Is it time for a privateer P1 class?

[The Badger]

Ah , but who siad I was a "honey" badger ?

[MitchZ06]

Possibly your partner?

[The Badger]

She didnt !!!

[kyoung]

Privateers and P1 just don’t go together in my opinion, the very nature of P1, again in my opinion, should be the highest, most expensive, rule/BoP free form of racing going. Because of the cost involved should be a natural for manufacturers; not saying a private effort couldn’t/shouldn’t compete, but there would be no complaining about cost. Maybe privateer racing needs to evolve into something like the America’s Cup, where you have well-heeled racing clubs funding private efforts alongside manufacturers. I’m not for any racing where it has to be dumbed down for the lowest common denominator. P2, LMP, GTE-Am, GTC are irrelevant and should be done away with or moved to a support race series for amateurs/gentleman racers.

[Dyson Mazda]

The better option would just be to allow all pro teams in P2

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by kyoung

Privateers and P1 just don’t go together in my opinion, the very nature of P1, again in my opinion, should be the highest, most expensive, rule/BoP free form of racing going. Because of the cost involved should be a natural for manufacturers; not saying a private effort couldn’t/shouldn’t compete, but there would be no complaining about cost. Maybe privateer racing needs to evolve into something like the America’s Cup, where you have well-heeled racing clubs funding private efforts alongside manufacturers. I’m not for any racing where it has to be dumbed down for the lowest common denominator. P2, LMP, GTE-Am, GTC are irrelevant and should be done away with or moved to a support race series for amateurs/gentleman racers.

So , what happens when the manufacturers decide not to play anymore , then we go back to the privateer ..... and screw the privateer when the manufacturer decides its time to play again , I think not .

[kyoung]

Originally Posted by The Badger

So , what happens when the manufacturers decide not to play anymore , then we go back to the privateer ..... and screw the privateer when the manufacturer decides its time to play again , I think not .

Well if the world ends tomorrow, then there will be no racing, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The “what if” can be resolved by a stable rules package or more to my point less rules that are written in stone. Sanctioning bodies should be concerned with safety and strict adherence to rules and leave car design to the manufacturers or privateer/club that can afford to race and compete at that level. In my opinion manufacturers would be more likely to participate in this scenario. As it is now the sanctioning body picks the winners based on their concept of what is fair; real competition is decided by the best machinery and the best drivers. Making a special class for the financially infirmed is not top level racing; there are other venues/series for this type of racing. To be honest though if that is what you want you should have it, because I could care less about prototypes, it’s just over glorified spec racing dominated by one team/marque, in my opinion it deserves to die a horrible death. Then maybe something real and relevant can replace it.

[Salamus]

Originally Posted by The Badger

So , what happens when the manufacturers decide not to play anymore , then we go back to the privateer ..... and screw the privateer when the manufacturer decides its time to play again , I think not .

Its been like this for quite sometime in sportscars. Hell, the ALMS is going through it right now since Audi left.

[Salamus]

Originally Posted by gregtummer

Why don't they just get rid of LMP2 and divide the prototypes into

LMP1 Unlimited $$
LMP1 Cost Capped

That way, LMP2 cars can move up into LMP1 and run somewhat reasonable lap times compared to the manufacturers on the cheap.

This would also help ALMS.

Hmm if you rename "LMP1 Unlimited $$" to "LMP1" and then rename "LMP1 Cost Capped" to LMP2...then we get what we currently have...

[Jonerz]

I think privateers need to be welcomed into P1. There shouldn't be another sub-division. If people who pay less for their programs, don't have the same level of technological development and such deserve a trophy, hand out an "independent" trophy at the end of the season for the highest placing non-factory team.

The difficulty is the ACO are making a power play for manufacturer teams to race in P1. They've certainly been successful in regulating out the private P1 teams and cottage industry manufacturers but I think they've missed the point. P2 is a great class but Dyson Racing for instance isn't interested in a dumbed-down prototype that they can't hotels or Dyson-ize.

Also, not one manufacturer is building their prototype in significant enough numbers that they can fill out a privateer class the way the 956/962(C) did for FIA and IMSA racing in the eighties. And with the technology and costs involved it would be foolish to assume that is going to change. LMP2 of the '05-'10 generation might have been on to something. Porsche and Audi/HPD found ways to build competitive race cars that they could sell to the public and given the correct conditions (ie before the ACO tried to "fix" the rules so LMP2s couldn't compete with LMP1s) compete with the might of the more trick, more technology laden Audis and Peugeots.

This is one of the many messy problems the ACO has with their current rules set and series structure. You don't want to lose the Dysons and Rebellions of the world, but it is unreasonable for Audi to sell even a half-dozen R18s a year to keep LMP1 grid sizes reasonable.

Obviously it is a different world economically, but if the ACO/IMSA rules of 2007 came back into vogue perhaps there would be more constructors, both cottage-industry and OEM willing to provide cars which are desperately needed and more teams willing to run them because the equality between cars would be much closer. Oh, and no more giving extra displacement and boost to technologies that will only be used by manufacturer teams no matter the "data" they show you.

Find a way to write the 2007 LMP1 and LMP2 rules so that it is one class, P1. Then keep the current generation LMP2 rules which seem to be working to some degree and you have two prototype categories with no overlap, one class for manufacturers and fully professional teams, and one for gentleman driver-funded and driven professional teams.

Chris

[pablocomics]

The other choice is massive ballast and smaller restrictors on the better cars according with the results like the WTCC or the BTCC, but this ois not a sprint race and those cars aren´t street cars....

But I still prefer cost capped lmp1 cars and costcapped Audi R18 (or the new porsche) for all the teams .

The second problem is, there are no competitive engines for the private teams.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by Jonerz

Find a way to write the 2007 LMP1 and LMP2 rules so that it is one class, P1. Then keep the current generation LMP2 rules which seem to be working to some degree and you have two prototype categories with no overlap, one class for manufacturers and fully professional teams, and one for gentleman driver-funded and driven professional teams.

How this would fix things? Since the ~2007 P2 regs were essentially LMP1 regs except for the engine and tyre sizes, nothing would have stopped P2 car to become as expensive as P1. If the rules had not been touched, for sure the Porsches and Acuras would have by now turned into equally (vs P1) expensive evolution models and hybrids.

[Purist]

Deggis, maybe so, but if those programs still existed, that would be a half-dozen more, quality prototypes on the grid, which don't exist at all right now. And the Acuras and Porsches actually made it into private hands. You know, a private team might be able to garner better sponsorship if the sponsors saw that the privateers could actually get good, competitive machinery.

Kyoung, I can't subscribe to your thought process. There simply aren't enough of the efforts of the sort you want out there. Hell, F1 can't even get 24 cars of top quality, much less the 55 needed to fill the Le Mans grid! Even combining GT and LMP, you'd be lucky to get half a Le Mans grid of manufacturer efforts. And when factories leave, which they always do, you have no grid at all!

In theory, letting the factories run free would be nice, but Can-Am died after 8 seasons. The 1990s GT1 class died in 5 seasons (1994 through 1998); they had no series, and were prototypes really, by 1999. Only one factory can stand at the top at any given time, and the others won't wait long for results, before they just up and leave. We've been damn lucky with Audi of late, but you can't count on a factory staying on when they're finally the only one left after they've outspent everyone else into oblivion. Why should they stick around, when there's nobody left to defeat?

Unless we get a more extreme top GT class, the Prototypes MUST stay to keep my interest piqued. There's too many GT-only series anyway, and I just don't find the GT3s, or even the GT2s, outwardly exciting enough at present for me to justify watching more than a couple of GT-only series a year (Blancpain and FIA GT basically).

And while you're professing disdain for LMPs, the GTs are decidedly MORE performance-balanced than the Prototypes, which they have to be, because they're based on actual road cars. As such, compromises have to be made to allow in enough different models to have a decent GT class (both in numbers and in the variety of cars), or else you will end up with Ferrari 458 Italia Challenge Plus. And I don't want a spec, or de facto spec, class at Le Mans.

Kyoung, face it, sportscar racing, even Le Mans, NEEDS privateers in order to have even a halfway-respectable field in terms of number of starters. Even in the 1950s and '60s (the "Golden Age" for the sport), the better part of the fields were private entrants, especially in the long-distance road races (Carrera, Mille, Targa).

In short, the model you want is unsustainable.

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by Salamus

Its been like this for quite sometime in sportscars. Hell, the ALMS is going through it right now since Audi left.

Yeah , the ALMS is now supported by privateers . My issue is , if you bend over backwards to accomodate maunfacturers , then , what happens to the little fella when they big boys dont want to play .

Its always the privateers who keep the series alive when the big boys decide to back off .

[Jonerz]

Originally Posted by Purist

Deggis, maybe so, but if those programs still existed, that would be a half-dozen more, quality prototypes on the grid, which don't exist at all right now. And the Acuras and Porsches actually made it into private hands. You know, a private team might be able to garner better sponsorship if the sponsors saw that the privateers could actually get good, competitive machinery.

Kyoung, I can't subscribe to your thought process. There simply aren't enough of the efforts of the sort you want out there. Hell, F1 can't even get 24 cars of top quality, much less the 55 needed to fill the Le Mans grid! Even combining GT and LMP, you'd be lucky to get half a Le Mans grid of manufacturer efforts. And when factories leave, which they always do, you have no grid at all!

In theory, letting the factories run free would be nice, but Can-Am died after 8 seasons. The 1990s GT1 class died in 5 seasons (1994 through 1998); they had no series, and were prototypes really, by 1999. Only one factory can stand at the top at any given time, and the others won't wait long for results, before they just up and leave. We've been damn lucky with Audi of late, but you can't count on a factory staying on when they're finally the only one left after they've outspent everyone else into oblivion. Why should they stick around, when there's nobody left to defeat?

Unless we get a more extreme top GT class, the Prototypes MUST stay to keep my interest piqued. There's too many GT-only series anyway, and I just don't find the GT3s, or even the GT2s, outwardly exciting enough at present for me to justify watching more than a couple of GT-only series a year (Blancpain and FIA GT basically).

And while you're professing disdain for LMPs, the GTs are decidedly MORE performance-balanced than the Prototypes, which they have to be, because they're based on actual road cars. As such, compromises have to be made to allow in enough different models to have a decent GT class (both in numbers and in the variety of cars), or else you will end up with Ferrari 458 Italia Challenge Plus. And I don't want a spec, or de facto spec, class at Le Mans.

Kyoung, face it, sportscar racing, even Le Mans, NEEDS privateers in order to have even a halfway-respectable field in terms of number of starters. Even in the 1950s and '60s (the "Golden Age" for the sport), the better part of the fields were private entrants, especially in the long-distance road races (Carrera, Mille, Targa).

In short, the model you want is unsustainable.

This. Additionally, I want LMP1 and LMP2 regulations, to be utilized and balanced for the new/current LMP1 class, deggis. If there were a market for those cars, perhaps they would still be around, messing around with the rules and rewriting the rules is the quickest way to lose entries because you make existing infrastructures obsolete (chassis, engines, wheels).

Right now there is virtually no one in LMP1 and something needs to change.

Chris

[Articus]

I would just make a rule saying that you must provide X customer cars for X amount of dollars max. Similar to what Ferrari has been begging for in F1. I don't know if the all the manufacturers would then leave however.

Or maybe. For each team car you make a customer car must be run. So suddenly theyre could be 8 Audis. Or still 4 if Audi decides to only run 2 cars with the intent of having 4.

I dont understand why Audi won't support there own sport with something like this. More high profile customer cars jsut means more viewers. More viewers leads the way to larger marketing potential, more sponsors, and better TV coverage. I just don't see what the issue is.


The ALMS needs a high profile customer car and Audi just left the ALMS to dry. I don't like it at all.

[kyoung]

Originally Posted by Purist

Kyoung, face it, sportscar racing, even Le Mans, NEEDS privateers in order to have even a halfway-respectable field in terms of number of starters. Even in the 1950s and '60s (the "Golden Age" for the sport), the better part of the fields were private entrants, especially in the long-distance road races (Carrera, Mille, Targa).

In short, the model you want is unsustainable.

Without replying to everything you wrote there, I certainly understand where you’re coming from. My original post stated, “not saying a private effort couldn’t/shouldn’t compete, but there would be no complaining about cost”. I feel the same way about driver ratings, they are ridiculous, either you can compete or you can’t. And if you can’t compete at the top level because of a lack of talent/money you shouldn’t complain, you should just consider yourself lucky to compete with the world’s best. If you will notice the very liberal smatterings of “In my opinion” in my posts you should understand that my posts reflect what I would like to see, not what we are going to see. The fundamental point of my argument is that BoP racing is not racing at all. And when I say BoP I mean the general rules finagling as well as the race by race balancing and “special classes/BoP” for privateers. It’s a show put on by organizers, not a competition of manufacturers or privateers for that matter.

As Badger points out the ALMS Prototype grid is filled by privateers right now, maybe filled is the wrong word, but to what end? Whenever I watch an ALMS race start, I can’t believe the amount of time they dedicate to the prototypes because all the relevant racing is going on in GT. Some would say at least there are prototypes, but here I go again, in my opinion, why should anybody care? Maybe it’s just me; but I just can’t seem to get excited about the massive P1 battle between Muscle Milk and Dyson where they are so desperate to jazz it up they have a whole segment on Luhr twisting his ankle. Meanwhile back on the track there is some pretty good racing going on in GT that we are not seeing. I mean really, if it were up to me they would be showing the GT start and if something vaguely interesting happened in P1 I would show a replay later when there was a lapse in GT action. Now take this all with a grain of salt because it’s just my opinion on how I feel things should be; not how they are going to be.

[Articus]

I also feel this way. I don't like missing the GT starts and rarely do we see them. Especially when that is where the action is. To think it might take only 1 privateer Toyota and 1 privateer Audi to boost the ALMS's profile. Yet Audi and Toyota refuse to do anything to help this situation. Audi left ALMS out to dry. Shame on them.

[Salamus]

@Badger: You're right, privateers are the backbone of the ALMS and all of sportscar racing. However, if a manufacturer comes to North America, the ALMS will gladly accept them because of the sponsorship, money, and PR. And unless these privateers buy top-end P1s (which is HIGHLY UNLIKELY these days), then they are going to take a seat behind the manufacturer. It's just how it is. Is it fair for manufacturers who spend millions to build and develop their own cars have to compete with small teams who just buy cars?

@Articus: To say that Audi doesn't support sportscar racing is just plain wrong. They have been in sportscar racing since 1999...that's 14 years! Without Audi, Le Mans would probably be in serious trouble. And Audi is not liable to what happens to the ALMS. It would be great if Audi/Peugeot/Toyota sold a couple cars to privateers but at what cost?

These manufacturers are running their own cars because they know these cars best. When something goes wrong, they have people who can fix the problem very quickly. The factory teams are far ahead of the privateers because they know how to maximize the performance of the R18/908/TS030.

[chewymonster]

Maybe ALMS shouldn't meddle so much with performance balancing and P1 manufacturers would be enticed to be here. No matter how fast your car is it will eventually brought down to the nearest/lowest common denominator.

[Purist]

Last time around, the ALMS did NOT rein in the Audi R10; they simply kept the LMP2s closer to the original rules for that class for longer than the ACO did. So, in fact, it was the ACO that did more meddling, and the ALMS that tried to find a middle ground.

If they hadn't kept the LMP2s closer to what the actual, original rules stated, both Porsche and Acura might have pulled the plug even sooner. So, which manufacturer(s) would you have chosen to displease?

As for the other stuff, sportscar racing CAN'T prosper unless privateers have access to reasonably competitive equipment in the top category. Privateers could buy 8C Alfas, Ferrari 166 MMs, Jaguar D-Types, Porsche RSKs, Ford GT40s, Porsche 917s, Ferrari 512s, Porsche 935s and 936s, Porsche 956/962s, Ferrari 333SPs, and Porsche 911 GT1s. And I might add that, if privateers are simply prevented from getting top machinery simply because the manufacturers won't allow it, you will eventually cease to have any "top level" privateers at all, because no privateer will have that critical knowledge base anymore.

[Duff_44]

Originally Posted by Purist

As for the other stuff, sportscar racing CAN'T prosper unless privateers have access to reasonably competitive equipment in the top category. Privateers could buy 8C Alfas, Ferrari 166 MMs, Jaguar D-Types, Porsche RSKs, Ford GT40s, Porsche 917s, Ferrari 512s, Porsche 935s and 936s, Porsche 956/962s, Ferrari 333SPs, and Porsche 911 GT1s. And I might add that, if privateers are simply prevented from getting top machinery simply because the manufacturers won't allow it, you will eventually cease to have any "top level" privateers at all, because no privateer will have that critical knowledge base anymore.

Really can't say it any better. We don't need a separate privateer P1 class, that's what P2 is for.
Not sure exactly how you get there though. Maybe introduce a minimum "production" in P1? Have a customer car mandate at a set price?

[chewymonster]

Originally Posted by Duff_44

Really can't say it any better. We don't need a separate privateer P1 class, that's what P2 is for.
Not sure exactly how you get there though. Maybe introduce a minimum "production" in P1? Have a customer car mandate at a set price?

So if a top of the line P1 costs 5 million (hypothetically) but it is required to be sold for 1 million (probably fairly realistic number) how is that going to work?

[Articus]

They don't have to be necessarily sold.
They can be leased for lower than total cost.
In addition why wouldn't an Audi or a Porsche subsidzi some of the cost just to get another Audi or Porsche out there running in a different paint scheme than the Corporate bland.

[Articus]

Originally Posted by Salamus

These manufacturers are running their own cars because they know these cars best. When something goes wrong, they have people who can fix the problem very quickly. The factory teams are far ahead of the privateers because they know how to maximize the performance of the R18/908/TS030.

I dont think you need a factory team to develop a factory car.

Acura made cars and the first people that raced them were privateer teams.
Look how successful the Acura P2 program was. That car was the quickest P2 in the world after 1 development year. Had overall wins as well.

The privateers can be guided by Audi technicians etc but atleast give them the chance. Like Acura did.