Panoz Chooses GT2 vs LMP1 for 2010 ALMS

[Ackmann]

Thursday, October 15th 2009, 11:17 GMT


Panoz has abandoned its return to the prototype ranks in favour of a new GT2 contender, reports this week's AUTOSPORT magazine.

The US marque was an overall race winner in the American Le Mans Series between 1999 and 2002, and had revealed earlier this year that it was working on a revolutionary front-engined LMP1 prototype for the 2010 season.

That project, codenamed Abruzzi, has now been ditched in favour of a replacement for its ageing Esperante GT2 racer.

Don Panoz, who runs the manufacturer with son Danny, said: "There are a lot of reasons why the LMP1 can't happen, but the idea hasn't gone away."

Danny Panoz elaborated on his father's comments.

"The plan was always for a road car, so we're coming at it from a different angle," he said. "We are looking to have a new GT2. We can't be ready for the Sebring 12 Hours, but we are definitely trying to have something up and running during next season."

The new car would be run by Tom Milner's Prototype Technology Group, which is the official Panoz team in the ALMS.

[LeManns67]

Excellent!!!! Happy to hear it and I hope we see them become as competetive as the Vette and BMW's are already doing against the Porsche and Ferrari's.

[PanozBob]

I agree. I like to watch them race in the GT2 series the most. They need to do some engineering to compete more with Porsche and the others.

[Panozguy]

I believe that ALMS has done away with the GT1 class and now all the cars with run as GT2 specs and runs as the GT Class for 2010.

[WMUCarGuy]

Unfortunately we won't be seeing Panoz anywhere on the grid in 2010. At the start of this off season, Dominik Farnbacher mentioned that PTG would be developing an "Evo" spec version of the Esperante GTLM (similar to 2002's LMP1 Evo), but now it looks as if that will not be happening.

PTG paid for almost all of 2009's season including testing and development with very little support from Panoz of any kind. PTG is a professional racing team and they're not an organization that generally pays its own bills, so I wouldn't expect any Panoz operation to continue unless Panoz steps up its involvement BIG TIME, which is unlikely. And then, it was just reported that PTG put its 2 race car transporters up for sale and would not be entering anything in 2010.

And on top of all that, there have been massive cutbacks in funding and personnel in all areas of Panoz Auto Group and Panoz Motorsports Group, so I can't imagine the Don will be picking up the tab for much next year in the motorsports arena.