Carlos from Spain:
LdM recently said that they may pull out of F1 since its not exiting anymore, that people don't want to see how eficcient cars are or drivers economising fuel and tires instead of drivers racing all out form point A to point B. Also they sound horrible and anti-show rules like not being able to develop the engine. This would make sense since he also said that they cannot participate in endourance racing and F1 at the same time.
I don´t believe that LdM would decide to leave F1 any time. I agree though that endurance racing is far spectacular, especially this year. His comment might´ve been tongue-in-cheek as he wants to show the officials that F1 racing is not as attractive as it used to be. Lots of that is due to the organization, the politics and the money in the background.
Endurance racing is entertaining per se and especially this year as we have three manufacturers which compete with entirely different engine concepts yet end up at a very similar pace over the course of the race. Which leads me to the expectations some people had at Porsche... they started in a brand new car, with new development structures established for this particular project, with a engine- and drivetrain-technology that is far more advanced than of the other two, they have built a car that in its first three races has already been competitive... so what more do people expect? If one considers how much effort Toyota (or Peugeot previously) put into it and how much difficulties they had, even if their cars have been faster than Audi´s in several years, I am perfectly fine with Porsche´s result. Anything better would have been a great outcome, but I wouldn´t have expected it.
That said, I doubt that Ferrari would be able to instantly perform in a more competitive fashion than Porsche as I believe that nowadays a lot of the performance advantages over the competitors come from experience in various fields (tires, aerodynamics, heat management, suspension setup etc.). Something that even a proficient company such as Porsche can only partly compensate.
Great - I was there yesterday afternoon as I had promised my godchild (10y old) a visit to the museum. We had a good time as we were there at 1.30pm and could walk through the exibition with an audio guide for kids and were ready for the start at 3pm. Porsche really celebrated their return to LeMans at the museum, a pity it didn't work for them in LeMans. We exited the museum at 5 pm and I had a very sleepy passenger on the way back north. Great effort Porsche !!
