[MorganFan]

I was thinking, having now been to 4 consecutive Le Mans, that, despite them all being great in their own way (even with the rain in 2001!!), that it was generally always totally obvious/predictable who was going to win, i.e Bentley in 2003, Audi every other year, with this year posing a slightly tougher choice as to which Audi team would win.

So, as I am a relative novice to this LM stuff, my question is, has it always been like this in recent years? Will it continue to be like this? Will any major manufacturer seriously commit to an LMP programmme now unless they have a damm good chance of winning. Seems to me that several of the manufacturers now look at GTS as a better chance of glory whilst the likes of Audi are still around;I mean, who would seriously countenance the kind of multi-year investment that is needed to build an LMP that could win outright at LM?

Bentley could surely only do it because they were effectively the same company as Audi and there was internal agreement over who got all the funding that year, Cadillac made a complete mess of it, Chrysler stood a chance but got cold feet, and MG realised that they had a seriously good car that could frighten the Audi's but had a stick of dynamite where the engine should have been.

I have heard rumours that Porsche held off their LMP programme due to mutual 'agreement' with Audi due to the VAG/Porsche tie-up over the Cayenne/Touraeg, so....when/will we see two major, competing manufacturers develop LMP programmes at the same time?

Interested to hear everyone else's thoughts,comments,etc.