[isynge]

Originally Posted by GTfour

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything here and, although I didn't expect I'd say this, I'm fed up with the current 'top class' at Le Mans.
Yes of course, I went to the Spa 6hrs and Le Mans this year and enjoyed the spectacle enormously.

But...

Then I saw a two ton streetcar near 240mph before the Playstation chicane, easily outrunning the chasing helicopter. This left me in awe.
This left me in awe like I was left in awe when I saw the Toyota GT-One's repeatedly break 220mph during the race in '98 and '99.
I sadly didn't witness this, in '88:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcj9DVAM6eY

This years 24 hours of Le mans showed non of the top class LMP1's crack 200mph.(http://nasportscar.com/2016-le-mans-data-analysis/ )
This disappointed me enormously. Yes, the lap times are stupendous, with the vast amounts of downforce these prototypes now cary. More then an F1 car at Monaco, so I've heard from a source from within the Toyota team.
But that's not what I come to Le Mans for. If I want to see very high downforce race cars, I'll go to any F1 race. I used to go to Le Mans for the extremely high speeds with witch these sportscars thundered along the many long straights of this great track. These days have sadly passed. For serious top speeds nowadays, one has to go to F1 as well(Valterry Bottas, Williams, Baku, 378kph/235mph). With turbocharged 1,6 V6 engines producing well over 800hp, these things cary some serious top end fire.
The current top LMP1's, have to make due with heavily choked combustion engines that produce less then 600hp. Those 400 electric pony's do make them accelerate viciously but they disappear in a few seconds, making the cars struggle to reach anything near a respectable topspeed for a serious Le mans flyer.

Oh, and they're as ugly as a dogs behind. Witch ever way you turn it, these cars are no great lookers. Purposeful yes, to achieve these high downforce numbers of course, mean looking as well. But pretty, no. Not like XJR14's, 787B's, GT-one's, GT1-98's or Bentley's Speed eights.
They do not come close to these other 1000hp hybrid cars of late. The Porsche 918, LaFerrari, McLaren P1 or Koenigsegg Regera. Not to mention this fine project Aston and Red Bull are conjuring up...

I say, end the ever spiraling high cost LMP1 era we have now and stop these FIA neutered so called top class sportscars. Show us what real world high tech ultra cars can do on the hallowed grounds of Le Mans. That's what I'd like to see!

It's a valid point, and today, like in so many ways, reminds me of 1992.

Back then 3.5 litre racing engines and sophisticated/expensive aero combined with economic issues to kill the WSPC and push into a slump. Today, is it the same with hybrids and another aero arms race?

The crumb I took back in the early 1990s was that maybe opening things up to exciting GTs (Venturi, Jaguar XJ220 etc) would save us, and in a lot of ways it did. Back then the way it combined with WSC barchettas and led to the small boom of the 98/99 period worked for me - and maybe we're looking at something similar now?

I've liked the last 10 years of LMP1s, from the whisperingly rapid spectacle of the Peugeots leaving everyone behind in the opening hours of various Le Mans, the noise of the Aston Martins flying formation across the startline, and hybrid acceleration duels of recent years (Porsche v Audi at Silverstone 2015 springs readily to mind), but maybe it is time to begin again.

So - where now for first principles?

Answers on a postcard please.