Manufacture Assistance for Pescarolo

[XJR14/WSC95]

Having followed the proceedings of the opening round of the LMES the performance of the Pescasrolo Sport team was extremely impressive. And it made me wonder how come manufactures are not getting involved with them. There is a massive potential for reward and only minimal down sides. For example, if a manufacture was to get involved and the team was to win there is the ability to advertise the success and the manufactures involvement with the team, and if they were to fail miserable Joe Public would be none the wiser.

For example Mercedes could give a team a set of engines and gear boxes from the CLK-LM and with a couple of engineers from AMG to create Pescasrolo-Mercedes. Perhaps a little time in a Mercedes wind tunnel using the design staff that Pescasrolo already has in place and presto. They already have arguably the best driver lineup in there lead car .What more do they have to do to attract factory Assistance.

And Mercedes are not the only Manufacture with already existing power plants gathering dust. Toyota have there own 3.6l Twin-Turbo V8 from the GT-One which brought the company far more publicity in three races (with a little help from Grand Tourismo) than the F1 project has achieved in over three years. Old partner Peugeot could have put a little development work into there 905 V10 that is already a proven race winner instead of the V6 Twin turbo that was under powered. I’m shore there are others. They have a great sponsorship package in place (Playstaion) that is promoting them in GT4 and giving them street cred with younger consumers which a future customers for car makers.

Is there a Professional Sports Car team that is more deserving?

[19dodge]

they had Peugeot support for years, but they lost it in 2004. And their cars got better without the support, because the Peugeot engine was pretty crappy.

[TheNewBob]

Maybe the bad Peugeot engine put other manufacturers off putting their money into the team

[BSchneiderFan]

It will be interesting to watch the progress of the NISMO-supported Rollcentre car. Perhaps this sort of chassis-engine, privateer team-engine manufacturer link could be the way forward for prototype racing for the next few years? Cheaper than building your own car, and it keeps the independent chassis manufacturers in business.

[Fab]

Pescarolo works for Peugeot in FTCC. But french brands are not interrested by endurance right now.

Something happend last months, though : french media commitement. We have now endurance racing, and mainly Pescarolo (parly thanks to Loeb), on the covers, on TV, etc...

More to come ?

[BSchneiderFan]

One wonders. Certainly, Peugeot and Citroen are looking for something to do. Perhaps renewed Peugeot commitment to Pescarolo and Le Mans will be the way forward?

[XJR14/WSC95]

I noticed on the coverage of the 04 Le Mans Pescarolo Sport team members were wearing Peugeot Caps. Is this because they were still being sponsored by Peugeot or were they just wearing last years merchandise.

[Fab]

Pescarolo is srtongly backed by Peugeot in FTCC : that's why the team still wears Peugeot caps/shirts. I expect they'll were Playstation stuff for Le Mans this year.

Two things :
- Henri is not an easy guy to work with
- he want to win Le Mans, not just enter it
He'll partner with Peugeot only if he thinks Peugeot put enough in the business (and especially engine developpement) to do something concrete to win.

To speak frankly, I'm surprised that Peugeot didn't try to enter the WTCC instead of the sad (nice races but no concurrence) FTCC (no opponnents : they win all the races). But I'm clearly OT here, and far from my knowings (I know nothing about Touring cars).

[Karl Kling]

Is it in FTCC they race the 406 Coupé? I saw a really good looking 406 Coupé racer at the Paris auto show last year in Pesca livery but i can't remember if it was for FTCC or another series.

[BSchneiderFan]

They used to race the 406 Coupe; they race the 407 now.