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belt driven says: "I sometimes wonder why they didn’t just slap a smaller restrictor on the P2s."
This is an old discussion ... maybe you missed part of it.
Short version:
DPs were so slow that they couldn't race on the same track with modern racecars, so they had to be speeded up, or the whole series dumbed down so much no one would bother watching.
More detailed version:
Problem with restricting the P2s was that they were faster than the DPs, PCs, and GTEs ... but the DPs were Not faster than the PCs and not a Lot faster than the GTEs. Slowing the P2s would have caused potential pile-ups at every corner when the P2s, DPs, and PCs and the quickest GTLMs all hit the entry in a pack.
So ... slow the PCs? But the PCs were already close enough to the GTEs, so slowing them would make even more problems.
One other thing which was never mentioned much publicly by the management but is certainly true: There were a lot more ALMS than Rolex fans. Slowing the P2s in order to make the DPs look good would have royally annoyed a lot of fans who saw the DPs as dinosaurs, barely able to get out of the way of a proper GT car.
This was the difficult balancing act TUSC had to perform: keeping the DPs (and the teams, and the money they brought) while keeping the P2s (and the fans, sponsors, and money They brought) without p1$$ing off either bunch.
In the end management decided that it would be better to anger the DP teams by forcing them to spend a lot of money ($250,000–$500,00 depending on which rumor) to make the DPs about as fast as a modern prototype, while just slowing the P2s a little via a spec tire designed for a completely different chassis, plus weight and a smaller restrictor.
Problem is, they gave the DPs extra power to compensate for the added downforce of the new aero bits which made them a lot faster than the overweight, over-restricted P2s. Therefore the series cut the added weight and opened up the restrictors to give the P2s—which started out several seconds a lap Faster than the DPs—a chance to keep up with the modified DPs.
That's how we got where we are today.
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