Wow, there was a minor explosion of activity on this thread while I was gone today! The more the merrier!
That's really a shame to hear JRM is pulling out of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. That leads me to think that Brabham and Dumbreck will be looking for an open GTE spot, potentially in Aston Martin. JRM is still working on perfecting the Nissan GT-R GT3 car; perhaps we could see a GTE effort from them in the near future.
I guess lots of news is popping up because tomorrow is the date of the big announcement. Again, a great shame to hear that JMB is pulling out as well, but I feared they may not be coming back a long time ago.
Exciting that Patrick Dempsey will be racing a GTE car. Also good to hear the Vipers have lodged their entries.
Dempsey needs to calm down!
In the last few years, he's done the Advanced Engineering / Team Seattle effort, the Dempsey Racing LMP2 effort, the Dempsey Racing GT Grand-Am effort, and now the Dempsey/Del Piero LMP2 team and a completely different GTE idea.
I'm glad to hear Simonsen, Nygaard, and Poulsen are back. It is a shame, however, that Simonsen won't be in a GTE-Pro car. But perhaps Poulsen and, especially, Nygaard, will be faster this year. I'm really interested to see if David Brabham goes to Aston Martin for Le Mans this year.
I fear the death of LMP1 is near. Pretty soon, it will be just factory teams duking it out for the win. And eventually they will see what racing is all about... a grid of cars bigger than 8. They can easily switch to GTE-Pro and run the Audi R8, and Toyota could easily make an LMP2 car or just dominate the LMP1 class if they chose. Porsche may be making a grave mistake in investing in a class which may not be around in three to four years.
Another thing... with the announcement of Beretta joining Malucelli in Risi full-time this year in ALMS, do you think he will be absent from Le Mans? One most hope not! But could Risi lodge an entry in Le Mans as well? Could we see a Risi/ESM partnership? I don't know... just speculation, but that will all end tomorrow!
And on that note, cherish this last
update! 