24H Le Mans Entry List Revealed - Sportscar365
TBA Vilander, Fisichella, Rigon, Bird Malucelli?? Bertolini? (Or in GTam...) Ferrari could use some drivers from Audi...
Sportscar 365 reports 1 driver for car: 51 – AF Corse – Ferrari 488 GTE – James Calado 71 – AF Corse – Ferrari 488 GTE – Davide Rigon* 82 – Risi Competizione – Ferrari 488 GTE – Toni Vilander I think Fisichella is going to be in Risi too. Could we think of the Australian V8 champions, Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup that will race the next weekend with Vilander the 488 GT3 in 12 horas of Barthus?
I hope the older GTam cars get some better BoP than the new GTEs JMW with 458 could not have a fair battle with a 488 imho Same for Porsche etc in that class
Do we know what single car has the most Le Mans 24H entries on her palamares? I think it is the JMW 458, will be the 6th time LM
Why should IMSA care what the ACO thinks? Beaumesnil sounds very arrogant and stuck up in that article.
ACO is arrogant They allways have. Cooperation with IMSA and SRO would be better imho. Would love to see the Cadillacs, Mazdas, ..... at La Sarthe.
Agreed. The more variety the better. You would think with Audi pulling out of LMP1 they would be looking to have more manufacturer involvement in the prototype classes.
+1 IMSA has a good category with DPI, but the ACO can't see it. I am not surprised one bit by the pompous and dismissive French attitude.
Maybe J-P Montoya for Risi Competizione..... Would be good to have a big name in that 488 Vilander - Fisichella - Montoya...
Convergence will kill GT3, I think. The ACO and its WEC should have adopted the GT3 rules, instead of creating their GTE category, IMO.
But then you will have even more Factory supported teams or full pro teams in GT3 which exploiding costs like hell. GTE should remain with ACO and Factory Teams versus GT3 is Customer Sport. Plus ACO will never adopt any rules for their main event created by SRO
The easy answer to escalading cost would be to put a price limit on GT cars. If manufacturers can only compete with cars offered for sale at (say) $400K, that would surely stops the arms race. At present, some GTE (built in small quantity for semi-works teams) cost up to TWICE the price of most GT3 produced in larger quantity. But we know very well, that the ACO, very jealous of the supremacy in endurance racing handed over by the FIA, will never agree to negotiate with a rival organisation.
buying the Car is not the problem, the running costs killing you. and most of the GTE Cars have almost nothing in common with the GT3 version (except the 488 and thats one of the reasons why the GT3 Version is more expensive than most of the rivals) but from pure fun perspective (speaking as a owner of both versions) the 458 GTE is triple the fun to drive compare to the 458 GT3