In LM-GT1, the first three places were taked by Ford GTs.

Later on, Henri Pescarolo expressed concerns about his – and other privateers – ability to recruit sponsors given this new situation. For a few years now, both Audi and Peugeot, two extremely wealthy factory teams, participate at Le Mans with diesel prototypes. They afford to hire exceptional drivers so they’ve got the talent and the cars. And if Audi and Peugeot enter three cars each, and they don’t screw up, it’s very likely they snatch the first six places in the race. This means that the best a privateer like Pescarolo can hope for is seventh place, maybe sixth of fifth if one or two diesels abandon. And that’s a place they have to compete with Aston Martin Racing for. This is a huge problem for Pescarolo and the like, because it hurts their ability to attract sponsors. Sponsors tend to give money to teams with chances to win. If from the start on, no matter how good you are, you can only do seventh, who’s going to give you money? When Pescarolo was fighting the big factory teams with equal arms – in terms of engine technology – he was always in the top and sponsors – and as such money – could always be found. Well, things have changed.

Today, Pescarolo Sport is in pretty bad shape. The sponsors problem and the economic / financial crisis hurt the team pretty badly. After surviving for one season by forming a joint venture with Sora Group, the team has failed to raise more funds, despite excellent results last season: second in Le Mans Series and a first place in the Asian Le Mans Series at Okayama. The press reports that negotiations with a Luxembourg based investment group to raise money for the 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans are about to fail and Pescarolo Sport might have to give up the two invitations it was awarded by the ACO.

If this is true and Pescarolo Sport has to give up their Le Mans participation, it would be a shock to many. We really hope they will be able to recover and find the funds to keep racing.

While KERS systems are already used in Formula 1, it would be the first time the concept is used in conjunction with a diesel powertrain.

Learn more about the KERS system.

• Former Formula 1 driver Giancarlo Fisichella will race the full 2010 Le Mans Series season. He will drive a GT2 Ferrari F430 GT for team AF Corse.
• LMP1 team Signature Competition acquired a Lola Aston Martin which they will race in 2010 in the Le Mans Series and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. So I really hope they’ll give that car a decent paint work not that uninteresting, unappealing, pale Gulf blue an orange. Seriously, how can you paint an Aston like that? Last year at scrutineering a couple of teenagers passed by the 007 exclaiming: look, a GT40!!! I guess you realized by now I don’t like the Aston LMP1 paintwork. The Aston will replace an Oreca-Judd prototype.
• More Aston news: the fine people at JVM Motorsport switched cars. They ditched the old Ferarri F430 and got a brand new Aston Martin Vantage GT2. This is important for two reasons. For you and me, this means the Spyker LAVIOLETTE will not be the only car in GT2 that is not a Porsche GT3 RSR or a Ferarri F430. So it’ll make it more interesting. For Aston Martin this means the british marque is establishing a presence in three Le Mans categories, which is good for their image. Especially if they win.
• Audi has decided to throw the new and revised R15 Plus to the wolfs so they registered it for the 8 Hours of Le Castellet in April and the 1000 Km of Spa in May in order to warm it up for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June. This is basically a good thing for them because nothing gives you better feedback about a race car than throwing it in a real race. It’s also a good thing for us fans because it makes the show better. After Le Mans, Audi will also race at Silverstone. So they’ll be there at three races out of five. If they win them all, they win the series. The fine chaps at AMR are probably not very happy about this, I would guess.

Another important factor for the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup to succeed is to secure enough prestigious participants, and that’s where things don’t go so well, yet. While Audi announced their support immediately, committing to send their R15 Plus to all three races, Peugeot say that while the creation of the global series is the right thing to do and they support the initiative they are more likely not to participate this first season. Their priority for 2010 is the development of a new car and winning the 24 Hours Of Le Mans 2010.

Among the private teams, Kolles from Le Mans Series and Drayson Racing from the the American Le Mans Series have announced plans to participate. Hugues de Chaunac, the Oreca boss said the new series is great news but didn’t make any commitment.

While things don’t look very bright at the moment, the Intercontinental will only debut in September at Silverstone, so teams have nine more months to secure funding and enlist.

This might look surprising, but if Audi didn’t manage to address technical and organisational issues that made them loose this year’s 24 Heures du Mans to Peugeot, they might decide not to expose themselves to another public defeat. After all Audi has a winner image to defend and why would they expose the marque to another defeat when they can just invoke poor economic conditions to stay home and better prepare yourself to smash the adversary the next season? Of course it’s not very sport, but with major auto builders entering competition to drive sales, car racing stopped being about sport a long time ago.

So will Audi pick up the gauntlet and take on Peugeot at Petit Le Mans? Will see.