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This has great potential, if it's carried out properly.
Having a legitimate WSC is something that many thought would never happen again after it's meltdown almost 20 years ago. And it was down to the ideocy of Balestre, Mosley, and Eccostone getting involved. Thankfully, Jean Todt isn't Max Mosley or JM Balestre, and he's successfully stood up to Bernie as FIA president. M. Todt is no ideot, and he saw the orginal WSC implode in '92/'93, and obviously doesn't want to repeat that mistake.
And this may be a shot in the arm for the ALMS, as with at least one (maybe two) rounds if Sebring and/or PLM are included, it could get them to see the light and get Don Panoz, Scott Atherton, and Scott Elkins to throw out their reservations over the GT3 cars in the ALMS and get rid of the GTC and LMPC classes sooner rather than later.
However, this depends on something that sportscar racing has never had much of--stable rules. The ALMS' issues are largely due to instability in the ACO's rules, and, especially, IMSA's reactions to them. IMSA should've seen their issues coming and got their heads out of the sand earlier than they did. If the FIA/ACO can come up with a reasonably stable set of rules that IMSA can adopt that make sense, then this could be a big reprive for the ALMS, LMS, and other similar regional series.
Then there's the fact that Ratel and Peter don't entirely see eye to eye, and haven't for nearly 15 years, after Ratel turned the BPR series into the orginal FIA GT championship.
This has great potential to work, but as the late Dale Ernhardt said about NASCAR and corporate geed, "they can't get too greedy." IMSA did during the big factory years of '06-08, and look at they fight they've had to right the ship, though better managment would've helped big time there, too.
If the ACO and the FIA can manage this, it'll be a great spectical, but if not, it'll end up like the mid '90s, where a potent but ill-conceived rules package sent the series and LM spiraling out of control in as little as 18 months.
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