Le Mans – Happy days are here again(?)

As the ACO continues to improve its relationship with the FIA (ensuring a sports car world created in the ACO’s vision), factory programs are returning to Le Mans with guns blazing.

We haven’t been this excited about sports car racing since the late 1990s, the last time the German manufacturers took the 24 hour race seriously in numbers. Not since the Group C era have we seen so much harmony; excuse us for being a little choked up….

Toyota will return with a hybrid, seeking to recapture the glory of 1999, when it almost took outright honors at La Sarthe. This is a huge boost for the prototype field, which has thinned in recent years as a global recession shrinks racing budgets. Toyota bailed out of F1 without a race win, but perhaps the time is ripe for a more modest return to international competition.

[Aside: we are so tired of writing the words "racing" and "recession" in the same sentence.]

Nissan – resurrecting its halcyon Nismo days – also plans a return trip to France. There is some symmetry here as Renault controls Nissan (but has no Le Mans program and abruptly shoveled its F1 team to private equity two years ago). Nissan hasn’t signaled precisely when it will return.

Porsche will also return to Le Mans, but not until 2014. Porsche has not run a top-flight prototype in several years, although its LMP2 Spyder was a giant-killer over its short life.

Conceivably, within a few years, we could see Porsche, Audi, Nissan, Toyota, and Peugeot battling it out for the prototype championship. This suggests that manufacturers are reaping greater rewards out of Le Mans than F1, especially if you consider that Renault and Toyota quit F1 and Porsche has stayed away for years. Cap an FIA sanction on top of the ACO rulebook, and it looks like the good times are back for sports car racing.

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