HARRISBURG, N.C. — The American Le Mans Series has announced the expected compromise many had predicted in regards to its 2008 technical regulations governing the ALMS’s LMP2 sports-racing category.
Under the compromise, the ALMS will add 25 kilograms of weight to the division entries, which include both the homegrown Acuras and the reigning class champion Porsche RS Spyders, rather than the 50 kilograms demanded by officials of the Automobile Club du L’ouest, which leases its rules, and which also governs the 24 Hours of Le Mans, to the ALMS.
ALMS officials turned a deaf ear to demands by Le Mans authorities to reduce the fuel capacity of the LMP2, leaving the amount of fuel allowed the same as it was in 2007.
As of press time, there has been no public response by the ACO to the decision by the ALMS. Still, it appears that Audi, which said it might not return to North America if the ACO regulations weren’t followed, and Porsche, which said it might do the same if they were, both will now agree to come back, along with Acura under the compromise.
The issue of reducing the performance of the LMP2 prototypes, so that they could not compete against their headlining brethren, such as the Audi R10 turbo diesels, had been brewing since last summer when the ACO made it clear that the LMP2 division was a haven for privateers, and therefore should not been in a position to embarrass the manufacturer-supported LMP1 category, which the ACO has intended as a class linked to the new technologies that the automotive industry will be introducing in the coming decades.
While the ALMS embraced a “green” approach to alternative fuels in 2007, representatives have made it clear that the demands of running a championship across the breadth of the North American continent are different than those of the ACO, the primary focus of which is on its single race, and secondarily on its European Le Mans Series, whose specifications are similarly different from those of the ALMS.
Insiders, in support of the ALMS position, noted while Le Mans and the ALMS enjoy a head-to-head battle between Audis and its turbocharged Peugeot diesel counterparts, the ALMS has only the Audis.
Now that the ALMS appears to have spoken, it remains to be seen if the ACO chooses to accept the independence of the Americans, or presses its demands for full compliance. Given the annual ALMS’s testing at the end of the month in Sebring, it would seem that a definitive answer won’t be long in coming.