With the LMP2 ‘Joker’ upgrade wind tunnel test at Wind Shear later this month looming, Richard Dean feels that the ACO and FIA have made the right decision, allowing Ligier, Riley/Multimatic and Dallara to upgrade their aero kits (and in the case of the Riley, the chassis too), despite ORECA’s public disagreement.

In 2017, ORECA’s 07 has all but dominated across the board, winning Le Mans, as well as the WEC (by default) and ELMS titles. At Le Mans in particular, the car held a massive advantage in performance, prompting the ACO to allow the other three chassis manufacturers to develop upgrades to “equalise” the performance, and prevent one chassis dominating the market place.

ORECA, perhaps unsurprisingly, disagreed with the decision, stating publicly that “as the only manufacturer not allowed to develop its car, ORECA finds itself unfairly penalised today, together with all the teams which have put their trust in us and have successfully entered the ORECA 07”.

In response to that, Dean was keen to explain the situation to DSC, and justify reasoning behind the aero upgrades, in particular for the P217, which won races (with United) in the ELMS this year and took the title race down to the wire with DragonSpeed’s G-Drive Racing ORECA.

“It’s such an interesting topic, and it’ll always depend on the side of the fence you sit on, as to what your opinions are,” he admitted. “But I read the press release in which ORECA said it wasn’t fair. There’s two sides to that, one it’s in the regulations, and we all signed up to it, so they can introduce development without any issues as far is I’m concerned.

“So is it fair on one manufacturer or the other? I would say that we at United Autosports are Ligier agents, we sell Ligier cars in the UK, so I push and promote Ligier. But, even with my Ligier hat on, it is quite clear, there’s no hiding from the fact that when we were at Le Mans the ORECA was a dominant car. So anybody in the crowd, anybody in the hospitality, garage casual observer, would say that the ORECA was the dominant car at Le Mans. So if there’s a mechanism in the rules, to ensure that there’s no domination by one manufacturer, then I’d say its completely fair. It was, correct me if I’m wrong, ORECAs locked-out the top nine positions in qualifying!

There’s no hiding from the fact that when we were at Le Mans the ORECA was a dominant car

“I agree completely that in the sprint package, that it’s been closer, we’ve won two races, and at some point in the year until GRAFF won at Spa, Ligier had won two, ORECA had won one, and Dallara had won one. Now it’s two Ligier, three ORECA and one Dallara in ELMS. That’s reasonably even.

“But the analysis that the ACO have done, doesn’t point to that completely, there’s less of a dominant position in the sprint package for ORECA. But, if I was sat with an ORECA right now I’d be kicking and screaming because I’d want to keep an advantage. There’s another element to all this which is that every manufacturer designed a car to the same rules, so good for ORECA for producing the car that they’ve done.

“But that defeats the point of having four manufacturers.”

Dean feels that a major issue with the current LMP2 formula, is that ORECA’s 07 Gibson was not a completely new chassis, unlike the three produced by Ligier, Dallara and Riley/Multimatic. Had ORECA started from scratch, he said, it may have been a different story.

“Nothing is ever completely as it seems from the outside,” he explained. “What I would say is that if all four manufacturers went away and worked on the new 2017 regulations and worked from that point, and produced a brand new car, then yeah ok the guy who did the best job wins. But that wasn’t the case. ORECA was allowed to upgrade its car, the other three are brand new.

“The Ligier, Riley and Dallara were brand new to 2017 regulations. For me, what shouldn’t have squeezed through the gaps in that, was an evolution of a car. It is their 2015 car, that’s evolved, and that you could buy a kit for, and change to 2017 regulations. That’s not the four manufacturers introducing four new cars, that’s three new cars and one introducing an evolution of a car that had previously raced at Le Mans two years running. So is there an advantage?

“Is there any wonder that the car was so dominant at Le Mans, when the package that they had was a exercise in perfecting a car they’d already been racing?

“When the Ligier, Dallara and Riley turned up at Le Mans it was for the first time, there was no experience to test at Le Mans, no chance to run that car, so we’ve only figured out what we’d got when we got there. ORECA knew what they’d got, just with a Gibson engine and upgrade. You have to take that into account when you make an opinion on why those three cars have been given an upgrade. It’s only what really has been allowed with ORECA anyway.”

Because of this, Dean, who sells LMP2 Ligier JS P217s via United’s Ligier UK operation, hasn’t noticed any increase in interest for the Ligier from customers looking to buy an LMP2 chassis, even with the promise of the upgrade.

“No, (there’s not been any increase in potential Ligier customers since the ‘Joker’ annoucement) because I don’t think until a Ligier, Riley or Dallara has been allowed to run that there will be interest. If you had half a million euros to spend on an LMP2 car, where would you go spend it? There’s an argument either way, but you’ve got to play it safe haven’t you?

If you had half a million euros to spend on an LMP2 car, where would you go spend it? There’s an argument either way, but you’ve got to play it safe haven’t you?

“Why are there only ORECAs in WEC? People played it safe, and already had a car they could upgrade, so it became dominant, and the minute you have numerical superiority, you also have the development and more chance of winning, then in WEC ORECA can market it well because the sales are high and they win every race. It makes the company stronger, and that’s not what having four licensed cars was about.

“The other three manufacturers are therefore rightly given an upgrade.

“I think we all know areas that we would like to work on with our car, that we can’t, and there are areas that were drawn without any on-track experience, but now we’ve been on track we’ve actually realised it would be better to go another direction. So I’ve got no doubt that the three manufacturers can present an upgrade that will give them a performance increase. The question about if I’m sure that the ACO and FIA are doing it the right way, is hard.

“It’s such a difficult task for them, I’m glad I’m not doing that! There’s gamesmanship, politics and everything else that they’ve got to guard against.”

Dean also has a stake in the LMP3 market both through his United Autosports racing programmes and Ligier UK agency work. He says it’s another marketplace which needs changing for next season in order to make even for the manufacturers involved.

Unlike in LMP2, Ligier has the dominant chassis in LMP3, the JS P3 selling well globally, filling grids in both national and international series in big numbers. But, Norma’s M30, introduced this year, two years after the JS P3’s public debut, in performance terms, is superior in straight-line speed. With the development of the JS P3 frozen, and the demand for Norma growing since its dominant season in the Le Mans Cup with DKR Engineering, which showcased its potential, Dean foresees an issue for teams up and down the LMP3 paddocks going forward.

“I absolutely love the LMP3 concept, but I do have some fears about sustaining its success. Let’s not forget either before I get into my current areas of concern about the class that the Ligier won the ELMS Championship again this season for the second time and has performed well around the world too.

“What’s the solution to make the JS P3 more competitive? A power increase? No, I don’t think that’s the right thing to do, because the category is successful because of budget and price,” he said to DSC. “So any power increase will increase running costs and durability. Gearbox, driveshafts, they always have a knock-on effect. The car is reliable, it runs and runs. And I don’t think it’s necessary to increase the cost of the budget just to make the car go faster.

“With the Norma, unlike the conversation about LMP2, where all the manufacturers came in at the same time, that’s not happened with LMP3. The Ligier is almost three years old, and I think they delivered two years ago, but was in the design process three years ago. The Norma meanwhile, has been introduced this year. When you stagger a car into a set of fixed regulations, you have a natural progression. I’m sure if you asked the guys at Ligier to produce a new car now it would move it up again, and move it on. So, the ELMS has got a job to do, in managing that. I know that they don’t want to introduce BoP, but whatever they want to call it, two years later. It’s natural development.”

A big part of this, is down to the rule makers allowing design solutions on the M30 which Dean believes would be of questionable legality even on LMP2 chassis – whilst no specifics were shared by Dean with DSC the concerns of other Ligier customers have been expressed around some design elements at the rear of the Norma.

“The Norma is faster in a straight line, and they’re currently masking that by running maximum downforce on the car, and it’s still quicker, so now it looks good all-round the track because they’re carrying a lot more downforce than a JS P3 can do compete with it. I think theres a few areas on that car that are questionable too, I don’t mind it going in print now that when Gerard Neveu and Vincent Beaumesnil and Mr (Pierre) Fillon talk about ELMS, they always talk to me about the spirit of the ELMS.

Gerard always tells me about the spirit of the paddock and the series, and for me the Norma breaks the spirit of the ELMS

“Gerard always tells me about the spirit of the paddock and the series, and for me the Norma breaks the spirit of the ELMS and it’s absolutely clear in my mind that in particular, it breaks the spirit of ELMS LMP3. There are things on that car that I would say are open to question as to whether they would be allowed even in LMP2. For them to have allowed that car, technically, to come in, in a cost-capped series, two years after the Ligier is wrong.”

Because of this, he feels there’s a chance that teams will struggle to sign drivers and get together programmes if they have a Ligier. And because most teams will struggle to switch to an M30, due to budgets, and Norma’s maximum volume of production, it could see the ELMS LMP3 grid in particular, take a big hit going forward.

“If you measure success by numbers on the grid, then you are potentially missing predicting missing what the next stage is. If you have large numbers on the grid and everybody is happy and is on a level performance window, that’s one thing. But when a new comes in and the whole paddock agrees it’s better in a straight line and superior aerodynamically, because it has parts that in a cost cap of €207,000 that the Ligier hasn’t, then inevitably everyone is going to migrate towards that car.

“If you’ve got a manufacturer that can do what Ligier did – produce 100 cars in 18 months, one manufacturer could kill another. But if that manufacturer can’t supply 100 cars or if, more importantly, all the teams are invested in Ligier don’t have the money to switch, then the teams won’t get drivers suddenly. They’ll go from drivers looking at LMP3, whose only choice has been which team, not which car, to everyone looking at the car, and it could change over this winter, I think it will change. Unless they address the Norma.

Drivers will look initially, at Norma teams, and if they can’t get in one, they’ll do something else, and there’s plenty of options

“Drivers will look initially, at Norma teams, and if they can’t get in one, they’ll do something else, and there’s plenty of options!” He concluded. “They don’t need to do the ELMS.

“Unless Norma can supply everyone, or unless all the teams I talk to have suddenly won the lottery and can switch cars and equipment, then there’s going to be an awful lot of teams that have got Ligiers who won’t have drivers.

“If they can’t supply the whole grid, the number will go down.”