Opinion: Gary Watkins
What was already shaping up to be the dawn of a new golden age of sportscar racing has been given a further boost by the Italian manufacturer’s decision to join the party
“The rules ensure stylists and not just aerodynamicists can have a say in how the car looks”
Abright new future for the top flight of sportscar racing. Massively reduced costs. Prototype machines that can be made to look like their road-going brethren. And a surplus of resources from its Formula 1 programme becoming available. The stars have aligned for Ferrari’s long-awaited factory return to the pinnacle of sportscar racing.
Everything came together for the decision that preceded Wednesday’s announcement of the Italian manufacturer’s bid from 2023 to add to its tally of nine outright victories at the Le Mans 24 Hours. It seems it is just a happy coincidence that Ferrari’s first factory assault with a prototype will come on stream half a century on from its last such campaign in 1973 with the 312 PB.
This was an opportunity that was too good to turn down because sportscar racing really does seem set for another golden age. Ferrari is developing a Le Mans Hypercar, like Toyota and Peugeot, for the World Endurance Championship, while Porsche, Audi and Acura are taking the alternative route into what is simply — yet confusingly — called the Hypercar class with Lmp2-based LMDH prototypes. It would be too strong to say there was an imperative for Ferrari to throw its hat into the ring, but there was a clear draw to enter a class that’s surely going places.
The LMH category, and LMDH more so, has been conceived to drastically reduce the cost of racing at the top of the sportscar tree.
No longer will a manufacturer have to come up with a nine-figure budget, as was the case in LMP1. Antonello Coletta, boss of the Competizione GT department overseeing the prototype return, suggested a year ago that LMDH would allow Ferrari to race at the front of the WEC field for little more than it spends in GTE Pro. LMH will require a bigger budget, but his comments give an insight into the thinking behind Ferrari’s return to the sportscar big time.
Ferrari, of course, has been an ever-present force in the world of GT racing for the past quarter of a century, and has graced the WEC grid in GTE Pro with the factory AF Corse operation since the rebirth of the series in 2012. Sportscar manufacturers need to go racing with the cars they sell, or something at least resembling them. LMH offers that chance while shooting for the biggest prizes on offer. The rules have been framed to ensure that the stylists and not just the aerodynamicists can have a say in how the car looks.
That was among the factors that weighed in favour of LMH when Ferrari made its final decision. So too did the fact that an LMDH car would be based on something that wasn’t, well, a Ferrari. The marque has traditionally had a chauvinistic approach to racing car design and build. You get the impression that it couldn’t countenance a machine developed around someone else’s P2 car, even if it did bear the Prancing Horse on the front and have one of its engines in the back.
Developing an LMH car will be more expensive than going down the LMDH road. But the fact that Ferrari is going to have a surfeit of resources — money, people and technology — now that Formula 1 has finally introduced a budget cap for 2021 can’t be ignored. That’s despite Ferrari’s protestations that there is no link between its factory sportscar return and the reduction in costs of going F1 racing.
It can be no coincidence that the last time Ferrari was evaluating a step up to the top class of the WEC came in 2013, when cost restrictions were on the table for 2015. Then-ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo said in December 2013 that the company would build an Lmp1“sooner or later”.
The budget cap was quickly shouted down by the big teams, Ferrari among them, and there was no more talk of P1. Six years on, and F1 finally has a budget cap in place. The $145million for this season, which will come down in two five-million chunks in 2022 and 2023, is significantly down on the
$175m originally agreed back in 2019.
Ferrari was against the reduction and, back in April last year, F1 team principal Mattia Binotto declared that the marque might have“to look further at other options for deploying our racing DNA”IN the face of a reduced budget requiring a cut in manpower. Some interpreted that as a threat to quit F1, but it would be more correct to suggest that it offered another hint of a prototype return.
There’s an irony to the freeing up of resources from the F1 team playing a part in Ferrari’s decision. Its long-standing participation in what can generically be called the world sportscar championship was axed for 1974 by that man Montezemolo. In his new role as team manager, Montezemolo reckoned it was time to focus resources on F1 to re-establish Ferrari at the sharp end of the grand prix grid. His strategy did the trick: Niki Lauda won the marque’s first drivers’title for 11 seasons in 1975, and then one followed every other year through to the end of the decade.
Of course, it’s not as straightforward to say that Ferrari is shooting for overall Le Mans win number 10 just because there’s a budget cap in F1. The decisions of major motor manufacturers are never that simple. But whatever they were, we should look to the heavens and thank those lucky stars.