http://www.fiagt.com/results.php?event=2&season=2005
Has the MC12 lost a race? This must do wonders for Maserati's future- sponsorship income would be an enormous boost, especially if they beat Bentley and Audi at LeMans. Forza, Cavallini
Not to shake fingers or burst anyone's bubble, but it will be very hard for Maserati to overcome the Pratt & Miller C6R's and the Prodrive DBR9's at Le Mans... let alone beat the Audi R8's (which are two classes above the GT1 class in which the MC12, C6R's, and DBR9's will run in). Napolis, speaking of which -- did Pratt & Miller sell a few C5R's to privateers? It's amazing to see those old monsters still racing and still doing well.
Sorry guys but the Maserati MC-12s are not allowed to take part at Le Mans this or any other year unless a new classification is invented by the ACO. The Le Mans organizers will have nothing to do with the MC-12s, thus the controversey over their entry at Sebring this year. The MC-12s have not won every race they've taken part in. They ran the last 4 or 5 races of the FIA GT schedule last year, not scoring until their resounding win in China, the final race of the year. And, the first FIA GT race of this year at Monza was won by a Ferrari 550 GT Maranello. The Corvettes, Aston Martin DBR9s and Ferrari 550 GT Maranellos will certainly create a very competitive race for GT honors at Le Mans this year. We were told at Sebring that Care Racing/Team Labre will be entering three 550 GT Maranellos at Le Mans and JMB has entered one 575 GTC. The Lamborghini project was doomed from the beginning. When it first appeared at the 2003 FIA GT event at Monza in the hands of Tom Kristensen and Dindo Capello, the "***** list" was a mile long and the drivers complaining that they had to drive 110% just to keep up to the tail end of the field. Thus, the entry was withdrawn. Audi carried out some improvements but the cars are too heavy and illconceived to be competitive against the MC-12s and 550s. On a seperate note, the Bentley project is finished as well. Their victory at Le Mans in 2003 concluded their participation as the point had been proven. BHW
Barton, didn't the Lamborghinis campained by Krohn-Barber Racing suffer through the same problems last season on the ALMS?
Now that Maserati is changing hands (from Ferrari who had the tech. and $$$ to keep the Enzo/MC12 running) to Fiat/Alpha... is the Enzo's days of being called the MC-12 a dead program? What happens next year..? Will Ferrari start its Dino program to replace the failed experiment with Maserati? Ferrari still wants to find a way to get world-wide production up to 15,000 cars a year without hurting the Ferrari name. (5000 Ferraris and 10,000 Dinos)...Does Ferrari race the Enzo as a Dino this time? I think Ferrari dropped Maserati because they couldn't get to 15,000 cars with that dull styling... but they have not totally dropped the idea of becoming a bigger car company. Just need a new approach. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Yeah but if they would enter the Enzo as a Dino they would have to drop half of the engine and make it a turbo V6 The question you are asking is correct though. I thought from the beginning that the Maserati program was a bad idea. Maserati is a bad name in the US which is the biggest single market for Ferrari. The fact that they could not get their car sorted out before they brought it into this market is yet another bad move they did. I heard horror stories on 2002 and 2003 models, especially with Cambiocorsa. Some of those were returned under the lemon law. Not one that did not have some problem that nobody could fix right away. In all fairness I must say that the 2004 my wife is driving is an excellend and reliable car. No problems there at all in 7000 Miles. Selling Maserati was yet another bad move in my opinion. Now that they finally got the product reliable and got some market presence, they dump the brand. (scratching my head, who is making those business decisions)
Yeah, the Lambos had their problems in the ALMS as well. Despite top drivers like Peter Kox and David Brabham on the team, the unsponsored Lambos experienced the same types of problems here. With no factory involvement and no sponsors, Krohn was saddled with the high costs of running the team and they did not finish the season. We did see the cars at the French Quarter Classic which was neat and they seemed to run true all day and they made a heck of a sound once the early low RPM misfires cleared up. I spoke with Tracy Krohn at Sebring about the project in March and he was quite candid about his feelings on the cars, very glad to now be with The Racer's Group Porsche team! BHW
I keep seeing that Ferrari wants to enter the F-430 in racing as well. In fact, Risi himself told me that if the Maserati MC-12 was not allowed to race in ALMS, they would have switched to "Plan B" and run the F-430 in the GT class instead. Anthony Lazarro told me on the grid at Sebring that Risi plans to enter a second MC-12 in the ALMS near the end of the season so there may well be two of them running at Petit Le Mans. However, the fact that the cars are saddled with 80lbs extra ballast, have their aerodynamics taken away and are not eligble for points, there dosent seem to be much point in going racing especially when we see that the car's very appearance in the ALMS may well break up the deal between Panoz and the ACO. BHW