- Pedro Rodriguez excluded from 1971 Sebring 12 Hours
- Marc Donohue excluded from 1971 Daytona 24 Hours
- Van Lennep excluded from 1971 Le Mans 24 Hours
- Reinhold Joest excluded from 1975 Le Mans 24 Hours
(…)

Wow, I thought cars were running too low or too light, but this is just silly…

It used to be that to finish an endurance race with a banged-up race car was normal; perhaps even a celebrated accomplishment. Stewards strike again.

FIA kills the sport with things like this.

Sorry, i mean if the ACO starts do the same things like FIA do in the F1.

There’s enough nonsense around already without actually finding new ways for sportscar racing to try and emulate F1…..

@gabe,

That’s ’cause ever more “former” FIA old boys have entered(infiltrated?)the ACO. One can see this quite clearly at Le Mans in the recent years,as the track is becoming more of an F1 clone bit by bit. Even the same kind of safetynazi trackchanges are being carried out…

A very sad development…

Imagine these rules in WTCC races…

Well if this is the way the ACO are going to start doing it, then my Trip to Le Mans and Silverstone LMS is cancelled.

It’s clear that the FIA is doing as much as she can to destroy it’s(sportscars) current popularity.
As we all know,Bernie and Max really don’t like anything that takes viewers(read:money)away from their golden egg goose and will do anything to bring such a competitor down.
Remember the late 90’s ITCC? They simply bought the rights and then raised the costs to broadcast this series to criminally high levels. Result: A great series dead within two years…

Has anyone been able to see this brilliant high prestige race on the telly? Exactly. No.

This is a shocking display of rule enforcement. I can understand why a rule like this would be in place, to prevent teams from ‘modifying’ cars during the race to gain an unfair advantage. However this is blantantly against the spirit of what we all enjoy in sportscar racing. FBR gained no advantage by having a damaged car and by no means did they deliberately break the rules. I wonder how the team who were promoted to first place feel about this?

Sorry, I meant the Felbmayr car not FBR.

I also disagree with this decission BUT this had nothing to do with the FIA, I was there and people of the ACO did the scruteneering, not the FIA. Plus, does anybody of us know every ACO-rule? @ Gabe, you’re just shooting around. @GT four, Bernie and Max aren’t old friends anymore ( see new rules F1 ), FIA and ACO are at the moment searching for a way working back together IN THE FUTURE, ITCC had nothing to do with FIA ( was ruled bij ADAC ) and yes, it was on telly ( EUROSPORT ). The Le Mans track too safe???? FIA ruling???? NO, Audi, AM, Peugeot, etc. don’t wanna any serious accidents anymore…( bad publicity ) @ Ricardo, what has WTCC got to do with LMES ( different disciplines, different rules )????

This is non sensical. In fact, this is ridiculous. There are, however, rules for a reason. The car that hit the Porsche should’ve been penalised, and, if the car is illegal when it finishes, so should the Porsche. Was the Aston penalised for hitting it?

Was it bollocks.

All the stewards are doing is pointing out their own incompetence! If the car was so badly damaged it should have been given a mechanical black flag and been brought into the pits during the race.

Well, Rules is rules, and if the cars didn’t comply then tough luck! If it was my car beaten by one that was illegal then I’d be mightily miffed!

But…. I’d like to have seen someone have a little word in the ears of the disqualified teams a while before the end of the race (or even as soon as the damage was obvious) and so given them a chance to fix the relevant problem.

@HD i think what ricardo was referring to is how beat wtcc cars are after a race.

A completely unjust decision. If the damage is considered so significant that the stewards exclude the car following the race, then they should have black-flagged it long before the finish. The way this has played out so far is simply not in the spirit of endurance racing.

I find it very strange that the official in the pitlane did not take any action when the 77 Felbermayr had to change the flat tyre after being hit. If it is too dangerous to drive a damaged car, the organisation should have ordered the 77 car in to have it repaired, and not letting it finish in a damaged state. This is clearly a mistake by the organisation, so the decision should be reversed! The 77 Felbermayr should be 1st in GT2.

Well I remember they were going to pull the Peugeot from the Silverstone race back in 04 or 05, just because the rear brake light or part of the bodywork was flapping about in the breeze, cost the Pug the win, but I have never heard of cars being DQ’d because they received damage, it’s an endurance race, cars get damaged all the time pretty much, are they going to start DQ’ing when the fix-it tape isn’t the right colour next?

Maybe they will DQ cars for losing the wheel arch grills that got lost with the clumps of rubber?

“@HD i think what ricardo was referring to is how beat wtcc cars are after a race.”

That’s it!

There is a provision in the regulations that no moving parts should be outside of the bodywork. In that picture the rear wheel is clearly outside the bodywork. Compare it to the front wheel. I think the difference is that the uncovered wheel can fling debris rearward at other competitors.

Broken vents on the front wheel arches seem to be exactly why Barazi Epsilon were DQ’d.

As they say in NASCAR, the rules are the rules.
Even though it is distastful, I agree with the stewards.