In the interests of safety, the new cars feature stepped and chamfered floors instead of the flat floors of their predecessors. The rear overhang is smaller, as is the rear wing. A symmetrical roll bar is also mandated. The result is less overall down force and increased drag. Lola's Technology Centre Manager Chris Saunders predicts that it will not however be long before the cars are as quick as their predecessors. He speaks with authority as the B05/40 design has spent many hours in Lola's own wind tunnel in Huntingdon, considerably more, he points out that the time spent on the 40 per cent scale model wind tunnel programme that the FIA/ACO TWG used to formulate the new rules.

During 2004 only one genuinely new car appeared that had been built from scratch to the new regulations, the Lucchini LMP2/04 which appeared at the last race of the season, the Spa-Francorchamps 1000kms. Otherwise most of the cars described as “LMP1s” were old LM P900s and LM P675, while the “LMP2s” were either former LM P675s or aluminium-tubbed racers from the now defunct FIA SR2 category. The old classes did not directly translate into the new, as LM P675s could find themselves in either LMP1 or LMP2 depending upon whether they featured carbon or aluminium tubs.

Both classes also included hybrids, the Nasamax in the case of LMP1 and the Courages in LMP2. What has been happening is that the ACO has been trying to retain as many older cars during the 2004 and 2005 seasons giving sufficient time for enough new cars to be introduced.

The 2003 cars will be allowed to continue until the end of 2005. However, their performance has been gradually curtailed in order to allow any new cars to be competitive. Last season that meant a fuel capacity reduction from 90 litres to 80 litres and a reduced rear wing. For 2005 there was even talk of taking the draconian step of introducing an underfloor plank, which would surely have meant the disappearance of the all-conquering Audi R8 a year early. However, common sense prevailed and an additional five per cent intake restriction and 50 kg weight penalty have been introduced.

The hybrids will be allowed to continue for an extra year, up to the end of the 2006 season. These are 2004-specification cars that have been built from a 2003 monocoque and safety cell. The bio-ethanol fuelled Nasamax DM139 was the only example of an LMP1 hybrid at Le Mans in 2004. The previous year the same car had appeared as a LM P900 Reynard 01Q. The result was visually very different behind the cockpit area. Lister has recently announced that it, too, will be converting its ugly Storm LM P900 into a hybrid for the 2005 season. Hope has been expressed that it will become a “better looking car.”

The uncertainty of what might be described as the interregnum of the 2004/2005 seasons was arguably one of the reasons why the only two works teams entered for last year's Le Mans 24-hour race, Chevrolet and Morgan, were to be found in the GTS and GT classes respectively. However, despite all this, the Le Mans Endurance Series (LMES) made a promising debut during the year. Four 1,000kms “classics”, Monza, Nürburgring, Silverstone and Spa, were revived to be run to exactly the same regulations as Le Mans itself. Fields of about 40 cars were the norm, almost half of them prototypes despite the then shortage of commitment to the post-2006 age. “It's encouraging to get to this stage so quickly,” commented Nasamax's John McNeil. Ian Dawson, who entered a ground breaking diesel fuelled Lola B2K/10 - the first diesel at Le Mans for around 50 years - described the series as “a massive boost for sportscar racing.”

There are some that believe that the future of the LMES will be for privateers. There will almost certainly be no works LMP cars during 2005. This would indicate that the LMP2 class is the one to be supplying product for. However, there is hope that more than one manufacturer may contest the LMP1 class in 2006. Audi confirmed that it would be back with a works team at the Essen Motor Show in late November 2004. This will follow two years of lending out its all-conquering R8s for private entries by its importers. The year will see the swan song of the R8, with at least three entries from the USA and France, while development of the new R10 takes place. The first tests of the new racer are planned for the end of 2005 with Head of Audi Motorsport Wolfgang Ullrich suggesting a race debut at the 2006 Sebring 12-hours.

Dr Ullrich points out that “it would be nice to have competition from some really big car manufacturers.” There has been rumour of a Porsche return while Zytek founder Bill Gibson said he had been approached by major manufacturers following the 04S's stunning Le Mans practice. Trevor Foster, managing director of the company's chassis operation, now plays this down but, as mentioned above, Lola's Rupert Manwaring is keen to build an LMP1 version of the new B05/40 for a big name player.

A long term, healthy endurance series with large prototype fields is something that has been not seen since the heady days of Group C. However, if support for the new regulations does take off, then Motorsport Valley, arguably stifled by a host of one-makes series, could benefit considerably. The B05/40 for instance has been designed to take any one of four British engines, the Zytek 3.4-litre V8, the Judd 3.4-litre V8, the four-cylinder AER 2.0-litre turbo and the Nicholson-McLaren V8. Three of these have already been chosen for the four cars ordered so far. The rival Lucchini also uses a Judd V8.

Should the interest not materialise in LMP1/LMP2 then we will presumably blame the rule makers, wonder where new business will come from and go back to dreaming of Pedro Rodriguez and Jo Siffert in Porsche 917s. Alternatively, as the admittedly biased man from Prodrive (which is building the new Aston Martin DBR9) reckoned, the GTS class could become the future of endurance racing. There were those in power in 1962 and again in the late 1970s that also thought, wrongly, the way to go was via GT cars. Thankfully, today's rule makers believe in the sports prototype. While they may be criticised in the way in which they are changing the rules, they should be applauded in their attempts to bring it back into prominence. Should they succeed, the UK motorsports industry will surely have reason to thank them.

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