If Saturday’s Sebring 12-Hour race showed us anything, it was the problem in trying to use the same rules for very different venues. As most everyone knows, the L’Automobile Club du L’ Ouest, the ACO, has decided that it wants no part in any potential upsets by an LMP2 category prototype over its supposedly better performing LMP1 brethren. And, for the ACO, that makes sense.
In its world, Le Mans is, and has been, a manufacturer’s showcase for many years, almost from its beginnings in the early 1920s in fact. These days the “new-generation” diesels are all the rage in the European community. These technologically advanced cars perform exactly like the gasoline-powered counterparts, leaving the smells and odd sounds, not to mention the lack of “get-up-and-go” of the predecessors, mere distant memories. Diesels are economic “wonder performers” for the auto makers on the other side of the Atlantic, as one expects them to be over here in the not-too-distant future. Thus, there are hundreds of millions of dollars being spent to turn them into winning race cars by Volkswagen (the parent company of Audi) and Peugeot, with the prospect of others, such as BMW and Mercedes Benz joining the fray.
So, with those prospects in mind, why would the ACO want to have its party upset by a privateer team? The answer is simple: it doesn’t. Indeed, it is going to have a hard enough time trying to keep all the car manufacturers happy because ultimately, the majority of them will become losers in a sport where there’s only one overall winner. And that, as they say, is the issue which has always faced the racing scene.
What do you do about car-maker participation? Like some other things, it comes down to a question of whether or not one can live without them. Unfortunately, the answer is far less clear, especially here in North America, where only once did road racing enjoy a “golden prototype” age, that coming in 1992 when IMSA’s Camel GT tour enjoyed factory backing from Porsche, Jaguar, Acura, Chevrolet, Toyota and Nissan.
When Toyota cleaned house, the others left, and suddenly not only was IMSA, but professional road racing was in jeopardy, a situation which lasted until the final years of the decade. Today, the ALMS has enjoyed a boost in the interest of the car makers in its LMP2 “second banana” division, while only Audi is in a true position to contest LMP1. At Sebring last Saturday, the LMP1 entries failed miserably, all either encountering problems or simply not having enough speed to keep their LMP2 counterparts at bay.
Only a single Audi remained anywhere near the front at the finish, leaving open the question of how attractive the ALMS would be without the competitiveness of its LMP2 cars? The answer is it would be pretty dull. Although the Penske
Porsches beat the Audi eight to four in overall triumphs last year, many of those Penske victories were due to the strategy of Roger Penske rather than any advantage his RS Spyders might have had over their Audi R10 opposition. In fact, in the final two 2007 events where the Audis finished ahead of the Porsches, the combined margin of victory for both affairs was well under two seconds.
So if that is a perfect balance, why change? Again the answer is simple: The ACO is demanding it. Already, the ALMS has added 25 of the 50-kilogram weight penalty the ACO has imposed on the LMP2 set, and appears ready, later this year, to add the rest. Yet, with four of the top-five Sebring finishers coming from the LMP2 division, that makes no sense  since the strength of the LMP1 class is not expected to increase.
Racing here in North America is about entertainment, not technology. Right now the ALMS has the entertainment side of things well under control. Diluting what it’s achieved to satisfy the ACO, whose focus is in a different place, makes no sense.
Perhaps it is time for the ALMS to rethink its relationship with the ACO, and maybe even decide to go its own way.