Never gonna happen. The F in F1 stands for Ferrari. A departure from F1 would hurt F1 as much as it would hurt Ferrari. Both parties know that, which is why Bernie gives them an extra $ bonus each year. Nobody gives a toss about LMP. If you disagree show me the stats of TV viewers for either sport. Assuming you can even find them for LMP...
There are no figures outside of LM. I once went to an ALMS racing, the grandstand was all mine. Literally.
ALMS was big in its day. Huge crowds at a couple of races I went to. I think the merger might have hurt them. I hardly even watch anymore since the France's took over.
Yeah, a "merger" of Daytona Prototypes and Le Mans minus P1 cars. Started off great, but now a regular race features about 9n or 10 prototypes COMBINED. I hope things turn around.
If Ferrari pulls the plus, i really doubt it will impact them. I mean lets face it...the last 10 years it just mediocre performance from the team, and yet...cars are still selling. In Malaysia, no one gives a crap about Mercedes winning, and people still drives Mercs here. In fact the only constantly excited about Merc's success is Petronas.
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Ferrari back at Le Mans would be great, but the ROI is not there. unless it could sell cars to the LMP1 LMP2 standard... but doubt that will happen. Ferrari losing to Porsche or worse Audi or Toyota ... not a great brand seller.
the link really existed.. maybe later it was deleted... "Efrain Olivares, Ferrari North America's Motorsports PR representative, dropped a small Twitter bomb by announcing that Ferrari is preparing an LMP1 program as early as the 2017 season. Soon after, he dismissed the Tweet with another one, this time claiming that it was just a joke. But was it?" Read more: Ferrari Eyes Le Mans LMP1 Entry, Starts Rumor About it
Given the shift in governance for Ferrari and the shift in power sources for cars, I can see an F1 without Ferrari and F1 morphing to a new series. Nothing in the future is settled.
I think you are living in the past. Maybe you could also consider that FIAT, Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Lancia all participated in GPs years ago. But I cannot imagine them ever coming back to join Ferrari on the grid.
