Club Arnage

 :( http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/18/peugeot-le-mans-idUSWEA853020120118 (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/18/peugeot-le-mans-idUSWEA853020120118)

Really sad but not much of a surprise.  Clearly, there would have been very little development money and Audi would just have pushed further and further ahead of them.  It was good to have some proper local interest though.  It's all up to Hugues now.

Wow.

So many questions.

Does this mean Oreca are now the official team?

Drivers to where?

What happens to OQ?

Is this because they haven't won LM for the last 2 years or are they worried about increased competition?

Negative publicity from last year's race?

Combination of the above?

Oreca are running the official Toyota entry!

Read about this earlier this week, but can't remember where.
As Robbo says Oreca now in bed with the hybrid Toyota.
I read that Peugeot were going to try and sell cars to privateers, and support them as, in effect,  semi factory teams.
I will try and remember where I saw this.

Remember now on Speedtv.

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/le-mans-peugeots-2012-program-still-unclear/ (http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/le-mans-peugeots-2012-program-still-unclear/)

http://www.lemans.org/en/races/fia-world-endurance-championship/updates/Peugeot_brings_down_the_curtain_on_its_endurance_programme_so_as_to_ensure_the_success_of_its_numerous_launches_in_2012_6006.html (http://www.lemans.org/en/races/fia-world-endurance-championship/updates/Peugeot_brings_down_the_curtain_on_its_endurance_programme_so_as_to_ensure_the_success_of_its_numerous_launches_in_2012_6006.html)

It's difficult for them to justify running the cars when I read somewhere that 6000 Peugoet workers are being made redundant.

Actually i'm quite glad as there tactics and driver antics during a few of the races (24 hr and Silverstone) last year were a disgrace.

Did the ACO have advance notice of this?
After all, no Pug on this years poster.

I wonder how that will effect the number of French people in the crowd and camping?

There are multiple posters around this year - I've seen the 908 and the R18 ones

Haven't seen the 908 ones, just the Bentley/Audi one.

Is it time for Henri to step up, buy the 908's, and try to save French pride, yet again.

Wow, didn't see that one coming!

Can't see Henri getting involved. That on-loan and uninsured 908 a few years back cost him his company. I don't Peugeot top brass very very impressed either.

I've never warmed to Peugeot and very much dislike their sometimes unsporting actions on and off the track, but I'd rather they were still involved in the sport. Its going to take Toyota a few years to get competetive which will leave Audi to dominate with ease. That's not good for a sport that is moving onwards with a new world championship.

A black day really.

Hasn't he got enough to do what with trying to revive Arsenals fortunes and all?  ;D

There has been one '80th' poster revealed so far, so you are unlikely to have seen any others unless you work for La Fourmi who design them or for the ACO.

I don't work for La Fourmi, but this came from the ACO

(http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z48/marshalsw007/LM%20bits/LM2012.jpg)

Knew I'd seen it!!

That's awful......

Did that come directly from the ACO?

Very much doubt henri or any other team will run a private 908.

Best hope would be for national pride to spur a sponsor to come forward. This will have hurt the ACO and the WEC as the rules and regs were formed around 2 works teams and pug were the driving force.

A faint glimmer maybe the hybrid project and this may lead to a return in future years.

Has the PSA WRC project also been scaled back?

A bit of a surprise, but not a huge one.  Anytime a car maker is having to layoff thousands of employees its tough to justify the massive expense of a racing program.  I've always been shocked that GM has continued with its Corvette GT program given the financial difficulties GM has faced in recent years.
Fax

So it took PSA Group 3 years to realise that the World is in recession?

This has more to do with the WEC in my opinion.

Can you imagine the pressure on the team to win the WEC on a frozen/reduced budget?

Lat year was bad enough - cue dodgy driving tactics - so can you imagine the 1st year of a new competition effectively written around the Peugeot & Audi works teams?

I fully believe that the bean counters [God bless you all] have effectively called time on the team given that the senior directors will want a win, but clearly now not at any costs.  There's also little linkage between 'win on Sunday, sell it on Monday' as the cars bear little/no relationship to the road cars.  This is where Audi's PR machine have won the battle in that they clearly show linkage between the race cars & the road cars.

So there must be a Plan B where the cars & engineers are farmed out to private teams & then they will carry the hopes of France?

Funny huh?  Control of the WEC ultimately lays with the FIA, not the ACO I believe? 

Therefore the french no longer have ultimate control of all of the rules and regs.

Suddenly, France's factory offering doesn't want to play any more........co-incidence??

However the FIA president has a pretty long history with Peugeot...

The WEC exists partly because of Jean Todt's 'rapport' with Peugeot, and the championship came about due to pressure from both Audi and Peugeot. Nobody is more gutted at the news than the Peugeot Sport guys. I had a recent interview nearly ready to publish from Anthony Davidson who was looking forward to WEC, he had no idea that the parent company would pull the financial plug so abruptly.

Rumours already abound regarding 'privateer Pugs'. Time will tell...

Fully agree to that. What a shame. No matter how you rate the sporting actions of the Peugeot or Audi teams in the last years, the battles between Audi and Peugoet in the last years have been epic and reminded me on the legendary Jaguar / Porsche battles in the late 80ies.
The extremely close finish last year was the highlight. Looks like we will have another boring 1-2-3 Audi win with no seriuos competition this year.

So I guess Audi will be tossing a coin three times to determine the finishing positions of their three cars at LM this year, then trundle around on 90% throttle for 24 hours and pick up all three podium positions.

A sad day for endurance racing, it's not like there are any customer programmes from Pug or Audi to take up the battle.  Pug have said no to leasing out the current 908's so that's the end of that.

Some decent endurance drivers available though should any of the teams want one. 

Let's hope the three Pug entries at LM get filled by LMP1 entries from someone, or even LMP2, but not more GTE's.  And what now for the WEC,  another walk over for Audi!  Not going to be the most exciting racing at the front is it?

I'm glad I was at LM last year to witness one of the best races ever run.

Could this be the last year for Audi, not much point in spending huge amounts of money with no one to compete against?

sad news but not over yet MWM on radio le mans last night seemed convinced that the choice between running 2012/13 on a lower budget or use the money to develope the 2014 car was the choice, so the pugs will be back, fingers crossed

It's a real shame that the regs and championship have been based around the requirements of the two big players, only for one of them to decide at the eleventh hour that they won't be playing. I read the Mike Newton (RML) interview over on DSC yesterday. They are taking a break from a series that they have supported since it's inception in 2003 (they have only missed one LMS round in 8 years). He said smaller teams such as their own have no commercial interests in going to China, Japan and even to the US, therefore cannot justify the expense just to run behind the works teams and pick up a few scraps. The second tier ELMS is now also not an attractive option for them- mainly due to the circuits, he slates Donnington, Zolder and Portimao as not being suitable for various reasons.

There is always a real danger when a governing body aims to serve the big players. These big manufacturers are in the business of making money. Yes, I have no doubt that Dr Ulrich is just as passionate about racing as we are, but he is an employee. He has no say in wether a team runs or not. The problem is that the rulemaker, in a panic to appease the factory teams, fails to understand or cater for the smaller privateers, whom year in, year out continue to support a series, and as a concequence give the sport it's unique flavour and character. These teams have passion by the bucketload and will always find a reason to race no matter how hard it becomes to find the means to be there.

A classic example is the World Rally Championship. Twenty years ago is was in rude health. Then more focus was given to the factory teams and to attracting the media. Events got shorter, more expensive, harder to get an entry, and the privateers left in droves. The spectators soon followed, then the media (for whom this new way was tailored) lost interest, which meant the beancounters at the factories decided the publicity gained wasn't worth the financial outlay. We now have had a decade long two horse race on the WRC. It has, in short died a death.

I dearly hope that the FIA and the ACO are now, instead of running around in a mild state of panic, are  looking long at hard at the core values of what still is a great sport with a bright future, and start ringing the likes of Mike Newton and our Henri, and for once, start listening to the guys who matter!

Si  

I am in total agrement with you LB, still time to sort out 2012 and get the grid filled but the FIA needs to leave sportscar racing alone, or is it's plan still to ruin everything else so Formula boring survives.

Didn't Peugeot run a Hybrid car at LM last year?

Maybe the aforementioned is right - maybe they are cutting their losses on the 2012 season, with a full hyrid offering on the cards for 2013, or 2014, with a view to challenging Toyota.  Maybe this isn't so bad afterall....If it is anywhere near being clear that Toyota could challenge Audi with the Hybrid, then Peugeot will have a years development on Audi, and you would THINK they'd be that much more ready to challenge.

Or maybe....Peugeot have decided that because I'm not going to LM this year, that it's just not worth competing :D

They did have one but it never actual raced or appeared in June, it was that bad I think

I would suggest that if Audi do not get too much (any) competition in LMP1 they will either pull out or change the group they race in. There is not a lot of sense in spending so much money in a group where you get a basic walkover running at 90%, when you could generate a lot of interest in a car, which looks like your road car - souped up R8's etc with a bucket load of money spent, meaning more than is spent on semi-privateer at the moment, would do them no end of good, I think.

BUT,

I know nothing about the sport so with leave it to my notoriously eloquent (read his last post above) LM buddy Dr Sconefinger (have not seen that in a while Si)


>Martini...LB

I think Audi will continue with an LMP project for at least a few years now, but as you say, may now devote a little more time to developing the GTE R8. The Audi was so much faster than the other non Peugeot prototypes last season, and being that it will take Toyota a few seasons to get anywhere close, they can easily afford to ease development on the prototype. The R18 still has a few years left in it, a few years where even at it's current level it will have little opposition. It has given them plenty of breathing space to plan a replacement over the next few years.

As Martin rightly states, there is much to be gained in campaigning a car that looks like a road car (this is why Audi are a big player in DTM). I expect an increased programe in GTE but not as a replacement to a LMP programe. Audi are very good at showing relevence between winning in a car that looks nothing like the cars we drive and it's direct benefits to those cars we drive in terms of technology improvement- a trick missed by Peugeot. So great is this promotion that a withdrawl from LMP would be a massive backward step.

Audi will run 2 diesel hybrids (R18H) and 1 or 2 standard diesels (R18+) as backups in order to try and become the first team to win at Le Mans using hybrid technology which would steal some serious headlines off Toyota!

The diesel hybrid technology will be relevant into their roadcars as well!

Am I wrongly assuming Toyotas Hybrid to be petrol powered??

Your assumption is correct. Petrol.

And doesn't it look like that lovely Dome from a few years back? I hope it's just as loud too.