2017 24 Hours of Daytona

Sports car racing has gone through cycles where multiple manufacturers get involved until one of them dominates, then the other manufacturers leave. When the competition leaves the dominate manufacturer eventually leaves or new rules are established.

I don't think Formula E will work because the pit stops involve replacing the car rather than servicing it; you can't recharge the batteries in a timely manner.
 
Zerkfitting said:
I don't think Formula E will work because the pit stops involve replacing the car rather than servicing it; you can't recharge the batteries in a timely manner.
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I think Formula E is just hype right now. It has a lot of advertising money behind it but the product is crap. Current race fans have maybe seen a race or two and already walked away. Once the money runs out of the advertising, the series will collapse and it won't be cool for the hipsters anymore.
 
FLRacingFan said:
If Audi leaving and going to Formula E wasn't a wakeup call I don't know what would be. They seem to have taken notice, but I wonder if it's too late. They need to get a Peugeot or BMW in the game as soon as possible.
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I think what the FIA needs to do is completely scrap it's LMP1 class and cut a deal with IMSA to share their DPI formula with concessions for more manufacturers to join in. Keep P2/DPI a privateer class and watch the grid numbers explode upwards.

Right now we are looking at 4-5 LMP1 cars next year, which is embarrassing. How prestigious is a championship that no one is interested in contesting? The factories have let us down yet again, so take it away from them and give it to the privateers who never let us down. Keep P2 as the primary class with manufacturers involved strictly as vendors. Privateers have always been the backbone of sportscar racing, so maybe we'de be better off if they were the stars too. The manufacturers drive up the cost of competing and then leave because they have made it too expensive, and then we are left with just the privateers. We have seen this happen so many times I've lost count.

With everyone running affordable (sort of) competitive P2 equipment and having a chance to win overall, watch what happens to grid numbers. Right now we are looking like 16-17 full time P2 entries, but you can bet more teams would come if they were competitive to win overall.

There's not much point in being in LMP1 Privateer........
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Rebellion certainly didn't think so. P2 makes much more sense for a privateer because they actually have a chance to win. I could never figure out what Rebellion ever got out of winning LMP1 privateer class when they were the only entry. Wow! We beat nobody!

LMP2 is going to have literally all of one chassis unless there's a big surprise at the end of the week.....
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If they adopt the DPI concept, even the same chassis will look different depending on the engine. Even if one chassis emerges as the one to have, you can still have as many different body kits as there are manufacturers. Right now the Cadillac Dallara is the car to have in IMSA, but if Ford wants to come up with an engine and bodywork for the Dallara, they could do it.

The beauty for manufacturers being strictly vendors is that they build body kits and engines, sell them to privateers, and they make money instead of burning it. You can bet if P2 emerges as a world formula where manufacturers can make money, we will have more cars than we know what to do with.

But hey, I've been wrong before.
 
I think they should have an unlimited class with no rules that doesn't pay any championship points or prize money so groups or manufacturers can try anything.
 
Zerkfitting said:
I think they should have an unlimited class with no rules that doesn't pay any championship points or prize money so groups or manufacturers can try anything.
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No doubt that would be fun while it lasted. It's just wouldn't last that long. A class like that
would probably be even more expensive than LMP1 and you see how many manufacturers support that class now. Every time we have given the manufacturers a free hand they have driven the sport into the ground. They have to be controlled by restricting them to being just vendors.

The answer to healthy fields isn't more complicated and expensive cars. The answer is less complicated and expensive cars, and I think the LMP2/DPI platform could be a really good start.
 
Doc Austin said:
No doubt that would be fun while it lasted. It's just wouldn't last that long. A class like that
would probably be even more expensive than LMP1 and you see how many manufacturers support that class now. Every time we have given the manufacturers a free hand they have driven the sport into the ground. They have to be controlled by restricting them to being just vendors.

The answer to healthy fields isn't more complicated and expensive cars. The answer is less complicated and expensive cars, and I think the LMP2/DPI platform could be a really good start.
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Your comments are interesting, but I don't see how you get from LMP2 to DPi without manufacturers, and I don't see how you get manufacturers without getting manufacturers who are committed to winning.

What is the difference between a factory team and a factory that engages Team Penske to develop and race its prototype? Or Chip Ganassi? Or Pratt & Miller?
 
Zerkfitting said:
I think they should have an unlimited class with no rules that doesn't pay any championship points or prize money so groups or manufacturers can try anything.
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Can Am, the series that ate its young and soon was extinct.

Sanctioning bodies can change rules as they wish, but thus far none of them have been able to repeal the laws of physics nor the laws of economics.
 
Zerkfitting said:
Sports car racing has gone through cycles where multiple manufacturers get involved until one of them dominates, then the other manufacturers leave. When the competition leaves the dominate manufacturer eventually leaves or new rules are established.

I don't think Formula E will work because the pit stops involve replacing the car rather than servicing it; you can't recharge the batteries in a timely manner.
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I would say the brief Porsche-Toyota-Audi era was pretty competitive but it was just too costly, especially once the VAG diesel scandal broke. Hopefully the regulations freeze changes that a bit.
 
FLRacingFan said:
... I am most disappointed in Mazda; seems like they're always behind on reliability and it's even worse considering they had so long to develop the new car just as Cadillac did. ...
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Yeah, I thought they'd turned the corner last year after they abandoned the diesel project. Two forward, one back.
 
LouieLouie said:
I think Formula E is just hype right now. It has a lot of advertising money behind it but the product is crap. Current race fans have maybe seen a race or two and already walked away. Once the money runs out of the advertising, the series will collapse and it won't be cool for the hipsters anymore.
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Formula E is the Convertible Series of the 2010's.
 
LewTheShoe said:
Your comments are interesting, but I don't see how you get from LMP2 to DPi without manufacturers, and I don't see how you get manufacturers without getting manufacturers who are committed to winning.
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Grand American managed it's manufacturers for years. Nascar keeps them in check too. Indycar doesn't do quite as well, but they don't do too badly considering they keep their two manufacturers reasonably balanced.

What you do is let the manufacturers be involved strictly as vendors who sell engines and body kits to the teams. Whatever they sell, they have to make available to every one of the customers. Even if they do run a quasi secret factory team, or have a favorite team, they can't slip them development pieces or give them an unfair advantage. At least the privateers have access to the same equipment.

What kills privateers is the inability to buy competitive equipment, but you only have to look at Joest beating the Porsche factory at LeMans and Brun beating them for the championship. A good operation can be competitive with competitive equipment. Once the teams have equal access to equipment, then they have a chance, and all they have to do is execute.

What is the difference between a factory team and a factory that engages Team Penske to develop and race its prototype? Or Chip Ganassi? Or Pratt & Miller?
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It's kind of tricky, but remember Ganassi has been a factory team of some sort in Grand American/IMSA since 2004. In that time several privateer operations beat Ganassi for the championship. You had Gainsco and Khron, and Taylor. Penske actually came in for a year as a factory team and had next to no success at all.

Keep the manufacturers from driving up the cost, and make the equipment available to everyone. As we saw this weekend, that works pretty well, and that was the first time out. DPI is only going to get better as the teams figure the cars out.
 
Doc Austin said:
I think what the FIA needs to do is completely scrap it's LMP1 class and cut a deal with IMSA to share their DPI formula with concessions for more manufacturers to join in. Keep P2/DPI a privateer class and watch the grid numbers explode upwards.

Right now we are looking at 4-5 LMP1 cars next year, which is embarrassing. How prestigious is a championship that no one is interested in contesting? The factories have let us down yet again, so take it away from them and give it to the privateers who never let us down. Keep P2 as the primary class with manufacturers involved strictly as vendors. Privateers have always been the backbone of sportscar racing, so maybe we'de be better off if they were the stars too. The manufacturers drive up the cost of competing and then leave because they have made it too expensive, and then we are left with just the privateers. We have seen this happen so many times I've lost count.

With everyone running affordable (sort of) competitive P2 equipment and having a chance to win overall, watch what happens to grid numbers. Right now we are looking like 16-17 full time P2 entries, but you can bet more teams would come if they were competitive to win overall.

Rebellion certainly didn't think so. P2 makes much more sense for a privateer because they actually have a chance to win. I could never figure out what Rebellion ever got out of winning LMP1 privateer class when they were the only entry. Wow! We beat nobody!

If they adopt the DPI concept, even the same chassis will look different depending on the engine. Even if one chassis emerges as the one to have, you can still have as many different body kits as there are manufacturers. Right now the Cadillac Dallara is the car to have in IMSA, but if Ford wants to come up with an engine and bodywork for the Dallara, they could do it.

The beauty for manufacturers being strictly vendors is that they build body kits and engines, sell them to privateers, and they make money instead of burning it. You can bet if P2 emerges as a world formula where manufacturers can make money, we will have more cars than we know what to do with.

But hey, I've been wrong before.
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If (when) Toyota and/or Porsche leave I think a DPi-esque formula would probably be a good platform to headline Le Mans, but I struggle to see the FIA and ACO admitting that America got something right. They already made sure there was no way a DPi would run in LMP2 at Le Mans; I imagine that in that case the top class would become what's currently LMP1 Privateer with cars from Strakka, BR Engineering, Ginetta, etc.
 
FLRacingFan said:
If (when) Toyota and/or Porsche leave I think a DPi-esque formula would probably be a good platform to headline Le Mans, but I struggle to see the FIA and ACO admitting that America got something right.
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The French and the France family have a long history of disagreeing. It's amazing they could collaborate together on anything at all.

They already made sure there was no way a DPi would run in LMP2 at Le Mans.
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If a DPI won the race, Gallic pride would be absolutely gored. Meanwhile, we invited the P2 cars to come play and one of them finished third. IMSA got the BOP a tiny bit wrong, but that's always a moving target. They got pretty close though. I'm sure if the ACO wanted DPIs they could BOP them to their satisfaction.
 
Sports car racing has two types of teams. The pros with manufacturer backing and the amateur (gentlemen racers from generations past). For a long thim the amateurs bought cars off the showroom floor and made them into race cars.
Doc Austin said:
What you do is let the manufacturers be involved strictly as vendors who sell engines and body kits to the teams.
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I agree. Manufacturers should build equipment and offer it for sale. For decades the independents bought Porsche because they were pretty much the only car they could buy from a dealership and race. American manufacturers all offer performance crate engines to the street rodders and others, that business seems to be doing well.
 
Zerkfitting said:
I agree. Manufacturers should build equipment and offer it for sale. For decades the independents bought Porsche because they were pretty much the only car they could buy from a dealership and race.
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Also, without Porsche, Group C and GTP grids would have been pretty thin. Porsche was selling prototype cars to customers almost from the beginning. You might notice that the periods in history that featured bleak grids also featured no customer Porsches

[/QUOTE]American manufacturers all offer performance crate engines to the street rodders and others, that business seems to be doing well.[/QUOTE]

The Cadillac runs a highly restricted production based 6.2 liter V8. I'm guessing a reasonably unrestricted 5 liter would be pretty good because they were terrifying in the 1970s in F5000 cars. Almost every major manufacturer in the world has a 5 liter V8, a 4.5 they can bore out, or a 5.5-6.0 liter V8 they can destroke. In other words, everybody on the planet could play to the same rules. If the cars get too fast, give everyone the same size air restrictor and forget about BOP. Same displacement production based V8, same weight, and choice of multiple P2 chassis manufacturers, and allow highly restricted manufacturer specific bodywork. No one can complain about anything because the rules are the same for everyone. Voila! Instant world formula.

The only stumbling block could be the bodywork, but the stock bodied Riley was in contention to win almost to the very end, so customers could just buy a car and engine and be in the game. Let the manufacturers come play, but don't let them run teams. If a manufacturer bails, the production based motors will still be there, so no one runs out of equipment.

This worked extremely well in Nascar when the manufacturers left in the 70s. Even when V8s were a little scarce during the oil crisis, you had companies making duplicate aftermarket blocks, cranks and pistons and such, so Nascar weathered the manufacturer pull out with no ill effects.

The thing is, the answer is so simple and the ACO and Frances have never been so close. We get a new formula in three years, so we need to be looking forward to that and maybe planning something that will work for everyone.
 
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