Quote:
Originally Posted by Chiana
Another example I often like to use are the low number Ferrari 360 and later 430 teams coming to face the ludicrous Porsche 911 armada at the beginning of the century in GT/NGT/GT2. They were at horrendous disadvantage in terms of numbers and it seemed almost desperate but through time, clever engineering and ultimately taking couple of wins, the numbers in GT2 started to rotate 50-50 between Ferrari and Porsche. Meanwhile the likes of Spyker still continued at the back of the back, even though they did not have realistic chance to win with the package they had built. It's living proof that just because you do not have guaranteed success, you can and should still compete. That is what sport is all about.
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I'd add to that: despite being slower, things weren't completely hopeless for the Ferraris, Spykers, Panozes and TVRs. By running a steady race, they had a chance to score podiums and sometimes even wins a la LNT with the Panoz at Le Mans in 2006. Without BoP, the Porsches had to run at the ragged edge of driver skills and reliability as well and some of them did not see the checkered flag after 1000km or 24h. This also helped amateur-drivers like Leo Hindery or Tracy Krohn (!) who both scored podiums at Le Mans without running in a dedicated amateur class.
Today, series brag about a 100% finishing rate when they really should be embarassed by that, as it just shows that drivers and cars are not running at the maximum of their potential performance.