IndyCar/GT team owner Bobby Rahal plans Le Mans LMP2 programme

Rahal, whose team runs BMW's GT Le Mans programme in the IMSA SportsCar Championship, is visiting the French enduro this week on what he described as a "busman's holiday" with a view to exploring opportunities for next year.

"I would love to come to Le Mans as a team owner but it is all about finding the money to do it," he told Autosport.

"BMW has said that they are not coming, so that is not an option, but we would like to do something in P2.

"Maybe we could do a joint venture with an existing team, which might make sense logistically and operationally.

"I'm really here on a busman's holiday but there are a few people I want to meet to start talking about next year."

Rahal revealed that his team could launch a secondary IMSA campaign with a LMP2 in the four enduros at Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen and Road Atlanta that make up the North American Endurance Cup.

"Our first obligation is to BMW and anything we did couldn't have an impact on that, but competing in the four big enduros might work," he explained.

Rahal said that he hoped son Graham, who races for the family team in the IndyCar Series, would be part of any Le Mans programme.

"It's a race I think he wants to do and I'd certainly like him to do it," he said.

Rahal has run BMW's North American sportscar programme for the past eight years following a season fielding a Porsche in the American Le Mans Series in 2007.

DID YOU KNOW...
... Bobby Rahal raced twice at Le Mans?

The 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner and three-time CART champion contested the event in 1980 in a Barbour Porsche 935K3 (pictured below) and in 1982 aboard a March-Chevrolet 82G run by the Garretson team. He also failed to qualify for Le Mans in a Cooke-Woods Lola-Porsche in 1981.