Peugeot's massive increase in speed at Le Mans this year forced the ACO to place lowering the overall pace of their cars as a top priority. (Photo: Peugeot) » More Photos

Technology, while at the core of the ACO’s philosophies, appears to have grown faster than was desired in this case. Plassart and Poissenot went into Le Mans this year with goals of improving safety and charting a course for the next generation of regulations, but emerged with a reduction of speeds and the budgets that made the huge jump in speeds a top priority.

But if the ACO are worried about the increase in speed across the entire field, the competitors at Le Mans—the non-diesel competitors to be exact, are more worried about the growing divide between the performance of large manufacturers with their diesel-powered machines and what their petrol-fueled prototypes can achieve with lesser means.

If there’s been a knock against the Le Mans organizers, its been in their lack of reactive changes to keep LMP1 as close as they frequently say they want it to be. But those tweaks to the rules have been either too slow—slower than the pace of development by the diesel teams, or too small to have any real affect on the outcome of the P1 finishing order.

The gap between the top diesel and petrol cars in qualifying at Le Mans in ’06 was a manageable 2.1 seconds. That crept up to 7.2 in 2007, and back down a touch this year to 6.6, but the disparity is still completely unmanageable for privateers to bridge.

At the recent 6hr Nurburgring LMS race, the closest non-diesel, the Prodrive Lola-Aston Martin, had a mostly trouble-free run but came home in fifth place, six laps down to the winning Peugeot. The Courage-ORECA P1 team ran faultlessly, earning sixth place while being lapped seven times by Peugeot. The four diesel P1 cars entered finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th…

Plassart and Poissenot will announce new equivalency measures to significantly reduce the performance gap between the petrol-powered privateers like ORECA and big factories with dominating diesels. (Photo: Marshall Pruett) » More Photos

With the obvious superiority of diesel engines in LMP1, Plassart says the ACO will properly solve the diesel/petrol dispute with their announcement September 15th. Let’s hope they give the gas-powered LMP1 cars something they’ve lacked since 2006 – a fighting chance.

“For us, the rules are meant for everybody. The LMP1 category is meant for everybody. But between a manufacturer and a private team, they have a lot of difference in investment and improvement. Last season Peugeot made some tests in many circuits in Europe for six or 7,000 kilometers. The cars are testing every month in the winter; the engine is always on the dyno. During this winter the Peugeot team made the big improvement, I suppose they found twenty, thirty horsepower more. So, yes, it’s a difference between a manufacturer and a private team. And, as we say also, the LMP1 category is mainly made for the manufacturers. LMP2 is for privateers. GT2 is for privateers also. And GT1 is for both.”

It’s fair to say that we’ve heard the ACO make the same statements at the end of ’06 and ’07, but have seen no practical evidence of the Pescarolo’s, Intersport’s, or ORECA’s of fighting wheel-to-wheel for a win. LMP1 may be the prototype class ACO prefers for manufacturers to fill, but the category has the potential to go the way of GT1 – to become a shell of its former self – if the needs of the privateers aren’t taken seriously.

My suggestion for the ACO to create a separate points championship for non-diesel cars wasn’t well received by Mr. Plassart. “As I said, our rules are meant for everybody.”
In 1987, F1 created the ‘Colin Chapman Cup’ for the ’87 as a method to honor the less-funded entrants when the cost and performance gap between turbos and naturally aspirated engines left the non-turbo cars with no chance of winning. For 1988, it was abolished and the turbos were restricted to give the non-turbo teams a chance. Except for Ivan Capelli leading for a few seconds on one lap at Suzuka, the turbos were never headed. All sixteen rounds fell to forced-induction powerplants.

Replace ’87 and ’88 with ’07 and ’08, swap ‘turbo’ and ‘naturally aspirated’ with ‘diesel’ and ‘petrol-powered’ and you have the same scenario. I hate to say it, but based on Mr. Plassart’s opinion, my idea of the ‘Pescarolo Cup’ for non-diesel LMP1 cars doesn’t look promising.

While no clear plans have been outlined, the ACO says they’re keen to return the LMP2 category to a place where the spirit of affordable cars and privateer entries is restored. When facing the prospect of buying a $1.5M Porsche RS Spyder – the fastest commercially available P2 car in the LMS and ALMS, or a Lola B07/40 at 1/3rd the price, it’s easy to see why the ACO to wants the class remain as a viable home for independents.

The ACO had praise for Acura and their limited use of LMP2 to learn the series before splitting their effort and graduating to LMP1. Their thoughts on the painfully expensive LMP2 Porsche RS Spyder are somewhat different. (Photo: Marshall Pruett) » More Photos

“What I told Mr. Plassart, the LMP2 is made for privateers but, as you know, Porsche…it’s not the spirit for the class. They have a very good chassis and a very good engine. It’s a good car. But this is over the limit for [what] privateers should pay.”

They’re also comfortable with P2 serving as a training grounds for manufacturers that have future LMP1 aspirations, but not at the expense of bringing unchecked budgets and unanswerable speeds. Reducing costs and speed in equal measures is imperative to the health of the class, Poissenot says.

“If you reduce the speed, you reduce the cost and we want to reduce the cost, especially in LMP2 and the GT2. For LMP1 we said for Audi and Peugeot it's not a problem to invest what they desire. You know, I think it's a dream [category]. You need to have a dream. But for LMP2, you have to find the money to sponsor and so on, so we have to reduce the cost. It is not a place for dreaming.

“What we want, for example, is like Acura. They use LMP2 to develop the engine, chassis, their intent [is] to improve the car to learn to go to the LMP1 category and not just LMP2. We do not want LMP2 to become too much for privateers, so we will protect this.”