Finally read through this. Interesting thread to read.
I think there's a few interesting things to take out of this. I like Rennen's 'AM light' idea. How long do you keep the light for as an AM driver? Permanently? Or after a few seasons of competition?
It's a good idea and it backs up what Martin Brundle said about being able to gauge the quality of a car. That said, I don't think a light would have prevented Ant making the move, one I feel was a fairly standard pass. You can't prepare for a driver cutting across on you, nor can you drive in fear of it.
NO ONE wants to see accidents like this occur. But the challenge of negotiating amateur drivers in slower cars, and therefore the unpredictable prospect of errors/accidents/damage, is what makes sportscars so unformulaic and if I'm honest exciting. Anything can happen, nothing is certain.
You could put in measures to say you must run five WEC races before you go to LM or similar. You must hit a certain lap-time. But the fact is Perazzini would have made the grade and it wouldn't have changed anything.
Amateur drivers are such a key aspect of sportscars, Le Mans and its history. I actually think that the general strength of the LM field is getting stronger as of late. It changes nothing in terms of the risks. That said this is Le Mans and it is again part of a world championship. I think due to that the ACO should be able to be more critical of entries like we saw from Gulf Middle East if they aren't impressing. But that doesn't apply to this particular scenario.
What I hope for most is that there isn't an over-reaction. We could easily go 10 years now without a similar incident as before, because I really don't see what is so different in 2012.
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