Had high hopes for the Peugeot team, but especially with only 1 car entered, lots can go wrong at Sebring. After that I was hoping Audi could complete the miracle comeback, as I loathe the way ALMS blatently caters to Penske and the LMP-2 cars.
Ah well, it was fun to see, and we REALLY REALLY need an LMP or something in LFS!
I really can't understand these claims. Even if they did cater to the Porsches and other P2 cars (which I don't see them doing at all) it at least ads some actual racing. Audi is more or less the only P1 car in the ALMS. Pugs are not in ALMS, Intersport and Autocon have no hope in hell of catching them. Who gives a toss about P1? The racing is happening in P2.
Ah, ALMS not complying to the revised ACO rules for 08 is pretty clearly showing favor to the LMP-2 class.
Audi should care, they spend a LOT of money to race in the highest class.
Why have a LMP-1 class if you're going to neuter its performance to sub-standard levels? No-one else is going to get into LMP-1 in ALMS because the class lacks the ability to win races and you have to go head-to-head with the all-conquering audi's. Because of it, I can't see Audi spending much more time racing in NA at all. And then what? We're left without have a premier class in ALMS, terrific.
This is done for money issues - many teams can't afford to upgrade to new rules every year. That's why we had the hybrid rules longer than the (then) LMES/LeMans. Which rules changes this year that were not adopted by the ALMS do you mean specifically? I haven't looked at the rules yet.
In my corner of the universe, something is very wrong when P2 cars can win overall. p1 cars should be in front unless they actually break down and stay in the pits for many laps.
But I have to agree with MAGGOT. The P2 cars at least offers some real racing drama. P2 and GT2 is the classes worth watching in ALMS this year. Let's hope LMS puts on a better show with more competition in P1 and GT1.
P1 cars would have been in front in this race if they hadn't had breakdowns and stayed in the pits for many laps. Pretty easily, in fact. The P2s were much more reliable overall.
Would be fun to count, who would have won "overall championship" last year if points would have been given after overall results At least Speedtv should check their screen graphics, make that "class leaders" to "overall top 5". Who really gives a shit about P2 leader, because it's quite clear that under the politics there's only one LMP class on the track.
And yeah, IMSA hasn't applied the rules. ACO's regs for 2008: 900 kg (previously 925) and 825 kg + 80 l tank, IMSA: 800 + 90 l tank. But still, I'd take it this way than seeing Audi parade lapping in its own loneliness race after race. I still want to think that P2's competitiveness has more to do with the slower (but obviously great) tracks in US. Plus Porsche and Acura has taken the cars to the limit, which can't be said about any other private not factory backed team in P2. Lets hope Acura really moves to P1 next year like it has said (and obviously wouldn't make much sense to skip Le Mans in that case?).
The three RS Spyders (Horag, VM Motorsport and some other) this year in LMS will probably eat the P2 grid alive. Maybe even some of the older private P1 cars.
As far as I've understood when LMP1/LMP2 predecessors LMP900 and LMP675 were formed, the LMP675 wasn't a clear "secondary class", but obviously it turned out to be inferior.
When it was formed in 2003 it was LMES (Le Mans Endurance Series) but from 2006 it's been LMS. There was also ELMS (European Le...), which was an effort by Don Panoz but only lasted one season in 2001. French language is stupid but I wonder why it's so common to write "LeMans" without a space.
Also one big thing hasn't yet been mentioned here, and it's that Europort acquired rights to show LMS. But looks like it remains on MotorsTV too according to Martin Haven's (one of the commentators on Eurosport/MotorsTV) post at planetlemans.com's forums. Eurosport shows only first 30 minutes of the races and in some rounds last 2 hours, and then highlights later in the week. Obviously this is related to Audi's demands to have better television coverage. Eurosport promies to do extensive 24 hour coverage of the 24 LM, which won't be on MotorsTV anymore (but LMS will be). Also there will be free webstream on Eurosport's site. I guess this is win-win when it still stays on MotorsTV.
I got the impression Eurosport was to broadcast the entire thing, not just chunks of it here and there. But as long as the stream are good and live and uninterrupted I can live with that. I'm watching more motorsport on my computer than on the telly these days anyway.
Well 24 LM yes, not LMS. It's 7 hours on Eurosport and 17 hours of on Eurosport 2. Which is a bad deal because the 2nd channel's availability is much crappier. But I guess that's why there's going to be that web stream for free. For MotorsTV subscribers this is probably not so nice deal...
...but with LMS this deal is perfect: full live races on MotorsTV like previously and Eurosport shows the highlights and an hour here and there.
Now ACO should also shape up it's advertising, "Battle of the Diesels" and so on.
* obviously 24 LM = 24h of Le Mans, LMS = Le Mans Series
Full season. Why you ask that? Joest = official Audi team, literally Audi Sport Team Joest. Just like "Audi Sport North America" in ALMS is actually Champion Racing.
In GT1 purely, it's different deal obviously; works Astons and works Corvettes. Glad to see Vitaphone there, with Aston. They could not take the entry ticket they've earned from winning FIA GT in 2007 because Maserati MC12 is illegal* but they reapplied with Aston.
*ACO don't want to bend the rules, unlike FIA did. Good principle but I think they should. There are not so many big competitive teams there anyway.
I've found ABC 7, ABC 10 and ABC 23, but none of the seems connected to ESPN (That owns ABC right?) and none of them are very pretty to watch.
Eursosport will broadcast over the internet. It says so on all the big sites, so it must be true. But ever since Yahoo took over Eurosport, everything is so bleeding hard to find.
the rules revision was that the LMP-2's have to weight +50kg more this year (a smaller fuel tank IIRC as well). 
lol
But for some reason that's not listed in the international Eurosport page.