These days, costs are more firmly under control, and equivalence of technology has given way to balance of performance to level the playing field. It’s a controversial topic. IMSA and the ACO, which writes the WEC and Le Mans rules, have different approaches to BoP, and the latter has had a perhaps more complicated—or more political—job as it combines cars built to two different rulebooks.

Some, like Ferrari, Peugeot, Toyota, and Aston Martin, build their entire car themselves to the Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) rules, which were written by the organizers of Le Mans and WEC. Others, like Porsche, Acura, Alpine, BMW, Cadillac, and Lamborghini, chose the Le Mans Daytona h (LMDh) rules, written in the US by IMSA. LMDh cars have to start off with one of four approved chassis or spines and must also use the same Bosch hybrid motor and electronics, the same Xtrac transmission, and the same WAE battery, with the rest being provided by the OEM.

Even before the introduction of LMH and LMDh, I wondered whether the LMDh cars would really be given a fair shake at the most important endurance race of the year, considering the organizers of that race wrote an alternative set of technical regulations. In 2025, a Porsche nearly did win, so I’m not sure there is any inherent bias or “not invented here” syndrome, but I asked Kuratle if, in hindsight, Porsche might have gone the “do it all yourself’ route of LMH, as Ferrari did.

“If you would have the chance starting on a white piece of paper again, knowing what you know now, you obviously would do many things different. That, I believe, is the nature of a competitive environment we are in,” he told me.