Welcome to the Martial Pro podcast. The week in sports cars presented this week by me, and I'm Graham Goodwin, and him, and it's Stephen Kilby with Martial Pro. It's unable to join us this weekend, is en route to Red America for the answer whether to export SCAR Championship weekend, but Martial will be back with us next week. Before we get into the action, here's our sponsors. Time to say a big thank you to our show partners on the Martial Pro podcast, starting with FAF technologies. Build to print composites manufacturing company. They're specializing in medium to large scale automotive, motor sports, and military applications. Visit FAFtechnologies.com. It's P F A F F technologies.com to learn more about their services and how they can benefit your business. Next, it's the Justice Brothers. Makers of premium additives, lubricants, and cleaners in servicing the automotive and motorsports industries for more than 85 years. The victories in all the biggest North American motor races, including the Indianapolis 500, the 24 hours a day tona, the Justice Brothers products are truly race proven. Learn about their vast history and range of offerings at JusticeBrothers.com. If you're fond of awesome motor racing collectibles, including FAF motorsports, McLaren, Gear, and goodies, pay a visit to torontomotorsports.com. And finally, you have a new online merchandise home for the podcast, ThePruitStore.com. All the show stickers, models, racing memorabilia, trying to sell and put towards our fun to buy a house is now live and rocking. ThePruitStore.com. Well, Stephen, it's great to be back with the weekend sports because it's great to have you back, which has, I'm trying to make you believe that. And what I don't think it's back this week is we're back to some listener Q&A, which is a massive plus. It's the modus operandi. It's the USP. It's the lifeblood. It's the DNA. It's all those good things that we can sport cars. But one of our fabulous listeners brought up with us brought up for us this week. My guess is the cornucopia of good things. Yeah, a smorgasbord questions. Oh, we've had too much coffee. We are just recording this in the UK, of course, just as the Red America Enter weekend gets underway. We asked for questions a week ago. We'd been one or two logistical niggles that have gone in the waivers, recording this earlier this week. So one or two of the areas of questioning will be familiar maybe from the news some days ago. But no less valid to actually add a little bit more depth than we hope you can do. That's most, if not all, of the issues that are going to be raised in the show. Think about an hour or so for this. Yeah, so two then. So two, two, it's a Marshall Pruit Hour. So, you know, we'll be with you till next Tuesday. Lots of news, though, still to come. Most of which we can't tell you about yet. Some of which we do know when it's going to happen. Some of which we don't. But fair to say that we've got almost got as much going on in terms of what's happening in the future as we've got in terms of what's happening now. Yeah, it's not quite summer break, is it? It's not quite. So break, break. What a quality of talk here. What is this break of which you talk? Loads going on on a whole range of fronts. Some news we'll be able to bring to you soon. Some news I hope to be able to bring to you a little after that. And beyond that, some real excitement to come. If you think you know what's going on out there, well, if you do, this is a surprise to us because we're sitting on plenty. We'll crack on through it. And I think the way we're going to play this one is, you're going to chuck out the questions for discussion. And I'm going to tell you whether or not I want you to answer them or not. So like normal then? Yeah, not sure. So no format change there. No format change. It's basically effectively, it's the podcast version of type faster. Yes, fantastic. Let's start, shall we, with Toyota and hydrogen, we've had a handful of questions about that. And this follows some conversations that Toyota have with the media at Brazil about their future in the sport and the shape of the regulations to come. Mark Whiteleg starts us off. He says, "Suppose the big talking point this week is hydrogen. With Toyota now, fully going down that route, will more follow. BMW, I know, is keen on hydrogen, but kudos to Toyota for being the first one to go. Yep, let's go. It's an exciting future ahead." Well, you had the conversation with Toyota. I'll come to that in a moment. There's been a lot of manufacturers involved over time with the working groups on technology that was widened more recently to do with hydrogen combustion as well as hydrogen fuel cell. I think it's a small move why restrict the options of technology. Will Morgan, well, first and foremost, just fill in for the listener about exactly what Toyota did tell you. Yeah, so this is kind of in the wake of the announcement of Le Mans that the hydrogen rules that have been delayed by year. So after a series of delays, I think we're getting traction. We're getting a little bit of progress on these regulations, but there's still a bit of a ways off, just in terms of the shape of them and the technology being there. And Toyota basically came out and said the way it's looking is that in year one, the thought at the moment is that there'll be just a few races for those cars, select races during the WCCs and... Three races, I think. Yeah, so Le Mans would be obviously the main headline, and that would match the timeline that the agency has always had, which is trying to get hydrogen cars racing at Le Mans before 2030. Plus, Spa, plus possibly Fuji, and I'm guessing that's in part going to be led by Toyota wanting to show that car off in their home market. They are at the moment at least the most vocal of the potential manufacturers that are declaring their interests with this. So they announced, it wasn't really a formal announcement, it's more like just a riffing of ideas, but they feel like the way it's going at the moment, unless there's any major changes, the timeline would mean that they won't bring a new car to a place, the GRO 10, before the hydrogen regulations come in. Instead, there'd be like a transition where they'd run both the hydrogen car and the GRO 10 at the same time. So run the GRO 10 for the entire season, and then the hydrogen car for these select races. They're effectively doing a dual program, but the capacity of what they've got in terms of building and designing and manufacturing cars and cologne for racing is such that it doesn't make sense for them to develop two cars at the same time. So we're going to see updates coming for the GRO 10 using up the jokers that they'll be permitted through a frequency to the end of 2029, isn't it, that you can get before the regulations then change from hypercar, and then we'll see the hydrogen car develop along the side of that from fresh. So to declare no confirmation yet of the numbers of cars. So we don't know, you can guarantee there's going to be at least one full season GRO 10, but we don't know is whether or not it is a second car being replaced by a dream car for three races, or a hydrogen car big, a third car. We don't know. And I think they probably don't either because they're not that close to it yet, because there is going to be that that period where you could potentially, if it if it runs to the timeline that they that the ratio has stated, which is introducing these cars in 2028, then there is going to be a period where you'll have both hydrogen cars and the current rule set, which has just been extended through 2029 racing at the same time. And it's, I mean, there's just so many questions that they can't answer yet because they're not there with these regulations. So taste pit stops. Are they all going to be put in the hypercar class to compete against them? Are they going to be set racing separately? Will they be racing for the overall? What are the target lap times? What types of hydrogen technology will be permitted? What won't it still early days? So on the subject of early days, in terms of who else might be interested, well, we mentioned BMW Hyundai, we know we're interested at one point in this area. They're still very much a prospect to come into hypercar and GTP. So potential for them to effectively have a similar kind of arrangement as Toyota, if there's still interest there. Amongst the other manufacturers that were in that hydrogen village at Le Mans were Lotus, Deli from China. No indication from them at all that there's immediate interest in going racing with hydrogen. There's lots of other, you might call kind of more industry bodies. Ligier there, I think with Bosch. Yeah, Ligier and Bosch again. Yeah. Then it was solution F with Celine, which was not the world's most attractive looking car. It didn't look, you know, yeah. Yeah, it was, you'll have to help me with which way you swipe these days, but that's way after my time. I'm mine as well, Graham, come on. I'm not that old, also a young Jesus. But the other manufacturer that played a prominent role in that exhibition of hydrogen technology at Le Mans, Alpine, helping with the Alpine Globe concept, which was a spectacular looking road worthy concept, isn't it? It's a concept, spectacular looking thing. That is a hydrogen combustion concept. And again, we believe that likely to be embraced by any of your regulations, if indeed there was a manufacturer prepared to stand up and say that's what they want to do, because that is, the total is hydrogen combustion engine. It's not a fuel cell car, I don't believe. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So there's an awful lot of hashtag wait and see. Choose your weapons here. When you look at the kind of critique that comes the way a sports car racing at the moment, it's often around, isn't everything getting a bit speck? Look at, you know, whether it's, you know, single chassis, single, you know, hydrogen. So you take a hybrid supply chain for the LMDH cars, etc, etc. You've got to embrace the fact they're trying to do something different. This is the point at which you're trying to accommodate the fact that there is a challenger technology coming through, that the moment is not proven to anywhere near the performance level required to compete at and indeed finish and compete for the win at the 24 hours of Le Mans. But I think anybody who loves that aspect, that kind of R&D technology aspect of what sports car racing has been for its entire history has to get behind this as being, you know, an exciting moment to see what is possible. And yeah, we're going to see what this era does, aren't we, when we get out of the current hyper car negotiations into the next and just, like you said, there's so many questions. We just don't know what this is going to look like. But the key is the ACO of very much being led by manufacturers on here. They are trying, as best as they can, to not lay down the law and say, this is exactly what you're going to do. This is how we're going to do it. This is the ruleset come up and take it or leave it. They're talking to these manufacturers and they're listening to what technology they want to develop, what they see as relevant, what they see as possible for these rulesets. They've just got to put it all together. But they're listening. Moving on from the harsh inside, there is another area. I know there's at least one question about, which was a story from about a week ago, to do with a senior member of Toyota Management, Rob Loypen, who was fined in the wake of Interlogos for contributing to answering questions effectively about ballast performance in the WEC offering criticism about some of those those regulations and their implementation with a journalistic colleague, I don't know, not another face or a name that I recognize from being a regular WEC paddock. The question, I think, was around why, what's that all about? The reality is, on what impact will it have was the question going forward. It was an interesting timing to it. I think it was the following day, maybe two days afterwards, that we also had our kid, Toyota, had finally accepted the Spirit Le Mans Award from 2023, and that came in the wake of effectively snubbing that award in the wake of controversy to do with the way that they felt they'd been treated and that Ferrari had been treated for the Le Mans 24 hours in this centenary year. Let's get into it on two fronts. I'm struggling not to believe there wasn't a conversation that involved both those things at the same time. A message, I think, being delivered to Rob, though I hold in the highest regard, by the way, to Toyota, and frankly, to the whole paddock, to say there is a regulation that says we don't discuss this, we don't discuss it in the terms in which it was being discussed, because if it's sensitivity, if you like, the fact that you need to ask a pretty involved question to get to the nuts and bolts of how this works. There's limited appetite for an uninformed debate about the concept. The concept has been successful. There's no doubt whatsoever about that. Look at the level and depth we've got in the top class in Hypercar, and for that matter, in GTP, in MSA racing. It's success in attracting what everybody wanted, which was high-quality racing efforts is undeniable, and what the powers that they're trying to do is to de-risk that process by trying to stop uninformed debates and conversation. For that matter, the almost inevitable moaning that comes, trust me when I say this dear listener, my time in motorsport reporting is pretty much identical to the introduction of BOP and GT3 and GT1 back in the day. I can tell you, without fear of any controversy whatsoever, that the quality of conversation I was able to have in the wake of that in any given paddock fell like a stone, because all anybody wanted to talk about was the BOP that week. The reality was the fields became more in depth and more stable and more varied immediately. It doesn't tend to be very much argument about the quality of racing. What they think this is all about is sending a message. It's in the regulations. We're serious about that, and if you don't respect those regulations, there are going to be consequences. I think what the rule makers have tried to do here is to reset the clock with this to say you've all come with your brand new shiny cars because this helps you with your cost implications, particularly with development curves, which was the massive bugbear of LMP1 hybrid, which made it almost impossible for anybody else to join the show. If you like that aspect of it, you're going to have to take the pain of a phrase that you coined a little while ago in conversation, which is managing your disappointment. Is that fair? Yeah, I think it's totally fair. It is just a different world now, especially in the top classes with GTP and hypercar. There is a level of adjustment still going on as to how we process results, how we process BOP changes, how they communicate, how they're discussed. I am of two minds about the rule of you can't discuss it. One hand, it's made trips down the paddock infinitely more interesting for me because you're just not constantly bombarded with every driver and team person, no member you meet, just using every conversation with you to try and get through some bullet points they've got in their back pocket about how disappointed they are with the BOP sheet this week. That's gone, and it means you're talking about other things. I mean, you're trying to work out which teams are making progress, which cars are making progress. Actually, it's more interesting to talk about the smaller stuff on the side rather than just, oh, they're doing better because the BOP is better this week. You see that with the likes of how big of a step Porsche has taken. It's not just BOP, there are other things going on that making these key differences in what we're seeing on the results sheets on a Sunday. On the other hand, I do understand that it is a bit, you know, we're all grown adults. Should we really have a regulation that says there's a certain topic you can't discuss, which, you know, for all its flaws, faults, and controversy is a key part of the way the sport is governed. It would be like saying to football is in the Premier League, you can't discuss the offside rule, whatever happens, no matter how old start did you get by it, you're not allowed to discuss the offside rule. I'm not sure how I feel about that. VAR? VAR, yeah. Well, yeah, that's probably even better of an example. They're investing time and money into it. It's their careers and with manufacturers. It's their R&D part that they're going into marketing budgets. They should be allowed to talk about what they're doing. Yeah, I mean, it's difficult. People can't help themselves if you don't have this rule. Odd enough, I responded overnight to a debate on one of the online forums that I've missed what it happened a couple of weeks ago, which, you know, we've had a lot going on the last couple of weeks. And some perfectly valid points about, you know, what about what you do about sit on TV, about explaining and debating and noting whether or not you think it's made a difference. That classic example of someone that says, don't talk about it in depth, then talk about it in depth, the reasonable amount. I just put this in front of the weekend sports cars audience, which is take as an example of how this is supposed to work the Porsche 963. Last year, those cars showed glimmers of pace, but never over a full race did they look like they were going to be ultimate and successful transform this year. Now look at the BOP values from any given race last year, and the BOP values for that same car for this year, and tell me whether or not you think the minor differences between the two values have made that difference. The answer is, it hasn't. This is still about excellence. It's still about, yes, the drawings in the orange of what you get. Yes, it's about the strategy. It's about the pit crew. It's about the development engineers finding out how they can manage that package. What that gives me is a huge amount of hope and encouragement that the other teams that aren't quite there yet have got a pathway forward now that should mean that they can close the gap. That's what you look for, is this ripple, if you like, of those teams catching up the teams that were longer established with better understanding their machinery. By the way, going back to the Toyota piece to wrap this up, it is total understanding that they had got to the stage with their highly developed platform they understood. They've got to accept them afraid that the competition is caught up. They dominated into Lagos. Fuji is going to be extremely interesting. We've got coated before then, of course, but such a huge history with that team and success at Fuji. That, I think, is going to be a hell of a yardstick. That's a track they can't understand more than they do, but it'll be a hell of a yardstick for where we actually are with progress to the rest. There's one last point and question I want to cover on Toyota before we move on, and this is from Chris Hartley. Thanks to everyone else you put in questions, Steve fallen and feel 48 on this subject. Chris says, "With Toyota thinking of our hydrogen-based car and keeping the existing JRO 10, do you think they can keep that car at the top end of the field just with JOCR upgrades as it will be the oldest platform by some way by the time we get to hydrogen?" Well, they do. Yeah. Because they wouldn't be running it. Well, and the irony is that the BOP could come around and save them by that point, couldn't it? Well, I think they will be probably as aware as anybody and more than most about where at the moment they feel that certain tracks, they are lacking a little. And I think the next critical point is going to be just exactly what do they do with that car. There's not a lot you can do. They're in the performance window. It's not like you can strap another turbo. You can't do that. But there are strides you can take, and there is a grey area with JOCR upgrades as to how far you can push the envelope when you're discussing with the rule makers. This is the change you want to make. This is why we want to do it. And outlining what difference it's going to make to your car. That Toyota did make a massive step when they used that first JOCR. No, yeah. I mean, first year, anybody doesn't remember first year of the IPCR. The thing looked like a booking Bronco. Absolutely. It was not a good look for the new IPCR class to see that the way that ones would have been used to the TSO50 and the way that that thing went racing, which was just seamless, crushing performance to watch the first iteration of the JRO 10 come out of the stalls. It looked horrible. Yeah, and in theory, with the way the rules work, sure, they're not able to, and they're certainly with their form, are not going to be able to argue for major performance upgrades any time soon. But you can, there is a lot you can do in the scope of the rule set. Look how different the Peugeot looks after its major JOCR has been played. And if you look back at LMP1 times, it wasn't like manufacturers were coming back every year of a completely new car. We had like the R18 looked a completely different and from its first iteration to its last, same with the 919. It will look different by the time we see it take to the circuit for its final race. It's just the areas that they can improve it, but they're still... It is interesting. Yeah, no, it is interesting, because they've all got bands of engineers and designers behind the scenes who are eager to just show off what they can do. And it's just they're being funneled into certain areas like drivability and durability. And that's another good point, because I think people come into this, perhaps thinking what you're looking for with the JOCR upgrade is top-end performance. And it's not. It's actually about how long you can keep that car in the upper band of that performance. It is their understanding... That's exactly what Ferrari had done with this. Yeah, in other words, what's falling off here? I don't mean physically falling off, but what in terms of performance are they finding it tricky to maintain, deeper into a single or a double stint? And which types of circuits are they stronger on week or at? Because you can have the same values of three different circuits, but the car in the way it handles those circuits can be very different. Look at Toyota. Yeah. Toyota just dominated in Brazil and always looked like dominating in Brazil. And there's been other occasions this year where they have looked, if not also, rans, but to be struggling to get to decent points levels. Good stuff. Okay. What's next? Aston Martin's Valkyrie LMH Graham. We've had a few questions about this Graham. Stephen Gates says, "We've seen the Valkyrie out testing now. Based on looks, what are your first impressions?" I think the problem is, you can't really judge it on the looks without adding in the soundtrack and the soundtrack. I don't know what pornography is, but I imagine it must be like that. It's just filth, isn't it? It really is. You know, when I first heard the video, heard the video, saw the video that, say, was released by Aston Martin, it brought back two memories, both of which happened to be Monza. And one was the final race of the Ferrari IV V8, it was the JMW car. And the other was, I think it was that same race meeting we had the master's historic cars. And remarkably, there were two incidents as the cars were released for free practice sessions, one of which affected the European Monsteries and one of which affected the master's historic. And as it turned out, I was doing some filming on the iconic gantry during both of those moments. And what you then experienced was something really, truly rather special. The Ferrari IV V8, now you look back at it, particularly the GT version, what a howling beast that thing was. And it turned out that the JMW car had cleared the incident, red flag came out, just at the start of the session. And no one else went out, so there may be two or three cars, you could hear that car all the way around every single gear change. You could hear that car. And it was then the same for the loader master Martin, DBR 12, that was in the master's historic session as well. Two unique soundtracks, that V12, in the back of that, that is an immediate fan favorite. It could be 12 seconds off the pace, and no one's going to care in the first few races. It just sounds like a show that in an era where there's turbo cars flying around anywhere, we're going to be talking about this car. Are we there that year at Le Mans when it came for the first time? Do you remember that car? We're going to be talking about that car until the moment when it goes past. And then there's two reasons why we won't be talking about it when it goes past. The two reasons are one, because you'll stop talking to listen, and two, there's no point in talking anywhere because it's too loud. So, you know, I think it's another step for hypercar. It's another H car with no hybrid system, so that's another challenge for the systems of balancing here. I think it looks great. It's in a test delivery at the moment. The one challenge they're going to have with the starting of that car is it has got a bit of a gaping chasm, you know, chin level air intake that will either look great depending on what the livery is that the heart of racing brings to it, or it might look slightly disproportionate, but we'll forgive it all. I think it's just, I mean, it looks awesome. I actually think of all the iterations that we've seen on the Valkyrie, be it for the road or the track only spec of that car. It looks proper. It looks proper on that issue. It looks proper. It's ridiculous. The rear end, it has to be said sort of has a bit of a nod towards the clicking house, which is no bad thing. Well, and the Ferrari, I think, the one on NMP is just, yeah, everything they've had to do in detuning the power levels from the AMOP, or they've gotten it back in just aggressive error. It will be a first. It'll be a first time in hypercar that a car initially designed as a road car now heads to the track. And that, again, is another part of this convergence rule set that you never know. What else might that open the door to? You know, we've seen the Red Bull RB17, which is effectively son of Valkyrie. Will that be something they might want to race at some point? Don't know, don't immediately think so. That's certainly not one of the ones that's on my radar, but that could be quite interesting. Who knows who else might decide to take another look at a rule set on the back of that, but I think it's a truly exciting thing. There is a question on that front from Gustavo Vembri says, do you think other OEMs could follow this route in terms of producing a car for the elementary set without a hybrid system? Why not? I mean, they could, but it's going to depend on what they're, a lot of the time, what their road car strategy is, and what their production cars look like technologically. I think the reality is here. It's, you know, we've seen stuff like, you know, Kurt and Exag and De Tomasso. And the reality is that this is, even though this is now kind of cost restricted with the new regulations, it's still a big bill. If you're only selling four or five cars, or even two or three hundred cars, you're going to have to be absolutely certain that this is going to be something that's going to be a, at least cost neutral to you, if this is your marketing proposal. You also have to take into account, you've got a massive plus in your going head-to-head with supercar royalty, Aston Martin, Porsche, Lamborghini, Ferrari, but the downside is they're all damn good. And if you go out there and you're, you know, a challenger brand, let's say a De Tomasso, for instance, if you go up there and get your R sounded to you by week basis, you know, that is not something that's going to take the box for somebody to take the risk and go with a challenger brand based on the performance of that car. Damien Peachman, final question on the Valkyrie, final point, will it be ready in time for Daytona? Hope so. Yeah. You know, there's not a lot of in-depth conversations going on at the moment. And a lot of people are focusing on, look, the car's here. Next question, who's going to drive the cars? We've got to raise the idea behind the scenes of a number of the names that are likely to be in the frame. We certainly know some of the people have been part of a test program that we're aware of in prototypes out of competition that have been involved in that. There are some pretty well-known names from the sports car racing family. And amongst that, no major, major international headline surprises for full-season drivers. It's been made clear by Ian James that they're looking to both the heart of racing family and the Aston Martin family for the core of their driver squads. But you can be absolutely sure this is not a program that lacks ambition. No. This is not going to be something where they're just going to put a bunch of their mates in the car. Are they going to want to get out there? Get that car developed quickly and start to compete. Yeah, and I think specifically on will it be ready in time for the start of the overseas in the late 25? Last time I spoke to Ian James, and the last time I spoke to Adam Carter. Good explainer Adam Carter is. Adam Carter for Aston Martin's head of Aston Martin's race programs with sports car side of things. It's on track. They have a timeline, a development timeline of this car. Everything's running schedule right now. And part of that development timeline is that Daytona test in the year, making sure they get to that Daytona sanctioned test, which I think it is in November this year. I think it is December. They moved it. But even so, that's part of the homologation process of the car. I think get that done, get it in both wind tunnels. They'll be absolutely fine. I think the other thing to say is as always with brand new cars, starting the MCCs and with the 24-hour race is a big ask. But I think they'll see success as being there and being in competitive form. If the car is there and is quick, that will be I think the first big box ticked and they've then got time to do more testing before the rest of the season with Sebring two months after. Yeah, let's move on to AR racing and Sebastian Prio. They were in the news this past week because despite the fact that AR racing is leading the GTD Pro Plus Championship and fantastic for them. Up against such a... Roxy this weekend. Yeah, Roxy this weekend. Up against such an awesome and deep field in GTD Pro we call that Ford and the likes of. And like I said, there you have FAF as well. So Prio has left the driver line up. He was in for the full season. He has departed because he's been called up for more intense programs with multi-matic in the background. So it's meant that Julian Anlauer is taking the wheel for this weekend. He's all right, isn't he, Julian? He's fairly quick. Yeah, he's all right. He doesn't like confidence, brother, winner of the car. Yeah, now I'm pretty sure he's driven a Porsche as well. I think that's somewhere on his CV. So we've got a couple of questions. First one from Daniel Roberts asking what should the expectations be ahead of Road America this weekend for the team? Well, was Julian Anlauer in the car? I think they could say they'll be in the coming seconds. AR racing are a team that does look like ambition. And I think that's really... No, they're ready for behalf measure, don't they? Indeed. And that has been spurred on by success so far with the GTD Pro efforts. Julian will add further punch to that with experience of the platform that it's absolutely nothing to say against Seb. Seb has not left that program because of pace. No, not at all. He's left because of program or programs as yet unannounced. Yeah, it's all confidential at the moment from Multimatic side. I've asked the question specifically. Can we talk to him? Can we get some more detail on what he's going to be doing Multimatic? But I think it's fair to say if you're going to prize somebody like Seb Pro is very young, very talented away from a championship leading car in a very big championship, it's going to be something pretty good, isn't it? I think I've got an inkling, what it is, is the straightaway was dancer. I mean, we do know by the way that Seb is... It's got another program, which is by the way, not the program that we're talking about here, which came out of the entry list for the next Nürburgring race. Yeah, the LS4, the six hour race this weekend, he's in, he and I. Yeah, it's a clean... Stop my walking horse! Stop, stop right now! No, that doesn't mean that the Vulcan horse might have sported it. I'm going to run the Hypercar program for Hyundai, none of which is announced. No, what this is, is Vulcan horse have a fleet of effectively arrive and drive cars, one of which is, it's an I-30N, isn't it? Yeah. And he's racing that with, it's a, I'd say, I keep on it, quite talented, member of his own family. Is his mum? No, he's not his mum, though. It's his dad. So, Seb with Andy Prio and that tour bloke. The other one. Stephen Merchant. No, Ben Barker. And it's, is it Aaron Conner? Can't remember the name of the, Alex Conner. That's Conner, the GT4 driver from, I don't know, GT4 this year. He's all about getting... Carriage is going to be really good fun. It's been really, really good fun, but it's all about ring permits. And if you don't know about ring permits, we'll find a better moment to talk about this. This is not an indication of a program with Multimatic Hyundai. It's not a program of Seb Prio going with Hyundai anywhere. If we had to be guessing, that indicates to me that we might well see a program for the Ford Mustang GT3 on the Nurburgring next year. That, to me, is a blindly obvious conclusion there. That's not what we're talking about here for Seb Prio. As I say, got an inkling of what this might be about. At the moment, the whole picture in terms of factory and factory bless drives and factory level drivers in both prototypes and GT cars is a pretty fast-moving tale. It is going to be one hell of a silly season to come on that silly season. It's sort of kicking off now. We've got questions now about Nick and Muller later on. So it is a bit of a watch this space. They've not done that for no reason. And I think we're going to find out very quickly what it is that Seb Prio's up to. He's got such a bright future as the head of him. So I've known for a long time. I remember speaking to him when he was in Geneta, Jr's. And the man was talking about gear ratios and brake temperatures. And he would have been like 14 at the time. And I just remember being just astounded by how mature he was and how much of a level head he'd got. So all credit to Andy. And Harry Techno has done a lot of mentoring as well. He's going to be a star. So let's get into Cadillac for 2025. We've got a few questions about that. The first one comes from Terry Cousins who says the Pruitt scenario. First formulated back in April appears to be taking place as predicted. But Cadillac still hasn't announced who's going to replace Chip Gassy Racing. Is there an obvious reason for the hold up? Lots of these reasons for the hold up. Some of which we can talk about. Some of which we fundamentally can't talk about. Marc should be absolutely right with all over this story from the very start. The realities here are that some of the moving pieces in this. We've been very close to this story from pretty much day one, Stephen. We've been talking to some of the main players in this story since that time. And we are working with them to help them to make the announcements and are due to come as deep and as high qualities they possibly can be. In terms of why these things haven't come forward, there's always reasons why. First reason wouldn't be a surprise to anybody. General Motors is a very big company. Are they? Yeah, they are huge. Bigger than clicking house. Bigger. Imagine that. Yes. Anyway, beyond that, big companies tend to have quite complex systems around approving programs, funding programs. Just contract. Yes, finding contracts. Staffing. Yeah, all of those things. Process is a massive thing and it gets bigger, the bigger the company. If you want to point the finger at one lightly aspect of why there's been, let's not call it delay, but a gap between the first headlines and a foreign announcement, that's it. The second thing is we're just over halfway through the season on both sides of the pond here. And pretty clearly, there've been some very significant races for both the WC program and the IMSA programs. And everybody involved wants to keep people's mind on the job in hand. And as we very well know, this is not just about the team owner, the team principal, or indeed the drivers, but there's a lot of other moving pieces. A lot of people involved in making those, getting those cars to and from the track, making those cars go around the track, making those cars go faster around the track. And it's important those people are kept as informed as they possibly can be about what the position is for them moving forward. It's right to be respectful of the staff involved and it's right as well to focus on the performance of the team. Right now, chip can actually racing are contracted to run those cars. And are fighting for a championship. Fighting for a championship and as limited, distressed as possible in one of our challenging circumstances, of course, is therefore welcome. So they're the reasons you're not going to have very long to wait. It's the straight on a stanza. It is another, I'm afraid, hashtag watch this space. Just swing a bit like this. You know when you go on your holiday, Graham? Holiday, you can turn up at the high car desk. And to pay for a week-long rental of a lancier, for 125 euros, it takes two hours to get that contract done and signed and get the keys. Imagine trying to do the same thing for a 25-milli-pound program that involves two hypercars. That's going to be a long time waiting at the desk. Do you want the insurance? Yeah. It's Anne Davidson in the car. Do you want the booster seat? Matt Crossland says, "Who do you see getting the spare Porsche 963s if Jota moves to using capitals?" Right. First things first, there are no spare 963s, or the ones that are, I've got purpose already. So even the Jota spare, the one that they've actually still got and will use to the end of the season in the number 12 car, that is actually a loner. That's a, I'd say, a factory-loaned tub, and the car will return to its original tub at the end of the year. Let's presume that Joe did decide they're not running Porsches in the year. What out there do you believe happens to those cars? They're not automatically sold. They're certainly not handed over to another team. Somebody owns those cars. In the case of the two Jota cars, I'm pretty certain that their backers own those cars, and they are either companies or private individuals. So Tom Bailey's going to take it to Walmart. Could be. Awesome. Yeah, put a hatch-packed version of it and put a tow bar on it. That'd be quite fun. There's no guarantee those cars will ever race again. No guarantee at all. Those are cars, by the way, with the Mon heritage, or the Mon finishing heritage. There are valuable cars in their own rights. So there is no guarantee that any car, whether or not it's those cars, protons cars, JZT, millers cars, should that program, for whatever reason, come to an end, will be handed over or sold. There will be, I'm sure, a debate for any car that's retired from frontline service for whatever reason. Do you want that car back in a competitor's hands? It is there a financial debate to be had about the value of that car against the value that it has to a team that wants to race it elsewhere. Porsche have made it reasonably clear that they can supply other cars. There are other teams that have made it clear that they would quite like to have a car, but quite liking to have a car and having the means to race them are two entirely different questions. So first things first, when you're doing kind of fantasy, WC grid or fantasy image grid for next year, yeah, by all means, say here are the number of Porsche 963s that are currently racing. Don't necessarily assume that if team A is not going to run car A, that car A will be handed on or sold to team B. It might just as easily end up in somebody's prize private collection. But again, a bit of watch this space. I think we're still going to see growth in both championship grids. I'm sure there's more questions about that later, but don't assume that the Hertz team Jota Porsches, whether or not the team eventually tell us that they're not going to be racing them in 2025, will necessarily be up for grabs. Nico Miller, we mentioned him briefly. We did. Colin Bo asks, "Within moving to Porsche next year from Peugeot, does this mean there's going to be shake-up in the Porsche Penske 963 driving squads or will he go to privateers?" Well, first things first, Stoker and T, that Nico is actually going to Porsche for a sports car program yet. He's got some heritage in formulary. Might he be principally formulary, but with some endurance duties for Porsche? That's possible. There's a whole lot of, don't know. It is the first one, the very first pieces in the jigsaw that's beginning to move. Should say, by the way, because we didn't get a chance to say this when the move first happened. Utterly delighted, both at Nico has found a birth with a major manufacturer, but also, that's left the opportunity for Peugeot to promote Melty Jacobson. Listeners to this show will be a no doubt of the regard with which we hold the sickeningly talented young Dane. Bang average, isn't he? Bang average. Bang average. If only you could deal with this challenging personality. Just that the lack of respect that he shows to is a picture of charm and professionalism. So that is good news. It's another new part to this exciting era, is a new young talent finding a birth in a team that really needs that punch right now. Yeah, and when it comes to Porsche, yeah, we are hearing that there's going to be moves made with their hyperkine GTP driver limes. We just don't know where it's going to fall yet. There is so much more to come there are. There are entire manufacturers that only have like one or two drivers contracted through next year that we know about. So there could be some massive seismic changes. Not just in teams race and who they're racing with. We've got no need to talk about balance performance. That would be so much more to do. Yeah, brilliant. You're going to be typing faster. Great, can't wait. Brandon Kratzer asks about hereby and Genesis and potential for hypercar and GTP programs. Is there anything new on the IMZO work programs for Goodnight and Genesis? And Gustavo Bamba says, if they manage to have a people engine, will they have a proven engine for a good start? And is 2026 too soon? Surely the green light must be very soon if that's the case. Okay, right. So what are we looking at? We're looking at Hyundai being one of the more likely signups for hypercar/GTP. We're witnessing exactly what, if anything happens and when. Indication is that there is hunger there. Indication is that we will hear something, I think reasonably soon. And whether or not that's good use or bad use, we'll hashtag wait and see. Let me deal with the people engine thing first. If they are going for a people engine. For those that don't know who people are, I'll explain. Principally their background has been in rally and rally cross engines. So turbocharged motors. In sports car racing, of course, the Glickenhaus at a turbo V8, which was effectively a melding of two force and under turbocharged engines. Even if they do go to people and Hyundai in their WC efforts have had history with people, so why wouldn't they? Don't assume it's the same engine. Okay, that's not necessarily the case. In fact, in very many reasons, there's a good reason why it might not be. So Hyundai are a massive concern. They've got a lot of resource and a lot of hunger and ambition. And whatever they announce, I think it's going to be exciting. I think it's a brand that we've not seen ever at the top end of sports car racing. Or frankly, in any major motorsport with the exception of WRC. And it's a rival with a program in any form of circuit racing. I think we'll be watched very carefully by the established order. And even more excitingly by some of the other challenging brands in the Southeast Asian marketplace. Because if Hyundai break through, well, okay, Kiro assist a brand. But there's another huge marketplace in Southeast Asia for road cars who are now beginning to diversify into halo sub brands, etc. in China. And if the Chinese marketplace gets behind circuit racing and sees that as a plus boy boy, I think you just don't see some fireworks. Mason Covey are specifically about GTP for 2025. He says it might be a little bit early, but do you guys have a rough guesstimate of what the GTP feel will look like for the Rolex 24 next year? I think the answer is all indications suggest. As long as things go down the road, we expect to expect them to. And we're not going to give you any specifics at this point is a little growth, okay? You know, they're not going to go from just into double figures to, you know, figures with it starting with the two. But I think we will see a bigger GTP feel that Daytona than we saw this year. But by a handful of cars, you know, there may well be other things to come out of the wash in the latter part of this season. What I would say for the moment is it's pretty clear to me that the majority of manufacturers competing in WEC are very focused on their WEC programs. And the majority of them have got work to do to get those cars up to speed. I don't expect to see any major surprises with manufacturers announcing they come and do Daytona that aren't currently slated to be part of Themes WeatherTech Sports Car Championship. There are, of course, there is, of course, the potential as we just dealt with for that to be an evolving marketplace for privateer cars. And if there's going to be growth in privateer cars, the most likely place for that to happen is IMSA because it's not looking like the space in WEC for next season. So that's the area I think that is going to provide any numerical growth beyond those programs we're already aware of. Yeah, and I spoke to John Doonan very recently and there's a piece coming up. Did he say I've told you not to call? Yeah, he did. You again? But after he said that, it's three o'clock in the morning for God's sake. After he said that, and this will come out in the future that you'll all be reading, I'm sure, on race window sports car in the next week or two, is for Rolex 24 next year, the demand for entries is so high throughout the classes. He said they would need to expand the pit boxes by 20 to fit additional cars in. Wow, that's the quote. They need 20 new pit boxes to fit everyone in. Remember, that's not just GTP. That's across, you know, GTP. That's the only thing to weigh up. It's easy to bring in the likes of an extra GTP car for one off when you've got a team sitting there that wants to do a full season in GTP. No, you don't. Well, we've seen that previously, haven't we? We saw GTD pro cars turned away because they were focusing on an order of precedence that basically started with, are you a full season entrant for the MCU sports car championship? Yes, you're in. Are you a full season entrant for the endurance cup? That's tier two. Are you neither of the above but have got a history of supporting the package? In other words, are you regular entrants into one or other or more of our support series and want to do unlimited program endurance? That's tier three. Are you just wanting to do the Rolex 24 hours? That's tier four. And I think that's right. That's smart. It's no different to what's actually happened with a selection of most of the teams for the Fi World Insurance Championship this year. Do love John Doon and such a tease, isn't he? It's fantastic. Esteban Garcia Press asks about Nick of Veroni. Oh, yeah. Do you think about his future in sports car racing? Is he being considered for hypercar and GTP? I'll be surprised if there weren't people with his name on a list somewhere. First things first is very rapid. He's another guy like Melty Jacobson, we mentioned before. Dry, dull, boring road. Yeah, absolutely. Exciting to watch, great pace, engaging personality, excitable in a really fun way and clearly is a big plus for a team that uses his talents. Massively unlucky with the way that his full season drive in GTD went south with a second Corvette from AWA withdrawn. He's picked up since then a couple of other drives, including a full season drive in the European Le Mans series. He's definitely one of those guys that a lot of people have got on a list to talk to, to evaluate, to watch. And I think the next year or so for him is going to be career-defining. We've already seen Marshall's piece, if you're reading Racer, and if you're not, you should be about the prospect of him with an IndyCar shot. So he has wanted to do that for a long time. I'm speaking about his desire to join the IndyCar scene when we first met him. Yeah. He's very keen on single-seaters. And if he's rapid enough, that's sort of how we can get a drive, isn't it? There you go. Let's not say that we wouldn't see him in the future as an already seasoned and championship winning endurance racer. As someone who pops in and out for two or three races in the way that other IndyCar drivers do, I wish him well is a super kid. It's always a pleasure to see it's never boring when you're talking to Nick over only. And he has that fantastic blend of massive enthusiasm, respect for his surroundings. He's the opposite of Aragon. He's kind of very mild. Needs to be sort of gently built up to the fact that go on, you're awesome, son. You know, yeah, you are. He has got that self-deprecating outlook that I think is very healthy and a young professional sportsman. He knows he's good, he performs well, he doesn't like hearing it. Ethan Killian says with a relatively new corporate head at Audi, and the latest shake-up in the F1 management, do you see Dorna potentially working to rediversify Audi's motorsport programme somewhere in the near future? It's a simple answer, I'm afraid, Ethan. The answer is there's no signs whatsoever of it. That's the saddest answer I'm going to be giving in this edition of the Week in Sports cars. The answer is I'm really sorry, but we've seen no sign of, you know, divergence from their chosen path, which is sort of put the customer racing side on, I'm not going to say life support, that's not fair, but certainly no new cars being built, et cetera, et cetera. No, I think it's as simple as that. Next topic, this is one for you, Graham, because you have a history in your lengthy, perhaps too long career. Massively too long. In crisis communications. This is a crisis question. This is a crisis question, just asking about what went on and the fact that we're not going to see the Aurora Racing Road America this weekend, I think they pulled out of a GT event as well with the Mercedes. Right thing to do, isn't it, for George Kurtz and his band? Look, you've got to feel for any company that finds itself in that position. Nobody, you know, we're not aware and we did this on purpose, but from every public explanation, this would appear to be an error. I'm not a computer engineer. I know nothing about code. I'm not going to get into the ins and outs of it, but in terms of the optics of it, it is, of course, correct that George steps away while that crisis was happening and while that crisis is raw. It might be seen to go racing. You can't, but what were you supposed to be on the other end of the phone, explaining yourself to people at governmental level? That's a poor option. He's made a smart choice there. What do I hope? I hope that there's no lasting damage, not just a crowd strike, but to anybody else's business on the back of what was clearly a major event. And I hope that George finds his way back into the cockpit because two things. One is, is a very valid part of the paddocks with which he's involved. And two, make no mistake, his efforts support the businesses and careers of people that I care about. And that's the same with every pro-am motorsport program. So for all the right reasons, I hope they get it sorted. I hope they've got absolutely to the bottom of it. I hope anybody who suffered damage as a result of the incident does not suffer lasting damage. And I'm confident that that will be the case. And I hope we find our way back to normality. I mean, look, you can say it there, but for the greater go-go eye. I'm not the owner of a global company dealing with cyber security. There is an irony here that it wasn't a security failing. It was, by the sound of it, a coding problem. There are some pretty serious questions that George will need to ask of himself, his business, and of the employees of that business. I've zeroed out that that has been done and done very quickly. And in some cases, very loudly, are they going to be ripples from this? A hundred percent there are. I sincerely hope that some of those ripples don't involve, as not seeing the crowd strike name in motorsport. More on some general questions now. We're going to start with Apex dream cars. Who is going to the wet-grace at Kota? Oh, good serve on. Yes. This would be his first event at Kota and his first wet-grace. It's bought a paddock pass, and he's asking about what the fan acts is going to be like compared to IMSA, because it's never been to an FIA event before, and about doing some spectator photography. Okay. It's an awesome circuit to visit as a fan. It is. And for photography, it's pretty good as well. There's lots of places where you can get above the fence line, particularly thinking through the S's. The spectator banks there, where you can see above the fences, I think, and see the cars go if you can get off into it. I'm not sure how, because it's been a while since I've been there, but if you can get up in the tower, you can get them. Yeah, as a fan. I think you can. That is the vantage point out there over camera is superb. First things first, come back to us on, I don't know which medium you used to communicate with us, but do come back to us. If Stephen or I have got time, it's more likely to be honest with you that I've got some time, let us know where you are. Let us know when you're there. You're in the paddock anyway. And amongst the access you will get, by the way, with your ticket as there is a pit walk, usually an evening pit walk, if I remember correctly at Kota. And there will be a autograph session. And the autograph session means every driver has to be there. So they're fabulous things to do, but reach out. If I've got time, I will show you a little bit behind the scenes. And I'm very happy to do it. It's a straight nice dancer. Welcome, by the way, to the Fi World Insurance Championship. I think you'll enjoy the show. It's different too. I'm not saying better or worse than I love erasing. I love the paddock atmosphere. Access is pretty good. It'll be the better because it's a flyaway race. And therefore, no big trucks at the back of the garages. It will be, they'll be basically working out of containers. So the access into the paddock to the rear of the garages is going to be pretty good. The only advice I give you is in exactly the same ways that I've seen fans behave in the insta paddock at infinitum is if you've got a question, and someone's there that's not actively, you know, dealing with something that's red hot or rushing from place A to place B, ask the question respectfully, the vast majority of people who work in this sport are enthusiasts as well. And they will value the fact that you've got, you know, a question to ask that they can answer. So, show that respect for people's space, some people's working environment. But I think you should find that it's a happy place for a fan to come. And as a circuit, away from fan access to the paddock, as a circuit to spectate it, it's superb. You should use every moment of that six hour race to try and get to as many vantage points as possible, because you will have access to the whole circuit and not just be thrown onto one grandstand that's open. It's usually very open. There's loads of spectator banks to all ground and make use of all of them because there are some awesome corners there. We can see the cars move around and you can see some interesting battles through traffic. If you've never been there before and you haven't, you will be surprised at just how cool that place is to watch race. It's a long race. So don't, you know, by only being sick and watch the start, then go to a wander. Keep an eye on the weather. Make sure you've got the right gear to cover up with. Make sure you've got your sunscreen. Make sure you're carrying a chosen beverage. But find shelter from the sun out of them when you can for a bit of a rest up. But do go and see the cars at speed out the circuit. There's nothing like it. And make the most of the evening to downtown Austin because there's some amazing restaurants and bars to go to. If you love live music, there's always stuff on on a weekend in Austin. And the food is spectacular. You text mix food. You're Mexican food is just as good as it gets. Just tragic. You're not going to experience any of that really because you'd be too busy. Too busy work in my life. Yeah, it's a shame, isn't it? Canary Al-Fitzi, Saint of Norfolk. Al-Fisti. Al-Fisti says how far did or didn't the negotiations get between Lech and Silverstone for 2025 and how much work would MSV need to put in with Domingdon's pit area to be over the host for work. Okay, sorry I shouldn't laugh. Right, he did say humour me. Fine. So, Silverstone reads my way to the order. I think Silverstone got a few lessons to learn at the moment in terms of the commercial offer. All I can tell you is this. Every time there is a conversation, often by the way, not led by me, but led by my friends and colleagues at LMEM. They will always attempt to explain why Silverstone isn't there this year. Looking back to the last four, three, four, five years. There are hundreds of circuits in the world, and they will always be one of the first, any time you mention the calendar, anyone, LMEM? I know you are going to be asking about Silverstone. And the answer is I'm not. Okay, so there is nobody responsible for calendar that is unaware that there is a fan base in the UK that would love us to come back to Silverstone. What do I think? I think that you may well find in the coming years that Silverstone has given an opportunity to prove itself as a venue operating at the level which the venues so far this season have operated. With the exception of Qatar, that's very different. Okay, record crowds everywhere. My only advice is this. There are other opportunities to get international racing back to Silverstone. If and when that happens, I genuinely urge sports car fans that are keen to get the WEC back, please come. There is no better way of encouraging a racing organisation that has spotted the opportunity it's got with record crowds than to show they can do better. I'll give you a good example. It's from my previous career. I got involved back in my days at Transport for London in a number of things, one of which was trying to reduce the reliance that we had on the private car in Central London. So do what you can with public transport. That's got its physical and its physical limitations, but also encourage people to walk and cycle. One of the things we chose to do about encouraging people to cycle was to try to make cycling a bit more sexy. How do you do that? Lycra. No, no. Actually, hell no. In my case, absolutely hell no. But what you can do is in the same ways we're here at the moment in the middle of the Olympics and all sorts of people get all sorts of excitement from all sorts of elite sports that normally they wouldn't look at. Elite sports has a really brilliant way of motivating people to be interested in how cool that tech is, how cool that lifestyle is. So what we did over a period of time was to persuade a Murray Sports organization, the ASO, who run the Tour de France, that there was an audience in the UK, particularly in the southern counties of the UK, for elite cycling, so that we could bid for the opening of the Tour de France in London. And that involved us having to invest in what was then the milk race, or Latin and milk race, now the Tour of Britain, showing that an audience was being drawn into that, and using those figures to show what was going to be possible. That worked. And we put from memory 1.3 million people on the streets of London and the southeast of England. That's a long way of saying there's no better way of persuading people to take an action you're interested in than showing by example. If and when Silverstone attracts a reasonably major international event that it's not currently got, please come, please bring your kids, and please bring friends. That is something you can do, you individually can do, that will be the best service to what it is that I know thousands of you want, which is to see the World of Jones Championship back at Silverstone. That's as much as I can say. Joshua Johnson wants to talk about LMP2. Go on Josh. We love LMP2 on this podcast. With LMP2 being basically a single mate class now, and I know they'd like to see four chassis manufacturers in there, but it will inevitably surely go down the same route and maybe one manufacturer that gets it right and all the teams end up buying that chassis. I understand that they say that there'll be a version of BOP to equalize the four chassis. However, it seems like unnecessary brain damage. Would it not be better just to go down with one manufacturer and eliminate the reshuffling and ultimately added cost necessary to buy a new chassis after they bought the less successful one? I guess I could boost you up a bit here. I don't think there is currently a journalist in the world that has gone into as much depth as you have about LMP2, its present, and its future, and even having done that and produced frankly what was a stellar piece from you on the options moving forward, we were still then surprised by what actually happened at Le Mans. So I'm not saying all bets are off, but it is a picture that the moment is in a state of flux, correct? Yeah, 100%. It's back to the drawing board with this rule set, and to answer your question about they'd liked how far much chassis manufacturers, and yes, of course they were because our four manufacturers are motivated to bring cars to this, and they've already invested a load of money in next gen P2, and a lot of that money has gone down the drain, unfortunately, because the rule set's been scrapped since that LA. Typically, we're talking now about the spine of the LMDH cars from the four manufacturers, so Multimatic Delar Aligier and Orica. Done. That's not happening. Neither are we going to go forward. Could be, but you don't have to anymore. Neither are we going down the road with the current 4.2 litre Gibson V8, so there's going to be a smaller greener engine we are told. So whether or not Gibson is successful in that tender, there are some interesting politics around that, about the tender they had previously won, remains to be seen, I think they're in a very strong position, but lots of ups and downs in this. I think we're going to start to hear things quite quickly, but the key thing here, you don't? No, they've got, they're our working group meetings planned, but we're back to square one, and I think it's going there's going to be plenty of discussions around our table before they're prepared to talk publicly about this again. I think it could be a while before. You think there's any shockers to come? But bear in mind, there are three elements here. Three elements here, chassis, which is what absolutely consumes the debate about it. It's about chassis. Engine we've just talked about, and tyres, and all three of those, because of the timeline that's just been well not parked, but imploded, all three of those have got really searching questions and options ahead of them. Do I think all four manufacturers will come back with a P2 car for next year and we'll say yes, would it shock me if one of them or two of them pulled out and used this as an option to say, do you know what? I'm not sure there's a business case for this anymore because there's not going to be enough cars to sell and walked away. It wouldn't shock me, but I don't think right now there's an appetite for that. All four of them seem keen to carry on with it. They seem keen to build up this new rule set. The problem is right now is you've got like a tyre supplier like a good year that was ready to go. You've got Gibson that was ready to go. You've got a couple of these manufacturers that were very, very nearly ready to go with their next-gen car and it's can they use the work they've already done in any way or do they have to literally scrap this and start again and that's a conversation that's going to go on and on and on for months to come. Would it be easier to have one chassis manufacturer? Of course it would and the teams I think in general would like that because it eliminates the risk, takes BOP out of the discussion and it means that like we've got now, you've got a formula that's plugging in play, you get your car and it's all about who can just produce the best lap times to extract the most performance and you know get the best driver lineups in some of these championships. So yeah, the teams would like it but you've got to respect the fact that these four manufacturers have put their heart and soul into this and their money and they're a big part of them signing up to LMDH in the first place was being able to get the P2 license and the requirements surrounding that. So it's it's a challenging subject and a difficult debate but I think we're going to end up before ultimately we just don't know what it's going to look like yet. Okay, what's next? He's a freaky chair by the way. Beastman0916 says as a broadcaster slash journalist how tough is it to stay motivated over several consecutive weekends of racing? This year's stretch seemed very tough with the N24 and Lamonton Frowers, Imzot Watkins Glen, Spartan Frowers, Ilemus Imla and then work at Sao Paulo in a row over with no breaks between them. Obviously we're all here because we love the sport and what you provide is amazing but does the rider much more community help in any way with the level of fatigue? It has been a pretty tough summer you know you and I can remember three or four months ago looking at the the big year planning on the wall of the office here and going oh my god and it was I think eight consecutive weekends but it's not just the fact that it's eight consecutive weekends it was the sort of weekends you just named some of them. Lamont is two weekends and the whole week in between and it is impossible to overstate how groaning those weeks are. Nurba going 24 with its own challenges. Spa 24 with its own challenges and we took a pretty early decision that we were going to reduce our individual exposure to that so Stephen this year did, Nurba going I didn't, I did Spa he didn't. I was initially going to go to Watkins Glen, I opted not to so we sort of de-risked it but even with that and by the way Cudos to our Aussie correspondent Michael Zalovari who did all three of the 24 hour races this year and is still in recovery by the way. Has he seen brought us a button the last time I saw him? So on that front it does have its impacts on you. I mean I was chatting just this week to a friend and colleague of mine who works in Formula One and their calendar is just nuts. Easy money isn't it? Yeah yeah just absolutely nuts. Then you Stephen I think it was last week said was it last weekend was the first week off the NASCAR after a 21 week stretch? Yeah I think it's something like that. It's really worth reading actually Kelly Crandall from racers.com the NASCAR correspondent who goes to all these races and does an amazing job reporting on it, wrote a column about this 10 day summer break they've got or whatever it was and just like how desperate everybody was for this took these couple of weeks to arrive because yeah NASCAR is not that another world game isn't it when it comes to just the stretches of consecutive race weekends on the balance. Let me put it into some context you know many listeners to this podcast will know that I had a previous career and I have never never done a 9 to 5 job since age 18 to now age 60 have never done a 9 to 5 job and the vast majority of my time until I stopped my office based work in 2013-14 even if you're not in the office you're on effective 24 hour call and that's not that might happen it does happen and it happens you know most days and very many nights as well so that has its challenges as well fatigue absolutely the travel schedule pretty grueling and you're not always able to travel well either you know economy seats is you know is a difficulty you know that with you coming back from Brazil it's a long way to go with your you know tall guy with no legroom I'm looking at you Martin Hagen and that takes it out to you well as well a bear in mind that we come back from those race meetings deli sports car is what it says on the tin it's every day you know you're there trying to produce meaningful news and feature content every day so there's not a day off it is a matter of trying to build in some resilience and then there's the other factor I'm saying this by the way as a microcosm of what's very many people working for teams it's a vast proportion of people who work in motorsport who are freelance and what does that mean it means they're working for more than one team in more than one championship and there's one or two guys and girls that we see regularly in the paddocks of the world whether it be wc illms gt world challenge that we'll see pretty much everywhere uh that you know are good enough at their job and good enough in terms of their networking that they're working multiple championships and are working frankly most weeks and most weekends so the level of support you get from the people around you um it's a massive boost to that can't move on from that without mentioning two aspects when it goes wrong boy oh boy you're grateful for having people of quality around you happen to me in Brazil as you guys know uh with me getting the awful news about our beloved Oscar um having uh having to be put to sleep as I left the plane and Stephen will recall with horror just the effect that had on me I was broken for two days completely so you need the people around you to be you know people of quality and people of understanding and humanity if you like most of all though so I'm here uh you know the office at the bottom of the garden my home couldn't do it without Trudy I could not do it without Trudy you would not do it without Trudy uh you're the same with Carolyn yeah you know that what you need is a strong you know a partner around you that understands the um the challenges uh as well as the opportunities of the lifestyle that you lead it does give us opportunities that other people don't get we do go to places and have access that other people don't care and sometimes sometimes you can help with friends and family with the odd experience otherwise they wouldn't get but they're the tiny minority of times for the most part it is simply you know your wife girlfriend fiance um or opposites um recognizing that when you're home you're not the best to shape you know the number of times that I will come home uh to you know a cuddle from the to my wife as I come through the door uh her saying do you want to put the kettle on me saying yes the next thing I know is I've woken up four hours later on the couch of the cold cup of tea and it's it's it's like that we're about to get back to it at the end of this month with yet more back-to-backness and still probably more to be added to the the melee with a mix again of uh wc lms emsa uh some of the iGTC racing still to come and one or two other events that it looked like we'll likely be on board for whether or not that's for me with tv or for Steven with uh dsc and racer um so all sorts going on I love what I do I genuinely love what I do but this has been a tough year in terms of the the physical and mental dynamics a couple of calendar changes have made a massive difference yeah the fact that sebring is now not a wet grace which means you've had the addition of the prologue and guitar as as a new race and then in additional ways because sebring separate yeah has just made the first half of this year just the way that they've shaken out with that calendar it's it to be honest with you it's the first year since I started since I started working full-time that I can remember making active choices not to go to races so that I could manage my own fatigue it's the first time I can remember doing that you know what my colleagues have covered ask her and former one must be suffering I've absolutely you know but the thing is we've said this before when you actually should look at it you go oh you know it's only eight wet craters it's only six elamats races but once you add those two together add in a few erms erasers add in a few other 24 hour races add in some tests add in some trips yeah trips abroad from lunches test days you're up to 20 plus anyway we worked it out I think I mean that generally speaking a long conversation with a safe friend and colleague who works in former one broadcasting and their travel schedule is if anything less challenging than ours because there's so much of it because you're it's not just one long championship where they've factored in the way the schedules work in one long list it's it's multiple championships work together which means you'll be one week in Japan and then the next week in America and then the week after in Portugal there's no structure to it's not like you're going gradually to different places and one time zone at a time you could be like we've got this year just back to back like fly away straight into your head it's brutal completely get it and it is that it is that thing you're trying to trying to kind of manage expectation as well because there's clashes to be managed that there's things we can't do you know we've had that a couple of times with me able to make choices with the idea of the Age of the Month series there was the year where it didn't happen into Largos so they went to Kota I missed that race because I was already committed to the Age of the Month series that was two races organized by the same organization you know that's how crowded it now is I'll finish with this this bit which is spot 23 you've got to ensure it and have a laugh because if not you've just been these yeah you know what for me it would be so much more difficult if I wasn't working with people that I I didn't like if I was working with people I didn't like rather you know to go and do the broadcasting we do with the WCTV team with Martin Avon you know with Aunt Davidson with British Ronnie now with Lou when Lou was with us dangerous Dave you know editor and the rest of the crew in the LMS with with Johnny and with Steph went with and with DSC with you and the guys and Dave Lord and Pedro boy that makes it a lot easier because you do get some time to decompress it's a shared torture if you like but it's it's it's that it is that thing around you've got to love it frankly if you didn't love it there's an infinite number of ways you can earn more money for doing work at far less of a pace but you've got to love it and I think we've always tried to encourage the attitude with the crews that we have we're there to make a positive contribution we're there look is it a business of course it's a business it's how I own my living but for me it's sort of pointless if you're not trying to push it forward in some way to put in front of people an opportunity that you may have heard that might be a value to them as we've done earlier in this the show if we've got somebody who's coming along and would value an experience that we can give them for 20 minutes of our time why wouldn't you but yes it's grueling um it's fun I know there's a lot of people out there that would love to do what you do and what I do um I think that would be fun for most people for maybe a couple of weekends and then all of a sudden reality catches up. Sean Proderick asks a question about WC softer five races in the books what you all for use are the biggest surprises performance why it's good or bad in hyper-color language. What surprised us this year um this. Do you want me to start? You go yeah if you'd have said to me after Le Mans and after Sao Paulo that Porsche would be leading both championships out of him massively surprised. I think that's spot on for me the biggest surprise has been the step forward made with a Porsche 963 with both well with all of them with Hertz team Johto has seen some real sparks of competitive spirit from Proton but in particular from the Porsche Pensacu motorsport crew that looks like a different car completely different car this year that's what testing development excellence can actually do that for me was a big big surprise um that's I think one of the major positives. I actually think we've now got three groups of cars in hypercar we've got the cars that are performing pretty close to their top level of performance we've got an aspirant group let's talk about the likes of Alpene there that can show that pace at the top end as can BMW seemingly when Dries van Sur is in the wheel um but can't sustain it but that shows the same kind of potential as Porsche then showed last year and then you've got a couple um Peugeot and it's sort of Ruskini where they're looking to get to that peak of performance for a variety of reasons. I think that's a really healthy picture um the ones are up against it Alpene in terms of their viability over the longer runs uh BMW about sustaining their pace. Peugeot are still trying to unlock the potential of that car. It's also the same with Lamborghini. Lamborghini apologies for missing in the beginning. They're getting that but they are getting there and I think I think we should see all of the above taking those steps more than gradually. That's the pleasant surprise if you like. The uh in the LMGT3 it's a little more hidden but a little more profound. A pleasant surprise. If you'd have told me after Qatar that the United Auto Sports McLarens will be challenging for podiums by the middle of the year and have laughed in your face it looked lost and yet all of a sudden that's beginning to come together. They've got a long way to go to challenge what looks like an utterly dominant Porsche effort. This is the freight train. It is indeed. Um that's the pleasant surprise of LMGT3. The nasty surprise in GT3 is we've got nine manufacturers. If I'm right and please check this dear listener I think six of those nine have now scored a podium at least one podium and one of the ones that hasn't is Ferrari. Yeah that to me is kind of borderline shocking because the car is so good. The car is so good. So that is beginning to show the quality of what's emerging in LMGT3. We are not there yet okay. I think it does need still teams to learn, drivers to learn what is a significantly new formula for all of them and we've got some new cars as well. I mean would you have believed for instance from the first four or five races that the Ford Mustang GT3 made that that car would finish on the podium at the moment? No no no I mean the moment performance was shocking but in the best possible way. But on the other hand you know when we're looking at things as surprises but not for good reasons there was this there was this momentum and sense behind the scenes that Porsche that it's okay because the new version of the car is coming it's okay don't worry about this. We've got new cars okay we'll be fine we'll just get through this and it's not working out the way they yeah the way they'd hoped just yet. Yeah I think that's the key. I've an inkling of what some of the problems might be there. I've said I think on the show before that if it is what I've been told it might well be then it should be a reasonable fix with sub-development of the car but let's again it's possibly the third or even fourth time I've said it but of hashtag wait and see anything you spotted got him bad. The ad new Aston I think is just superb I mean it has been everywhere pretty much but auto racing look really good and they're you know unfortunate wasn't that big incident Le Mans that took the car out in the tricky conditions Indianapolis but had they had a good result with Le Mans I think we'd be talking about them having a genuine chance in the final few races in the season to challenge the BMWs and and the Porsche's at the front but I mean I thought ahead of the season pure racing they're going to be good seeing the Miniational Mans who have spoken to them there was very impressed with the way they've gone racing in the last year but I didn't expect it to be like this yeah I mean with the car especially you know the Porsche was a little bit of an unknown really well for most of our season because of the problems ahead of the car when it was two years ago this would have been inconceivable inconceivable that that car would be dominant in the way that it has and you know they've had their bad luck and they've had their incidents and we've had dramas for both of the Mans I run cars the EMA car and the pure racing car but you know on pace it just seems we've got it and I think that whether or not that's the car the team the driver squad all of the above the reality is there could be difficult to catch at this stage and the Lexus as well for instance it's another you know let's say it's a massive surprise that they're not there fighting for podiums every week and winning races but a CODIS ASP are such a good team yeah and I spoke to Jack Hawks about this at Le Mans because he drove for a CODIS at Le Mans on short notice but he obviously is a big part of the Vassar Sullivan effort in IMSA which has just been ludicrously successful winning championships and massive races with a car that's that old and he's like it's not a fair comparison really because the way that the style of racing is in IMSA compared to WEC in terms of how you can build a lead in a race and the strategy that plays out is very different and it's not an easy car to get your head around and so it's just odd seeing a name like a CODIS ASP not B right there they're making big steps but they're just not where I think they'd like to be at this point we're at 90 minutes which is usually somewhere where we go it's a Marshall Prout out well here's a Marshall Prout out let's add a gram could have been 10 minutes to it just pick out a couple more I think we're almost there we're almost there now we'll go with this too there's only two more left anyway oh I'm sorry enough so the random is says following the thousands six kilometers of Polanga at the weekend are there any other obscure races that I review are fondness for despite not having much significance or even great racing let's just we talked about this before we did according we did not a lot it's really difficult there's not a lot I mean I gotta answer a super series to answer the question by not answering the question okay and there is one event that I wish there was better coverage of I wish there was better ways of following it online I wish there's better broadcast coverage of and the reason behind it is it's an iconic event it's not a sports car race per se and it takes one of those boxes we talked about it in as early when we're talking about the hydrogen matter of innovation and just doing crazy things with crazy technology and crazy looking cars and some of them are garages just gets a bunch of people and their families and turning up with something that just looks bonkers and seeing whether or not it works and sometimes it doesn't sometimes it doesn't that's pikes peak I've got a real fondness for pikes peak and I think a lot of other people do too but it's a bit folksy in the way that they've addressed following that event internationally and I think that could do with a metaphoric kick in the pants and I think they would find an audience for that if you put together a decent broadcast coverage with a decent broadcast both both imagery and in terms of the knowledge of the people talking about the racing it's a shame that the competitors have to do the promotion for the event yeah you know because it's in this day and age we've got like WRC plus covering every stage all the way through with drones on board cameras and stuff like that it's it's not a startup event it's got so much history and heritage it's it's it amazes me that they haven't been able to get a stable broadcast for that no it is a bit of me I don't know why you know bar means let me know if if you know any of the politics involved in it but that to me it's an event that I have I have I've got some passion for that event um beyond that look there's all sorts of of championships I'd love to watch a race here and what love to watch a race there there's not many of those quirky events left things like Thunderhill sort of had its glory days I think it seems to be on a bit of a wane at the moment the Thunderhill 25 hours um there are a few of the historic racing events that I hanker kind of going to watch probably do those in my retirement in not too many years but there's not very many standalone races that I could tell you that I'm thinking that's quirky and make me want to go and stand track side probably the closest is one I did for the first time last year and I have to say was never a favorite in terms of watching it from afar but you get along to that event and it's a fundamentally different event and that's the um McCamagram pre I went for the first time last year um it is utterly different from anything else I do and you know it's you know the short is racing I've covered in the history of ever um but what a what a place I mean it is utterly utterly unique um still think by the way the duty three cars are too big to be racing around there but they should not lose a single ounce of the character of that event hmm my only my only kind of isn't a standalone race but it was something I've had my head turn to issue it and that is the Mazda Mx5 Cup races at Daytona because I knew it wasn't in the Mazda Mx5 Cup it was cool and the racing was great but that circuit with the drafting and those cars both races were absolute blockbuster and there's a first time I've ever properly watched them this year it was epic well here's a teaser okay we will have some news I hope in the the next week or two for daily sports go and I hope racer as well um about the Mazda Mx5 Cup the Mx5 Cup it is brilliant racing you're absolutely right but we will have some news of some significance okay and everybody involved with the Mazda Mx5 Cup who's listening to this is now going what the hell is going to do just watch this space um there's a couple of bits and pieces that we're putting together at the moment I'm hoping to have a conversation in the only part of next week and if we can do that and it's it is all coming together as I think it will uh then there's some significant news which will add a bit of spice to those of you out there that I do follow the Mx5 Cup and we all know screaming into your listening device going what do you mean you only just discovered it but um you're right it's it is a cracking part of the MSA program hmm the final question um comes from somebody's username is jota save us says is there a scenario where the customer hypercar and GTP fields fizzles out completely purely because of how many uh teams want to race could this even um extend to some of the manufacturers not being able to flash out their programs because there's no space for them to to run grid wise uh the answer is I think it might come in phases uh I think the inevitability is that we're going to see a bit of uh uh contraction in the priority field in WEC for next season I think we might see a bit of an expansion of it in MSA I think quite possibly uh but equally well all good things will come to an end in terms of the level number of manufacturers involved in WEC and here's the point if the growth in the WEC in terms of the people following it forget for a moment the manufacturer is but just the interest it's engendering in the wider world if that is maintained at something like the level we've got now or better then it's a massive plus for a privateer with ambition and with sponsors behind them to get into something that's got that level of exposure so the the heady days of privateer hypercar might be a few years in the future yet yeah it almost feels like a redundant question to ask heads of manufacturers now there was a point about a year ago where it was you know every time you got the opportunity to speak with senior management in these manufacturers when you can do privateer hypercar you're looking at customer cars how's it going to work actually looks like a ridiculous question now because unless you want to race in MSA and yeah it would be possible if you want to race in MSA getting a privateer hypercar on the grid in where it's going to be incredibly difficult and so it's almost like you know it's Porsche or bus really because all the other manufacturers although they're looking at it and you know some of them do have ambition to be in that field it's going to be a lot of money to spend on something that you know you might put a lot of effort into something and get one car out of it or nothing at all you're not going to make money well I mean it's sorta could be an interesting one moving forward let's see what comes out of that the machinations there and hopefully they will put together a deal with two factory cars but if not if they do decide to sell a car to a privateer and there's someone willing to buy one that can be a manufacturer entry even though it's a privately entered car there's all sorts of bits and pieces I'd say this much what I like to see a healthy privateer marketplace I really really would it's the it's the the basis of my enthusiasm for sports car races is other people involved the racing people involved in it not just the big corporate entities but I think we can afford to be patient and I think if we had to wait a year or two years to see some green shoots emerging there for whatever reason that is most likely to come if we've got a healthy basis for this sport and at the moment it looks very healthy you know healthy enough that we don't really have to worry immediately about whether or not we can sustain all the factory interests we've currently got I think if we didn't there are five or six plans to fill the gap if a two car factory team dropped out that's with other factories wanted to come it's with the potential for growth of hypercar it's with the growth of LMGT3 because there are clearly manufacturers that like to come that currently can't from everything we hear there may well be additional growth in GT3 to come and we'll have a little bit more to say about that on DSC in the in the coming weeks so I think we're going to fold at this point not to be too glum about it not to to worry about it but to see it as an opportunity if you want to see what that looks like go on have a look at the grids the World Sports Golf Championship in the early 80s with the the the birth of Group C and watch what happened over a period of three or four years particularly with Porsche where we saw some manufacturers come in and leave and what replaced them were private air portions and I think that could be something that we see in a couple of years time that maybe with a little bit of contraction here or the fact that we might get to the stage where they decide that numbers are king and maybe we look at tracks for summer if not all of the races that can fit an even bigger grid in the future that maybe that's the point in which the trigger is pulled by people and those programs start to come to the fore you know you've already we already had the position explained by Pierre Fion that's he wants to look at the Asia Le Mans series to see whether or not there might be an Asian market I think that's a stretch I'll be honest with you doesn't want that for the European Le Mans series but I think we're going to be starting to ask questions of ourselves as a sport what is the future in terms of the way that our racing is structured and the big question that occurs to me right now Stephen is have we got a structure of racing in sports car racing it's appropriate for the level of demand that is out there bearing in mind there are so few places you can race certain cars having P2s of critics and block it you know I'll pick up the point was about to make the previous question just after he announced the massive Canada for SRO it's part really for hours at a quick moment with Stephen Mattel and said to him do you sometimes hank after the days when your calendar announcement at the end of the year was eight rounds the FIGT championship now we've got GT World Challenge you know on pretty much every continent bar Antarctica plus RGTC and national championships for GT3 and GT4 in some cases for touring cars as well and I think you're now at the stage where certain marketplaces are saturated what do you do next do you try to play with the structure you've got do you try to add in an opportunity for LMP3 somewhere else LMP2 somewhere else LMP3 somewhere else and the same questions apply to him so you said it yourself with an overspill of what was it 20 cars 20 cars what kind and let's presume for a moment that a reasonable number of those 20 cars are not cars that just want to do Daytona how much of a business case do you need it to have that let's assume that 10 of those cars would have to be turned away completely okay how much have they prepared to pay for a platform to present those cars in national regional competition what kind of opportunity do you need to to prepare whether or not you are IMSA, SRO, USA or elsewhere or LMEM and the ACO to find an opportunity to put something together will be attractive enough for people to put down those six and seven figure sums to get those cars racing I think we're at that point now yeah food for four isn't it it is I think that's it my friend that is great stuff thank you so much for the questions you've put forward for this belated list of question led edition of the week in sports cars um Marshall I know we'll want to be back next week we'll try and do another question led effort before we start to go traveling again a couple of weeks time for now I want to say thank you to our continued backers uh for Twisk to FAFT Technologies to the Justice Brothers and Toronto Motorsports.com I have been Graham Godwin he's still still Stephen Kilby sorry guys yeah and producing this show back in the United States is of course Marshall Perrets um we'll be back with you next week
