO'S viewpoint of Privateer entrants and needing them racing?

Why would it take 3x more money for a privateer to run than now? Are you taking the new estimated budgets and applying that as a minimum effort for every team? There's no rule that says you HAVE to spend 25 or 30 million dollars to enter. It's not an entry fee or a mandated budget. It's an estimate of how much a max budget effort from a manufacturer would spend.

[Akrapovic]

You're not wrong, but if the new max budget is 3 times more than the current max budget, it will raise eyebrows.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

You're not wrong, but if the new max budget is 3 times more than the current max budget, it will raise eyebrows.

Why would it be 3x more if Toyota spend 75, 80 million now, it'd be 3x less And since when do privateers spend anywhere near that amount now with supposedly a more expensive ruleset?

[Akrapovic]

Errr. ModelT mentioned more expensive for privateers, not Toyota. And I was replying to that. Nobody said Toyota would be spending more. It's just an example of privateers kinda being forgotten about. It isn't a heavily researched financial proposal to submit to the accountants.

I'm not saying Toyota are going to spend more. I'm not saying privateers will spend more. I'm saying the example given isn't necessarily the best given the numbers involved given the majority of the grid runs to significantly less than that. That's all...

Why would it cost more to run? No idea. But that's the number provided by the ACO. If that's what they say then that's what they say. I think saying "Well maybe some teams could run on a third of that" isn't very helpful because it's complete guesswork based off of a number that appears to be a bit made up. Otherwise, we could say "IMSA said the budget should be $20m! But I think they could do it on half!".

[TF110]

I think my point stands. Privateers don't spend anywhere near what the factories do already so with a cheaper ruleset, why would they think about suddenly increasing their budget and/or why would their budget increase? I think it's guesswork either way but if the rules say it'll be cheaper at least by half than what Toyota (who was/is the cheapest manufacturer) spend, there should be no reason a team like Rebellion has to put up a big sum.

[Akrapovic]

Privateers are cheaper because they have a different ruleset. When they ran to the same ruleset, the privateers got priced out and disappeared - the option of spending less to race really wasn't available as you were spending a lot of money to be LMP2 level (hence Rebellion moving down for a year). Privateers only exist in LMP1 because they run to different rules. So unless the new ruleset comes with a split for privateers to enable a cheaper option, then we are going back to the same issue.

Either way, I think wires are crossed here over nothing. Toyota budget will go down. Good stuff. However, Toyota supply 2 cars. The other 8 cars on the grid run to a significantly lower budget. So when your example budget is more than what four-fifths of the grid is running, you'll naturally get some raised eyebrows and questions. So either the example budget isn't relevant to the majority of your customers, or it is relevant and a bit worrying.

But, as always, we don't seem to have much information other than "They will look like hypercars, and cost this much. And be much sooner than you expect". Kinda feels like the insane 12x2 hours of Sebring. I'm expecting it to be pushed back and evolve a lot.

[TF110]

I don't understand that logic. They already made new cars or updated existing chassis (Oreca Rebellion, ByKolles). That's an expense they took up just to run 2 maybe 3 years. Now the same teams and chassis manufacturers say they look forward to these new rules and there has been no talk about exploding budgets. The only thing I see about that is on threads like this and comments on motorsport websites. In fact I see the opposite. Glickenhaus has talked about entering. Aston Martin is talking about entering the successor of the Valkyrie. Ligier said they were looking forward to it. So did Oreca and ByKolles. If the new rules were such a big expense or hurdle I don't think we'd hear about most of this interest coming from the 'small' guys.

We'll see. I'm optimistic.

[gert]

Originally Posted by TF110

I don't understand that logic. They already made new cars or updated existing chassis (Oreca Rebellion, ByKolles). That's an expense they took up just to run 2 maybe 3 years. Now the same teams and chassis manufacturers say they look forward to these new rules and there has been no talk about exploding budgets. The only thing I see about that is on threads like this and comments on motorsport websites. In fact I see the opposite. Glickenhaus has talked about entering. Aston Martin is talking about entering the successor of the Valkyrie. Ligier said they were looking forward to it. So did Oreca and ByKolles. If the new rules were such a big expense or hurdle I don't think we'd hear about most of this interest coming from the 'small' guys.

We'll see. I'm optimistic.

At some point last year, Ginetta was optimistic and reckoned they could sell 6 to 10 cars.

[EffectiveSprinkles]

SMP and Rebellion were optimistic too and they're on the grid.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by gert

At some point last year, Ginetta was optimistic and reckoned they could sell 6 to 10 cars.

Even without Ginetta we still have 8 lmp1s. I recall a lot of people saying Toyota would leave, and lmp1 would cease to exist and we'd have lmp2 as a top class

[chernaudi]

The factor of three for privateers comment didn't come from the ACO, but Racecar Engineering:


http://www.racecar-engineering.com/a...1-regulations/

[carbsmith]

The privateers haven't really run to the same rules as the factories since 2003, and they were pretty plentiful at the time. It's the progressive and systematic division of factory teams, constructor teams, and customer teams into distinct and partially separate categories that has created the problem at the top.

When there's only 5 seconds/lap between non-hybrid LMP1 and LMP2 at Le Mans you really have to wonder why there needs to be two classes besides some belief that class podiums will sell sponsorship and ride buys.

[Irie]

So it appears the effort is funded entirely by Ginetta now? Only the #6 on the entry list for Fuji