Le Mans: Porsche boss criticises Le Mans rules

[Plex]

Porsche's motorsport director Harmut Kristen has called for greater parity between petrol and diesel engined cars in the Le Mans regulations before his company will consider another full-scale assualt on the 24 hour race.

Although Porsche's 911-based cars predominate in the GT2 category, Porsche has not challenged for outright Le Mans honours since winning the 1998 race, and Kristen denied that a return to the LMP1 class was on the cards.

"This isn't necessarily our next step, and we aren't even evaluating it," he was quoted as saying by Autosprint.

"That's also because we don't agree with the current ACO-Le Mans regulations: in LMP1 there absolutely isn't equivalence between petrol and diesel engines, the latter being undoubtedly advantaged.

"This is the most important parameter that, in our opinion, doesn't work."

The Pescarolo Sports team made similar complaints after losing last year's Le Mans 24 Hours to Audi's new diesel-fuelled car, and Peugeot have opted for diesel fuel for their new prototype.

None of the teams racing Porsche's LMP2 chassis in the American Le Mans Series will contest Le Mans this year, and Kristen suggested that this was due to performance restrictions imposed to prevent the less powerful but lighter LMP2 cars challenging the LMP1s.

"Our teams have decided not to participate and we are not interested in racing directly with an LMP2 class car with which we can't aim for overall victory," he said.

"We've never done that except in some rare occasions in the past, and it's not in our strategy."

The ALMS has decided not to apply the penalties in its regulations, prompting complaints from Audi, who are currently the only team committed to the LMP1 class.

By contrast, LMP2 has seen an influx of high-profile new entries, with additional customer Porsches plus works-backed Acura-powered cars run by the likes of Andretti-Green and Fernandez Racing.

Audi fears that by allowing the cheaper LMP2 to contend for outright victories, the ALMS is threatening LMP1's future.

"I don't understand Audi's complaint," said Kristen.

"If there had been an increase by 5% of the intakes in LMP2 it would be understandable, but on the contrary they remained the same as they were in 2006.

"Now they threaten to retire from ALMS? If a top team or a top car leaves it's always a loss.

"In any case, with or without the reduction of the intakes in LMP2, Audi would win anyway, therefore the decision to stay or leave ALMS is completely up to them."

Autosport