29 teams invited to next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans; Dyson Racing, Larbre Competition entries absent.

Too bad Fernandez Racing won't be able to go. They've sold off their Acura to a European team, so it's unlikely they'll be able to work anything out to run anything next season. Even if they do, they'll probably be on a shoestring budget that won't be able to take on Le Mans.

John Dagys - 19 November 2009 11:27 AM

29 teams invited to next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans; Dyson Racing, Larbre Competition entries absent.

Link please....t'anks edit: disregard... http://www.lemans.org/files/actu/2009-11-19__4645_gb.html

And jes' curious, why would Dyson be invited? ('not up on Larbre )

wonder how Audi will be fitted in?!

{db} - 19 November 2009 03:15 PM

wonder how Audi will be fitted in?!

These are the automatic invites for achieving certain things. There will be OTHER invites made at the ACO's discretion. These other invites will have no prerequisites, and I severely doubt the ACO will fail to invite Audi.

Why can't they combine all of the different championships to make one big group that races for about 20 total races. It is hard enough just figuring out the classes. With the Asian, American, etc. championships and their classes it is crazy. One might run 5 races while another runs 10 or whatever. It would be nice to see all of the cars running for one title. Make a class for the P1-diesels,P1-gas,P2-diesels,etc.down the line. It would be nice to see Audi,AMR,Peugeot and the rest race each other every race instead of a hit or miss schedule. Have more 24hr races.

The reason is obvious: The teams in Europe don't generally want to have to come over here to run the entire championship, and a lot of the team over here don't want to have to go over there to run the entire championship. And you'd have to in order to be a title contender, particularly if you're a European team. The teams that do want to make the trip generally only want to have to worry about one or two big events. It costs a lot of money to do all that traveling, and it's just not worth it.

As for more 24 hours races...Yeah, let's jack up the price of competition EVEN MORE. There's a reason the ALMS field was so tiny this year.

The system is set up as reasonably as it can be. Just let it run. It's really not as confusing as you make it out to be, particularly since the American series is the only one with a different class structure. Up until this new upcoming season it was very easy: The same class structure applied to all of the series. And wrapping one's head around the idea of there being multiple championships for different parts of the world really isn't too difficult.

As FF said... ALMS, LMS and AsLMS are qualifier series for Le Mans. The 'cream' from these series rises to the top for the defacto 'world championship'. LMP1, LMP2, LMPC, LMGT1, LMGT2, LMGTC ... One series to bind them, One series to rule them all!

Looks like Audi will have to request entry with the others.

Removed....admittedly rude post. Gettin' old and crotchety realy stinks...

jimclark - 21 November 2009 12:39 AM

Removed....admittedly rude post. Gettin' old and crotchety realy stinks...