Ford dominated on its return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans 12 months ago. Ferrari at least took the fight in GTE Pro to the flotilla of Ganassi-run cars, but the rest of GTE -- Chevrolet, Aston Martin and Porsche -- weren’t in the race. The job of the rule-makers this year is to make sure there is truly a race in the class. Ford would dispute it, but it played a long game in last year’s World Endurance Championship. Its eyes in the first half of the season were firmly set on Le Mans. You’ll find a line of rivals ready to point an accusing finger and claim that the British-based arm of the Ganassi team hid the true speed of the Ford GT in the early rounds to ensure that the car had a favorable Balance of Performance when it was joined by the U.S. Ganassi squad in France in June. The rule-makers -- the FIA and Le Mans organizer the Automobile Club de l’Ouest -- reacted and made the unprecedented move of tweaking the BoP between qualifying and the race. The Friday afternoon change wasn’t enough, however. Toni Vilander, one of the trio of Risi Competizione Ferrari drivers who battled with the Fords, reckoned the drivers of the American cars were playing with their rivals. The FIA and the ACO have reacted again to Ford’s supremacy. There’s a new BoP for Le Mans 2017, or rather there’s a new chart out for the first skirmish before the big race on June 17-18. The rule-makers have been insistent that the first 2017 Le Mans BoP is specifically for the Test Day on June 4. The implication is that it could change again prior to the start of qualifying during race week and perhaps again before the race. They know they can’t afford a repeat of 2016.

The Fords have been hit with a 20-kilogram (44-pound) increase in minimum weight and changes to the turbo boost curve of their EcoBoost V6s designed to reduce power. At the same time, their rivals have been given a helping hand by the BoP. The Aston Martin Vantage GTE and Chevrolet Corvette C7.R have been given larger-diameter engine-air restrictors to have the reverse effect. Porsche has what should be regarded as a new BoP. It is racing a different car from this time last year, having introduced the new mid-engined 911 RSR at the start of this season. The BoP for the Ferrari 488 GTE is unchanged for the simple reason that it is the baseline car -- all the others are balanced to the Italian machine. The back story to this year’s BoP is a complicated and somewhat confusing one. The original plan communicated to the manufacturers was that the BoP would be worked out solely on the basis of Le Mans 2016 and then set in stone sometime before the end of last season. This was abandoned in favor of a return to what one manufacturer described as “the old subjective system.” That’s a roundabout reference to the so-called automatic BoP introduced for the six-hour WEC races this year, whereby data from the preceding race is fed into a logarithm that defines the weight and power outputs of the cars for the following event. Le Mans isn’t subject to the automatic BoP courtesy of the unique demands of the 8.5-mile circuit. Data accrued from the regular events wouldn’t be particularly relevant to the Circuit de la Sarthe. But the auto BoP’s introduction should have important ramifications for Le Mans. One of the aims of the new BoP is to eradicate sandbagging from the WEC. It would be difficult to accuse Ford of such practices this year, given the pace it showed at the Silverstone series opener in April. The manufacturers are saying the right things about the BoP for Le Mans. “We’ve got the BoP and we are happy with the process that the FIA and the ACO have taken,” says John Gaw, managing director of motorsport at the Prodrive organization that runs the Aston Martin factory program. “We are confident that it will be correct on race day.” Ford has offered a similar view. “What we have got so far is only the starting point,” says George Howard-Chappell, project leader on the Ford GT race car at Multimatic and team principal of the WEC squad. “It’s not necessarily the BoP for the race. There could be changes to ensure that we have the closest possible race.” Corvette Racing just wants to be in the fight. Just ask driver Oliver Gavin. “Last year was a huge frustration for everyone within the team,” says Gavin, a five-time class winner at the 24 Hours with the factory Chevrolet squad. “We want to go to Le Mans with the ability to compete at the front.” That’s what everyone is hoping for this year -- the FIA and the ACO probably more than anyone.

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