Why Le Mans chaos was actually good for LMP1

'Motorsport is Dangerous'. That's what it says on the back of your ticket when you pay to go to a race. I reckon there should also be a warning on championship or race entry forms stamped equally large. It should read 'Motorsport is Expensive'.

That's a fact of life and why I have no qualms with the rulemakers extending the scope of hybridisation in LMP1 when a new set of rules come into force for the manufacturers at the Le Mans 24 Hours and in the World Endurance Championship in 2020. The new zero-emissions rule forcing factory P1 cars to complete their first kilometre after every fuel stop purely on electric power might appear to be in contradiction of efforts to drive down budgets, but I believe it is absolutely necessary.

The truth is that manufacturers need a technological message these days to justify their motorsport budgets if the car they are racing doesn't happen to be something they sell for the road. The current P1 rules, with a renewed onus on hybrids and fuel-efficiency, came into force in 2014, so by 2020 it will be time for the manufacturers to have something new to shout about.

Look back through Audi's long involvement in the prototype arena. First it came with direct-injection, then the turbodiesel, and finally energy-retrieval technology. Peugeot returned to Le Mans in 2007 to showcase its prowess with the turbodiesel. And for Toyota, racing in LMP1 is all about driving forward its hybrid technology.

Nissan came with a message when it departed from the norm and built the front-engined GT-R NISMO LM. It was shouting 'we're an off-the-wall car maker that dares to be different' with that ultimately unsuccessful project. That car was also packed full of interesting technology, even if the Japanese manufacturer never got the opportunity to prove that it worked.

So we can say with some certainty that every manufacturer LMP1 project of the past 10 or more years has been about technology, with the exception of Aston Martin's foray in 2009-11 with a Lola-based V12 coupe and then its own open-top creation.

That's one in the face for those who argue that with only two manufacturers on the grid the time has come for Le Mans and the WEC to forget about hybrids, fuel-flow and zero-emissions, and perhaps follow the lead of the IMSA SportsCar Championship in North America and adopt something akin to its LMP2-based Daytona Prototype international rules.

The proponents of the idea that Le Mans and the WEC should go low-tech would argue that if the cost of entry in LMP1 was lower there would be more takers and more factories on the grid. But can we say that with any certainty?

Think back to the first half of the last decade. Audi undoubtedly frightened people away with its spending and its technology - Cadillac actually said as much. But when it wasn't present at Le Mans with a factory team and Bentley had departed the scene, job done, where was the queue of manufacturers ready to try to win the 24 Hours with what could have been a modest investment?

It is easy to forget that LMP1 was very much a privateer affair at Le Mans in 2004 and '05. The Audi R8s that won in those years were supported by the German car maker technically, but they weren't factory cars. That the R8 was still winning the French enduro in its dotage had a lot to do with the absence of manufacturer opposition in those years.

We should never forget that it isn't just the rule book that makes motor racing expensive. It is the value of the prizes on offer.

Former FIA president Max Mosley is said to have once remarked that if you gave two Formula 1 teams a scooter each to race, they'd find ways of spending millions upon millions to make them faster. The reasons why F1 teams spend a lot of money are applicable to Le Mans. The budgets are big because the rewards are big.

The fact that an off-the-peg LMP2 car nearly won Le Mans this year is no argument in favour of the adoption of the class, or something similar, as the top prototype category. It did, however, bring the paucity of LMP1 entries in the WEC right now into sharp focus.

That should be addressed next year when there are set to be three new LMP1 privateer designs on the grid. The events of Le Mans a couple of weeks back should help ensure that all the privateer projects reach fruition.

The package of regulations put in place - a helping hand in terms of performance and rules stability that will take their cars through to 2022 - is helping to draw in the privateers. But so too is a window of opportunity illustrated by this year's race.

The little ByKolles squad might have jumped through that window and pulled off an amazing result earlier this month, but for a cruel sequence of events that unfolded within a couple of miles of the start. Had its ENSO CLM-NISMO P1/01 kept going around remotely near the pace of which it was capable, the German-based team would have won Le Mans.

Anyone looking to buy, for example, a Ginetta who is sitting on the fence right now can only have been inspired by what happened at Le Mans. The reduction of the number of manufacturers competing at the front following Audi's withdrawal offers an independent more of a chance. BR Engineering and SMP Racing, Ginetta and the so-far-undisclosed team that will run the Perrinn LMP1 have undoubtedly spotted that.

Should we have six, eight or even 10 privateer P1s at Le Mans next year, everything will be hunky dory again. That's presuming we still have two factories in Porsche and Toyota.

The WEC and Le Mans don't need more than two manufacturers in P1, so long as there is a healthy contingent of independents trying to keep them honest and perhaps nick the odd podium. But the present situation does leave it vulnerable.

Should either Porsche or Toyota pull out, then there's trouble around the corner. And that problem could come sooner rather than later if rumours that Porsche is getting ready to pull the plug on the 919 programme are correct.

That would leave a massive void that would unlikely be filled before 2020, but that's no reason for Le Mans and the WEC to abandon their commitment to high-tech racing.

Without a message on which to hang its hat, no new manufacturer is likely to join the party.