But first we’ve got to keep our Heads above water
during the current Doldrums…
By now, surely it’s Old News to Yuhs over la
Scuderia’s somewhat “shock” announcement that they’ll return to sports Car
Prototypes racing in 2023, exactly 50 years since their latest Factory effort. With
Ferrari racing for outright victory at the famed Circuit de la Sarthe, which
will be commemorating the Centenary running of le 24 Huers du Mans.
Yet Porsche had already upstaged Ferrari when
confirming Wayback in December, 2020 that it would be joining the IMSA Le Mans Daytona
Hybrid (LMDH) ranks, which was followed shortly by Audi.
While hopefully the two remaining manufacturers
for 2022, i.e.; Acura and Cadillac will participate in 2023? With Mazda having
already announced their withdrawal from IMSA’s Daytona Prototype International
competition at this year’s season’s end.
Yet I’ve since read that at least Acura has
confirmed it’s LMDH programme, while hopefully Cadillac will continue also…
Glickenhaus and Toyota are the only two totally
“New Stock” LMH runners in this year’s FIA World Endurance Championship, (WEC) while
Alpine will campaign a single Grandfathered rebadged Rebellion R13 LMP1 chassis
this year, with No word on whether they’ll bring a brand new Hypercar to the
2022 WEC season?
In 2022, Peugeot will debut it’s LMH Hypercar,
and then the party of the FIA’s LM Hypercars will face competition from IMSA’s
LMDH Prototypes at Circuit de la Sarthe with the two different categories being
regulated by (bOp) Balance of Performance rules for the 2023 Le Mans 24 Hours race.
And as far as I can tell, currently the LMH
Hypercars won’t be eligible for IMSA’s Rolex 24 or Sebring 12 Hours events,
which I thought was the initial intent of bringing these two divergent
Prototype classes together. But at least we’ll see a return Clash of the Titans
at Le Mans, ergo Ferrari vs. Porsche, not to mention Toyota, Audi, Peugeot and
Glickenhaus.
Interestingly during this year’s qualie’
session which I managed to Tune into on Zed Internet, John Hindhaugh mentioned
Thars a rumour that Lamborghini is possibly considering an LMDH effort, Huh?
Whilst ‘Ol Booby Ruble’, aka Bobby Rahal’s been
busy Beatin’ thoust Drum over hoping he and his RLLR Outfit can continue with
BMW in the future as their potential LMDH project’s entrant, noting how they’ve
been with BMW for 13 years now. But I
wonder if BMW would be inclined to partner with it’s Formula E entity Andretti
Autosport instead? Since they’ll both be free at season’s end, when BMW quits
Formula E.
As Racer’s Marshall Pruett notes, everybody
will be talking to everybody about Thar future alliances over the Sebring weekend
and only time will tell…
Fifty years ago, Porsche’s All Conquering 917
won it’s lone Sebring race, whilst just weeks prior on March 6th,
SuperMario’, nee Mario Andretti won his Debutante Formula 1 race at Kyalami,
South Africa in a Ferrari, before competing at Sebring behind the wheel of a
Werks Ferrari 512M.
By my very unofficial count, la Scuderia, neeFerrari
has scored 13 vidtories to date at the venerable Sebring International Raceway,
albeit only eight as a Werks’ participant.
Which ranks them second behind Porsche’s
Mega’ tally of 18 W’s.
Although Ferrari’s tally of eight wins is the
most by an Entrant, since many of Porsche’s were won by customers, ergo la Scuderia’s
latest three victories during the 1990’s.
The bulk of Ferrari’s wins began during the
front engine era with it’s maiden W’ in 1956, then three consecutive wins from
1957-59 and two more in 1961-62, before it’s first Mid engine V-12 250P won in
1963, followed a year later with the 275P.
It would be a further six years before Mario
Andretti’s emphatic win aboard a Factory 512M, followed by la Scuderia’s final
W in ’72 with Jacky Ickx and Mario Andretti at the wheel of a 312PB before
Ferrari Quit Sports Car racing in 1973.
Twenty-two years later, one of those beautiful customer
333 SP’s would claim the first of three victories for this evocative Sports
Prototype, i.e.; 1995, 1997-98, the first two by Andy Evans Scandia Racing outfit,
with Momo Corse the latter.
Porsche ran “the Tables” from 1976 to 1988, claiming
13 consecutive victories beginning with it’s legendous Carrera RSR’s, the Group
4 934, which I remember most fondly in it’s Jaggermeister livery, albeit think
that was at Le Mans? Then came the All conquering Group 5 935’s and those Panzerwagon
962’s before Electramotive Engineering and it’s Nasty Nissan GTP ZX Turbos
ended Porsche’s dominance.
Whilst I know I’ve scribbled before about Audi’s
Dominance during the Oughts’, nee Double Zeros’, aka 2000’s, when the All conquering Audi r8 and R10’s won an impressive
eight in a row from 2000-07. As only El Capitano’, nee Roger Penske and his
Factory Porsche RS Spyder could put a stop to this win streak when scoring Porsche’s
latest victory in ’08, as Porsche currently holds the record for most victories
by a manufacture at the aforementioned 18 W’s, Crikeys!
And I totally understand why Scuderia Ferrari
would choose the WEC’s Hypercar class over the IMSA’s LMDH category, since
after all, the 24 Hours of Le Mans is the most revered Sports Car Endurance
event in the World and ultimately offers the most prestige. Not to mention it
gives Automanufacturers more leeway by allowing road going cars to be utilized
for Hypercar Homologation vs. IMSA’s four LMP2 chassis manufacturers and a spec
Hybrid system required.
But that doesn’t mean I still don’t wish to see truly legendous Sports Car racing around the Globe, i.e.; World Sports Car Championship when everybody was able to compete at Daytona, Sebring, Le Mans, Watkins Glen, etc. in a single unified category, albeit perhaps that cannot ever be achieved again due to almighty Capitalism? And who Controls what…
