# AmericanLeMans.com on Acura and LMP1



## [email protected] (Apr 9, 2004)

I got this today in a release from the American Le Mans Series:

_Quote »_One of the big questions of this year's American Le Mans Series figures to be resolved at this weekend's Detroit Sports Car Challenge Presented by Bosch, namely, Acura's plans for the 2009 season, in particular whether Acura will join the LMP1 fray. And if so, with which team or teams and how many cars?
Ever since announcing its plans to go sports car racing in the 2007 Series with a trio of LMP2 Acuras, Honda has maintained its eventual goal is to compete in LMP1 at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Indeed, then-president of Honda Performance Development Robert Clarke attended the 2007 24 Hours of Le Mans and returned convinced Acura should only compete in the event in the LMP1 category.
"I was pushing the company to go to Le Mans as soon as possible," he said. "But I'd never been to the event until that year. But after being there and seeing it, I've done a quick 180. 
"LMP1 is for manufacturers; LMP2 is for privateers," Clarke added. "For Acura to compete in LMP2 would be all wrong for that brand. One, if you win you should have won because you just beat-up on a bunch of privateers. And if you lose you look like complete idiots because you got beat by a bunch of privateers. And losing is something that is very possible just because of the nature of the event.
"So we shouldn't go there until we're in P1 and we shouldn't go there until we are completely confident that we can win."
Fast forward to 2008. When Clarke and his successor Erik Berkman introduced Gil de Ferran and his new Acura LMP2 team at the preseason test at Sebring, they made it crystal clear they would not field questions about a move to LMP1. Perhaps that was because speculation was already rampant that de Ferran Motorsports was a stalking horse for Acura's LMP1 program; or maybe they had not yet made a final decision about LMP1 and didn't want to muddy the waters surrounding de Ferran's entry into the American Le Mans Series.
That may be about to change as Acura has requested time for a press announcement be set aside during the Detroit race weekend. Still, it's not quite a forgone conclusion that Acura is taking the LMP1 plunge. 
"There's a lot of factors that enter into the decision," Berkman told me at Road America. "What will the competition do? Who will lay their cards out first? We're talking with our competitors, the teams, ALMS and the tire manufacturers trying to get a sense of how many cars will be competing in what class next year. We're doing it in a respectful way, so as not to ambush one another.
"Right now there's great competition in LMP2 but, as a manufacturer, it's clear the ACO and the American Le Mans Series see LMP1 as our proper domain," he added. "Robert (Clarke) made it clear LMP2 is, ultimately, a stepping stone to LMP1 with Le Mans as the ultimate aspiration. So we started on that path but, as with any path, you reach forks. There are questions of cost, time and the rules makers are trying to balance stability with close competition - which are sometimes at odds. Given today's business climate, now is not the time in racing for uncertainty."
While Berkman's response may be clear as mud, it could not be more evident that Acura's current teams - Andretti Green Racing, Lowe's Fernandez Racing, Patrón Highcroft Racing and de Ferran Motorsports - are jockeying for position in the event Acura does, in fact, go LMP1 in '09.
De Ferran himself, of course, won a pair of CART titles for Honda before serving as sporting director for the Honda F1 team from 2005-2007. The team hit the ground running at Miller Motorsports Park and has been at, or near, the head of the Acura LMP2 queue ever since. And while nobody would suggest merit was not the primary consideration in de Ferran's choice of Simon Pagenaud as co-driver, the fact that Pagenaud hails from Montmorillon, France was not lost on one competitor who said, "Simon Pagenaud? That'll go over well with the ACO," when informed of the decision. 
So too, would another Frenchman named Franck Montagny who joined AGR after a mid-season purge put Herta and Christian Fittipaldi on the street and produced an uptick in the XM Satellite Acura's performance. 
Speaking of performance, it's hard to argue with Patrón Highcroft's record, one that saw the team finish atop the Acura heap in the 2007 points race and claim four wins so far in '08, including Acura's first overall victory at Lime Rock.
"When we formed this team we mapped out a business plan with distinct milestones," says team owner Duncan Dayton. "First was getting the funding to race professionally in 2005. We wanted to race with a proven chassis the next year, so we acquired Lolas from Dyson Racing. In '07 we wanted the backing of a manufacturer, which we did in Acura and this year we wanted to secure a title sponsor and win a minimum of two races. 
"Our milestone for '09 is to move into P1. Now that's Patrón Highcroft's milestone. How it matches with Acura's plans is another thing. This is racing and we all know money and politics come into play, but we think we've deserve a crack at P1."
"That competition (among teams) is certainly going on," adds Tom Anderson, who together with Adrian Fernandez is co-owner of Lowe's Fernandez Racing. "You certainly want to hold up your end of the bargain Acura expects. But the situation is interesting and I think you're seeing it on all the cars except the Audis, which are obviously being bankrolled by Audi. Even the Penske Porsches have DHL sponsorship. 
"So I think the sponsorship package is going to be very important going forward with Acura into P1. For the car and the parts side of your budget you could be looking at a 60 to 80 percent increase. I haven't been told what kind of engine they'll be running, but usually a bigger car with more bells and whistles and more horsepower translates to more money..."
That's in sync with Berkman's observation that, "Penske and Champion/Audi are clearly works teams. Acura does not have works teams. Our teams have to bring the right financial package as well as talent. So it's a different equation than what you see with some other manufacturers."
Whether that equation adds up to an LMP1 program for Acura in '09 remains to be seen, not to mention what that would mean for their LMP2 program and teams. We should get some of the answers on Belle Isle this weekend.


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## Product (May 15, 2008)

*Re: AmericanLeMans.com on Acura and LMP1 ([email protected])*

I honestly think it would be great to see acura go P1.More competition for Audi is a good thing imo and im an Audi fan.I think they should go a prototype class(all p1) and a gt class(gt2 and 3 speced together in one).I think that would push the competition to what i needs to be,if there were 2 classes not 4.


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## [email protected] (Apr 9, 2004)

*Re: AmericanLeMans.com on Acura and LMP1 (Product)*

I don't mind the four classes, but I think they should reconsider works teams like Penske in the lower class.


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## Product (May 15, 2008)

*Re: AmericanLeMans.com on Acura and LMP1 ([email protected])*

True but i think that there being only 2 classes would put more pressure on teams to step it up and the whole series be more competitive which it is obviously lacking in.IMO.
Especially in the GT1 class and LMP1 class.


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## .:RDriver (Oct 4, 1999)

*Re: AmericanLeMans.com on Acura and LMP1 ([email protected])*

Porsche does not have a "works" team in P2...never has.
Just like there is no "works" car in GT2, though there have always been teams that have had the latest and greatest from the factory, such as the Lizards now.
At Le Mans this year it was shown that the Spyder dominance is far more than just a "works" team or not, both Spyders cleaned up the P2 category over there too.
Acura has been far more of a factory effort than the Porsche ever has and its beginning to show. Acura has been testing continuously since the inception of the program. 
That being said, I dont like all this "X class should be factory and Y class should be privateers, etc, etc." If a factory wants to run a certain class then so be it. If they can compete for an overall win in a lower class, so be it, more power to them.


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## chernaudi (Oct 6, 2006)

*Re: AmericanLeMans.com on Acura and LMP1 (.:RDriver)*

There are big differences between what Acura has done and what Porsche is doing with Penske.
Acura(and you may also count Dyson with Porsche) sells the team cars, engines, etc., and lets them race, and use that feedback to improve their product-IE, the teams own the cars, and buy parts for them.
Porsche does much the same with Penske, but with one difference-they basically are a factory team. Penske's Tim Cindric admitted to such(he certianly didn't deny it) recenlty on an episode of Wind Tunnel. But there is a reason for this.
Factory team or not, it seems the Penske deal was mostly an R&D effort. Acura went into LMP2 to develop a LMP1 car, and maybe recruit teams to run the LMP1 cars. Porsche on the other hand has been trying to sell the RS Spyder. But at $1.5 million a whack, and with no more cars being recently sold, there are no immediate plans to continue to build new cars aside from spares. 
There have been persistant rumors that with the ACO rule changes for next yeat that IMSA will likely adopt, and with Porsche wanting to make the RS Spyder program more privateer oriented, that Penske may leave the ALMS after this season. Besides, if the new Audi LMP1 car is faster than the 908(which it's expected that Peugeot won't have a new car next year), there's little chance of the RS Spyder(or the ARX-01b) of winning overall except for Belle Isle, if that's on the ALMS' schedule next year(the IRL and ALMS cars could race on MIS' road course, but that's a different story and a pipe dream due to MIS being ISC/NASCAR owned).
Maybe this is Acura just poviding IMSA and the ACO some more ammo to slow the LMP2 cars and make that class more privateer oriented, like what LMP675 was(though LMP1 was a goal for Acura's program from the start).


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## Product (May 15, 2008)

*Re: AmericanLeMans.com on Acura and LMP1 (chernaudi)*

well said.


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## [email protected] (Apr 9, 2004)

*Re: AmericanLeMans.com on Acura and LMP1 (chernaudi)*

There are the two Spyders that ran at Le Mans and at least one of those is an LMS regular. Also, they just made the switch to direct injection. Are you sure dev is done on RS Spyder? I don't know, so I'm not trying to suggest it is or isn't.


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## chernaudi (Oct 6, 2006)

*Re: AmericanLeMans.com on Acura and LMP1 ([email protected])*

That's just like saying that the new Audi LMP1 for next year will/won't be a coupe. Dr. Ullrich said that he wanted the new Audi to be an open car, but that was about 6 months ago. After what has happened in the LMS and Le Mans with Peugeot's pace, Audi could very well go either way. There isn't seemingly much difference in chassis stiffness and the like(though the closed cars have less drag in a straight line). However, unless Audi starts to use J-dampers on the R10 or something like that(Peugeot has been claimed by many motorsports technical writers to be using them since the start of this year), we won't get much of a gauge as far as what's causing the peformance gap, among other things(such as the R10 seems to be less of a handful to drive in the ALMS due to the extra weight they have to carry, etc).
And if Porsche want to remain top dog in the ALMS's LMP2 class, they do have to keep up with developments, as although Acura's focus has shifted to LMP1 for next year, at least one(likely two) teams will have updated LMP2 cars next year.


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