Rich Sandor

The rumour mill is churning of a new P-car prototype/LMP in camo doing laps around the Ring... just wondering if anyone knows anything..

google turns up nothing...

Glen

Probably You will see the Audi Diesel Lemans car prior to that..

alexands

P car prototype @ LeMans would rule supreme. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Why no Porsche F1? Since they go head-to-head with Ferrari in other series, why not go after F1? They have the resources and smarts. The only thing I can think of is they are waiting for Schumaker to retire so they can have a chance.

Mike in Chi

alexands

The last time they tried F-1, they had their heads handed to them.

Rich Sandor

Are you kidding? Ferrari spends 200 MILLION per season. They have Philip Morris, Shell and Voda Phone. Not to mention Schumi, Rubens, Brawn, Rory, and loads of other experienced F1 guys.

Porsche can't afford to compete in that arena, and it's not going to compete in a series it can't win in!!!!!

Mike in Chi

Porsche won't even compete in a series they can win.

Stuttgart

Sad but true

Glen

And here it is....

http://www.speedarena.com/news/publi...cle_6324.shtml

chrisp

Out of pocket expenses to support F1 in 2005 for the various car companies. These aren't team budgets just the car company spends.

This was recently reported in BusinessF1

Honda: $560 million (spent a huge chunk building a new wind tunnel in '05)..a normal 2005 would have been $250m
Mercedes: $236m
Toyota: $212m
BMW: $160m
Renault: $113m
Fiat: $10m

Renault got an excellent value out of it.

Does Porsche have the money to play with these guys?

bhensarl

I only have one thing to say about the R10...
They say it has 1100 newton-meters of torque. 1 100 newton meters = 811.318364 foot pounds
Wow.
Brian

jgrant

I tend to think that they don't WANT to compete in that arena, either. Part of their whole strategy is to compete in areas where customers can come up and buy their cars and go race them with a turn-key solution.

Take a look at the new Spyder... I think I read somewhere that they have 6 private teams running them either next year or '07. It's also much "closer" to the cars they sell, IMO, and they'll probably be able to see a higher volume of sales as a result.

Sure, the thing is still light years ahead of what you can buy for the street, but it's still closer than an F1.

So, I think that they see a better ROI running non-F1 races.

Personally, I'd rather see them make a comeback in Rally.

38D

Because there is not value in it. F1 cars are so absurdly different, that it's not even a test bed for new technologies. At least with their current plans, they test out things that actually make it to the customer. Le Mans is clearly a test bed as evidenced by Audi's recent move.

chrisp

38D, I bet that (for example) Honda's #1 reason for being involved is to teach engineering skillsand learn new technologies that will improve their road cars. Honda doesn't go racing as a brand building exercise. Also, I suspect the Ferrari paddle shift gearbox wouldn't be around if it weren't for F1.

jgrant

The other thing to remember is that Honda is a WAAAYYY bigger company than Porsche, and has way more money to spend on "R&D".

And don't underestimate the effect of the "ego factor" when it comes to justifying 1 (or 2) F1 teams.