Le Mans- Does It Have A Future?

In the first instalment of a new series that scrutinises the prospects of motorsport, the evo team attempts to find a solution to the problem that is the World Endurance Championship

 

- Stuart Gallagher

AS A MOTORSPORT FAN, YOU MAY BE ASKING WHAT in the name of Nelson Piquet Jr is going on with your sport. Manufacturers are jumping ships and joining bandwagons quicker than NPJ could react to a radio message during a night race. And once-headline motorsport series are now staring at vast empty spaces in the paddock where the corporate hospitality units of the world’s biggest car makers previously stood.

Formula E would appear, on the face of it, to be the biggest benefactor of this shake-up. Recently Audi, BMW, Mercedes and Porsche all confirmed their switch to the all-electric single-seater series with full works teams, and within days of each other. Merc ditched Germany’s DTM touring car series to fund the switch, while Porsche will end its World Endurance Championship programme two years early to focus on its first single-seater campaign since its disastrous Footwork tie-up in F1 back in 1991.

With Audi looking for somewhere to spend its euros after withdrawing from WEC last year and BMW having danced around the periphery of top-line motorsport with a presence in DTM and also IMSA GT racing in the USA in recent years, both will now field factory teams in Formula E. BMW is also returning to the FIA World Endurance Championship – in the GTE class, with its new M8, from 2018.

Manufacturers have always been key to motorsport and its success – although not always for the right reasons. And now some of the series and their promoters – who scoffed at the manufacturer top tables – find themselves at a lunch buffet with nothing more than a few overcooked parsnips and limp cabbage to shove around their plates.