Club Arnage

ACO rules changes for 2007 (apply to Le Mans, ALMS & LMS) - details -
"The LM P2 and GT2 categories are reserved mainly for private teams and must have performances inferior to those in LM P1 and LM GT1" (our emphasis)
LMP1- 81 litre tank for diesels (10% penalty - is that enough?)
LMP2- 5% smaller restrictor, also "...gap of 1.5% between the best LM P1 and LM P2 laps times must be respected"
No mention of electric hybrid power - so no new Zytek

<reserved mainly for private teams>
What does "mainly" mean?
Does it mean factory teams if they're French?

What's that all about?  Am I misunderstanding this?  If you happen to set your P2 car up so it running  as fast as a P1 does it mean that you have got to take your foot off the gas to "respect" the 1.5% rule?. Bollocks to that.

A few years ago Blundell's MG was, at times, as fast as a few of the P1's and IIRC lead the race for a time.

LMP2 cars often finish ahead of LMP1 cars! If you look at this years ALMS results there are often GT2 cars mixing it with the slower LMP2 cars. The Astons and Corvettes are always on the tail end of the slower LMP1 cars.

I think that if you are able to build a production based GT2 car and then go on to win outright at Le Mans then you are a legend and should not be beated back by regulations!

In a few years time we will see Citreon 2CV's running on GT2 as they will be the most powerful thing out there with the restrictions they keep bringing in.

WHY, WHY, WHY? ? ?

If the new regs are aimed at pleasing the French, it sure hasn't worked with Henri P who has been sounding off big-time over here!

Hi Termie. Have you got a link to HP's rants? Would like to read what he has too say

Bob, I would have done but there are some issues for the site this came from re copywrite etc.  There was an interview in Ouest France (newspaper) over the weekend.  I'm on it but may take a while. Will get back to you.

6 Welter Racing sh*t boxes.  ::)

Respecté in the context of this is better translated as "maintained."  What the regulations actually go on to say is that if the new rules do not produce LMP2 cars which are 1.5% slower than the LMP1 (and this will be looked at for every race and is a comparison of the top runner in both classes), then the regulations will be "tweeked" again in 2008 to try to achieve the 1.5% goal.  It does not suggest at any point that LMP2 entrants in 2007 will be penalised if their cars are too fast.

It also says LMP2 cars are "principalement" (exactly what you think it means - ie in principal) for private entrants.  Miracle Motorsports have dissapeared from the scene as they feel there is no place for them in the LM series as the current regulations stand.  Ray Mallock has also said that LMP2 is the perfect platform for small companies like his to produce prototype sports cars at relatively low cost.  I believe the ACO is trying (in its occasionally heavy handed and misguided way) to encourage teams like these - not just Peugeot designer Gerard Welter.

Try this http://www.midilibre.com/sportsv2/article.php?
 
And the letter in full 
 http://www.automobilsport.com/24-heures-du-mans-henri-pescarolo-lettre-ouverte-aco-don-panoz-diesel-audi-porsche-paolo-catone-peter-elleray-claude-galopin-ben-wood-de-cortanze---16207.html
I will attempt a ham-fisted translation at some point when I'm bored!

No need for you to go the bother of translating Uncle Henri's open letter to the ACO. It has been done over on http://www.mulsannescorner.com/news.html

He is a funny old git that Henri.

Phew, thanks!

wow..., sounds like Henri is really pissed! :o

I wonder if the data boxes Henri points to where ever fitted to an R8? If so did the figures show similiar results , ie: an Audi is faster than a Courage/Pesca.

I would be interested to know if you put the petrol engine from an R8 into an R10 what the relative performance would be.

So has anyone got a view on what "mainly" really means, in this context?

Let me know whereabouts and in what context and I'll see what I think.

termietermite,
It's in the very first posting on this thread.

Gary, this was the gist of my earlier comments.  The word used was in fact "pricipalement" which correctly means prinicipally in the traditional English usage of the word, that is in principal, not mainly, as it was translated.  I have not read the original thoughts behind the introduction of the LMP2 category but what I read this to mean, therefore, is that the whole principal behind the LMP2 (and similarly, by inference, GT2) is for this to have been a category to encourage smaller private entrants.  You can draw any conclusion you like from this but I take it to be the ACO's way of discouraging Porsche and Honda - in their Acura guise - from hijacking LMP2, rather than competing with Audi in the LMP1 category, by attempting to prevent any LMP2 car from winning races outright, rather than in their own catergories (except in the case of failures of the fastest LMP1 cars).

termietermite,
Thanks for the translation/clarification.

You are welcome, it seems to me that this has been a bit of a "lost in translation" thing.  Anybody reading the English translations in letters and brochures from the ACO knows what I mean!  It makes sense, but not always as we know it.