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Le Mans rulemakers working on GTE performance row

The World Endurance Championship's rulemakers are evaluating changing the GTE Pro Balance of Performance for this weekend's Le Mans 24 Hours after Ford and Ferrari dominated Wednesday's opening qualifying session

The ACO and the FIA have stated that the BoP remains open after the Fords and Ferraris blocked out the first seven positions in the 14-strong class, with next-best manufacturer Porsche 3.8 seconds off the pace in eighth.

ACO sporting director Vincent Beaumesnil explained that the BoP process could be changed up until Friday night.

"We are working on it and people are looking at all the data," he told Autosport.

"We can make changes if we consider them necessary up to Friday night."

Ford, which has received a 25kg weight break in two steps either side of the Le Mans test day earlier this month, has rejected allegations that it was sandbagging in the opening rounds of the World Endurance Championship.

Multimatic motorsport boss Larry Holt, whose organisation has developed the Ford GT for both the road and racetrack, pointed out that the UK-based Ganassi squad was a new team.

"People will point the finger, but what they don't understand that if you are new team with a new car it is going to take you a while to get into the racing groove," he said.

He also pointed out that because the Ferrari 488 GTE had been given a 10kg weight penalty, Ford has a 35kg net gain on the winner of the opening two rounds of the WEC.

Holt suggested that Chevrolet had not shown the true potential of the Corvette C7.R, whereas the Fords and Ferraris had all undertaken qualifying runs in the expectation of rain in Thursday's final qualifying sessions.

The C7.Rs were hit with a 0.3mm reduction in restrictor size for Le Mans after the #63 topped the test day in the hands of Antonio Garcia, having already had a 0.2mm reduction from its IMSA SportsCar base size.

That contributed to the Chevrolets occupying the bottom two places on the GTE Pro timesheets in the opening qualifying session, 0.7 seconds slower than it managed in testing.

Conversely Ford went 4.9 seconds faster than it managed on the test day, while the lead AF Corse Ferrari - which is provisionally third on the grid - found 4.4 seconds.

CHEVY WANTS SPORTSMANSHIP

Corvette Racing programme manager Doug Fehan questioned the behaviour of its rivals.

"I can only speak for ourselves," he told Autosport. "You can look at the times we ran on the test day and the times in qualifying. They were very similar.

"The sanctioning body knows they are in a tough position with Balance of Performance.

"So what they've asked the manufacturers to do is be as forthright as they can in development and the data they send.

"We've always tried to operate on the tenants of honesty, integrity, respect and sportsmanship."

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