View Single Post
Old 12 Jun 2007, 16:48 (Ref:1935225)   #10
Austinspace75
Racer
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
England
Cardiff
Posts: 176
Austinspace75 should be qualifying in the top 10 on the grid
This is a not a simple question to answer as its entirely dependant on so many things.... infact... everything!

If the question is simply regarding the cost of entering, arriving and running an average car in any of the classes, then yes you might be able to come to a ball park figure. (and sorry, no I don't have that figure)

But, this business is horrendously complicated and is never as simple as it might be nice to imagine it to be. Personally, for me, its this incredible complication that helps makes it such a fascinating life long interest. And its really cool aswell of course!
Regarding costs, for a start the amount a team spends is usually in direct proportion to the amount that is available to them. In this respect, sports cars is no different from F1. Its just that the amounts available are generally much smaller! As a side note, the recent attempts at rule changes that could lower the costs of F1 are generally considered a misnomer by industry experts as teams will find other ways to spend their budget that might give them an advantage. I don't suppose sportscars is any different.

To even consider entering Le Mans, you have to be an active, prominent, successful competitor in a high profile sportscar series or event, which usually takes a fantastic budget to acheive in itself.... and you haven't even packed the truck for Le Mans yet!
You can be granted an entry by running something very different and/or innovative and/or eccentric (a bit like the ACO infact), but I don't think that is what this question is about.

The over-riding influence on total cost will be the availability of budget. Everything else is secondary in my view. Those with a huge budget spend it on everything they can think of and those without a big enough budget (and/or the skills/team/drivers/car/preparation/experience... its a long list) don't make it to Le weekend. Most teams budgets will lie somewhere in between the two extremes and vary depending on who's backing them, running them, driving the cars, what they want to acheive and the luck that god affords them trying to do it.

However, there have been many examples over the years in all forms of motor racing (but less so more recently) of teams being successful on relatively small budgets. But this is often the result of the application of some very valuable expertise and experience from an 'old hand' or two.... who've probably been part of the budget of countless teams over a long career to enable that experience to be built up.... would we count that in the true cost?

I know this doesn't really answer the question but there it is anyway. I'm just trying to demonstrate some of the influences that could affect the answer to this question.
Austinspace75 is offline  
__________________
Tom Ibrahim
Quote