Peugeot Stops LMP1 Program With Immediate Effect

[Grand_Fromage]

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

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.

[Kpy]

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

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

[Robbo]

Knew I'd seen it!!

[Brad Zarse]

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

That's awful......

[Grand_Fromage]

Did that come directly from the ACO?

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

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

[Nordic]

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

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?

[Boorish Grobian]

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

[landman]

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?

[Brad Zarse]

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??

[Boorish Grobian]

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

[Grand_Fromage]

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...

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

[Werner]

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.

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.

[geoffd]

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?

[gt6]

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

[Lazy B'stard]

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