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Originally Posted by cybersdorf
Because it was an utterly soulless marketing exercise...
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I'd go so far as to say all motorsports is, to one extent or another, a marketing exercise, and to that extent it's surprising that Bentley didn't go on and run the cars, at least for the rest of the season - a close fought campaign would have done wonders for building the profile of Bentley as a sports car (pushing the Continental GT) and probably wouldn't have hurt Audi (keeping it in the VW family).
Certainly they talked it up well in the run up to Le Mans 03, with Bentley commenting after the test day "We know how fast Audi did go, we don't know how fast they can go...".
Personally, I could understand them not competing between Sebring and Le Mans and choosing to test instead, but I was staggered when they went off to a museum rather than heading off to round out the ALMS season.