Le Mans: New rule to prevent one-car dominance

The Automobile Club de l'Ouest, the organiser of Le Mans has announced that, in order to prevent a one-car dominance, the 2011 rules of its series may be adjusted during the course of the season.

Being apllied in the new Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, Le Mans Series and American Le Mans Series, the "article 19" rule's goal is to solve the long-running dominance of diesel technology from Audi and Peugeot, since 2006, over petrol-powered cars. The new rule wants to keep the top petrol and diesel teams within two per cent of each other's pace.

According to ACO's statement: "Performance adjustment through the application of article 19 [the ACO reserves itself the possibility of balancing performances between the different engines and technologies] as well as the two per cent rule.

This means keeping the lap times of the quickest cars in each technology within a range of two per cent in relation to the quickest car, all technologies combined, through decisions taken by the ACO."

Aston Martin Racing will surely welcome the official green light for the rule change, after the team committed to an all-new petrol LMP1 car with the hope that the regulations would give its car a chance to fight for victory in the 24-hour race, after a five-year dominance of diesel cars.

Other adjustments confirmed by ACO for the 2011 season include LMP2 becoming a fully-fledged 'pro-am' category on allthe Le Mans championships, with at least one gentleman driver - as assessed under the ACO's driver categorisation.

The GT classes have also suffered a restructuration. They will be merged into a single GTE category, splitted into GTE Am and GTE Pro. While the amateur class must include a gentleman driver in each entry and the car must be at least a year old, the GTE Pro will be unrestricted, but will feature performance balancing.