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It's also not WECs fault that Nissan, Aston Martin and Ginetta were jokes and Peugeot suffered financial losses. We lost more teams to outside factors than we did to the VAG problems. However it IS WECs fault that we lost all the privateers from LMP1. It was their job to build a sustainable ruleset for them, and they failed - concentrating on trying to get manufacturers in, regardless of the damage it did to the privateers. The end result was no manufactures (because manufacturer rule sets are expensive) and no privateers.
When you build your entire series around the idea that it has to have manufacturers to survive then when they leave, you're screwed. See: Now. Meanwhile if you build rules that are designed to keep privateers in the series, you get manufacturers anyway because, and you said it yourself, Le Mans is a huge race and the costs aren't ridiculous when it's privateer focused.
Hypercar feels more like a Ferrari Strategy Plan F than a Plan B, to be blunt. WEC has been randomly flinging crap at the wall in a hope there is a magic fix. Super-seasons, weird performance balancing, changing pit stop regulations, hypercar. It's not like the series has a real plan.
The issues WEC have extend far beyond the LMP1 class too. LMP2 has become a 1 make series due to the rule set. GTE-Pro is on its arse, and whilst GTE-Am is healthier, it has to feed off of what GTE-Pro gives it - which is limited chassis makes. So GTE is struggling too.
WEC has been mismanaged spectacularly. It's time for someone new. I vote Bart. We'll get someone from inside the ACO who'll do the exact same stuff again of course, but we can but dream.
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