Lambo will never have a factory F1 Team because it was a condtion of sale when Lamborghini sold the company. It stems back to the fued with Enzo. Lamborghini knew Enzo was not interested in road cars and only produced road cars to support his racing operation. Lamborghini, to the contrary, wanted to build, and only build road cars. He had it literally written into the contract that Lambo would never have a factory racing team. This story was reported to me by gentleman who owns a Lambo dealership. A few months later I met Balboni at Moroso and he confirmed the story and actually saw the closing documents. Of course, there is nothing to preclude Audi from a factory team.
I think Porsche might have a factory effort next year. If not, they'll send Champion and Penske to sweep that place up. Of course that is if Champion doesn't go with Audi...or what if they do both...
hmm, so where does the Renault strategy fit into that statement ?? The Mercede's strategy is also strange, they have their motors in the McLarens as a marketing ploy so that if it all falls in a heap they can blame RD, if it all goes well then it is a Mercedes-McLaren Look at BMW, they are doing the same thing with the Sauber, Porsche has only ever put an engine in F1
You probably think of Renault as plush comfy French cars and they build a lot of those. However Renault always had also sporty cars with an edge. Think about the Renault Alpine and R5 Turbo (street versions and in Rally). The Megane is probably their sportiest street car today. Granted that's no Ferrari, but it has zip.
lamborghini developed and built this engine for Formula One in the late 80's. It was a good engine, but powered the Larousse cars which weren't too competitive but they did get points in Spain. They even briefly powered Lotus, but in a poor chassis. Lambo then struck a deal to build a complete chassis/engine package, essentially a Lambo team, but were ripped off by their Mexica business partner Luna (he dissappeared with something like 20 million) laying waste to the team. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Porsche has said they will support teams with RS Spyders next year, but they won't have a full factory LMP2 effort. I highly doubt a 480 hp RS Spyder would take the overall victory at Le Mans next year even though it weighs over 400 pounds less than a P1 car. As I said, the Peugeot diesel-powered P1 will have over 700 hp and over 880 lb-ft of torque. Two of them will be at Le Mans next year with a coupe body. The R10s will also be there.
But possibly not as a works entrant. Audi have done the Diesel job by being the first - knowing what they are like I would imagine Peugeot's entry will just force Audi to spend more money to compete for little return. As someone else said, make the R10 independant then bask in the glory if it happens and ignore the event if the Pug wins. If its true the Diesel cars are allowed a LARGER fuel tank than the petrol cars then thats total dishonesty and completely against any kind of fairness in my opinion. They should atleast have an equivalency formula, but personally I would ban them.
The first diesel-engined car to qualify and race at the 24 hour race at Le Mans was a French entry in 1949, the first race held after the war. The car was the Delettrez Diesel entered by brothers Jean and Jacques Delettrez and was of 4395 cc 6-cylinder. It did not finish, running out of fuel about half way into the race. Delettrez entered again in 1950, as did another diesel car, the MAP. Again both cars DNF with engine problems, a cooling system leak in the case of the MAP. The MAP was interesting in that it was the first mid-enginesd car to race at Le Mans, the engine was located immediately behind the driver, and was a two-cylinder opposed piston 2-stroke with rocking levers connected to a single crank, similar to the later Commer TS3 engine. I had heard that the R10 was allowed a 25 % bigger fuel tank than gasoline-powered prototypes. The R10 sounded boring at Sebring and Le Mans on tv. I'll wait until the Portland ALMS race to make a final opinion.
That was tv - we were at LeMans for the 24 Hour last month and the R10 is anything but boring. It has a very distinct sound and you can hear it in the dark of night and know it's the R10 - just as similar as being able to distinguish the Corvettes and the Astons in the dark. Yes, quiet compared to others but noise equals energy. Carol
Why on earth would ANYONE get into F1 today ? I mean, if Toyota, with their engineers, and their budget, can't seem to do it, what makes anyone else think they can ?
And Toyota's F1 budget is more than Ferrari's! edit: 2006 numbers show McLaren now on top: Mercedes-McLaren has beaten Toyota to the mantle as F1's biggest spender. 1.Mercedes McLaren - $400 million (US) 2.Toyota - $393 million 3.Honda - $382 m. 4.BMW Sauber - $378 m. 5.Ferrari - $329 m. 6.Renault - $300 m. 7.Red Bull - $201 m. 8.Williams - $134 m. 9.Super Aguri - $95 m. 10.MidlandF1 - $76 m. 11.Scuderia Toro Rosso - $66 m.
If these figures are correct, that means that Renault is the 'poorest' of the factory team? Getting such good results with...err.. such a small budget, makes it look ever better value for money!
I would have disqualified an Audi, the first time they changed out a rear chassis unit (including gearbox and suspension) and re-joined the race.
How is changing the whole rear chassis any different from any other racer that goes off course, pulls into the pits and fixes the dammage, then goes back out to salvage the race to get the points. The only difference is that this team is prepared to change a lot of parts instead of one. Its preperation. I would love to see audi race in F1, but I dont think it will be a fully independant thing. As said before it would be somthing like Audi/Red Bull.
Toyota's current struggle doesn't mean it can be done successfully. Toyota made many different mistakes in the process, has nothing to do with where F1 is at today. To put it another way: If a car manufacturer has problems in F1, how can a soft drink manufacturer even dream of running his own F1 team, let alone two? All a question of clever management. The current edition of RACER has a detailed report on why this year's Toyota sucks. In essence they made 3 design errors. I mean, c'mon, how can you do that? One error is bad enough, yet they managed three.
Hey Scott That car has been down here twice in the last two years and last year they ran it at Moroso. Not really a Lambo factory car. Lambo Engineering is a spin off that built the powerboat engines for racing - designed the engine and it went in a Lola bodied Larousse team car in March of 1988. Driven by Philippe Alito and Yanack Deimas. Spice Engineering is the company that went into receivership and any interests of F1. The Mexican was a guy who agreed to underwrite $25M for six months towards F1. After the Mexican, Carlo Patrucco of Fini came in to fund an operation and acutlly had 100 people dedicated to the F1 car, but not as a factory race car. It was to be called Team Modena Lamborghini.. anyway Chrysler execs were not happy with everything since the Mexican and the car did not qualify in 1990 so they closed down the shop.
