Mclaren MP4-12C GT2 is In the 2012 Lemans grid!!

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Button Eyes Le Mans In 2012: Jenson Button has expressed interest in racing a McLaren at Le Mans. The 2009 World Champion has just signed a new contract with the famous British F1 team, which is also the manufacturer of the high performance MP4-12C sports car. The car will be on the 2012 Le Mans 24 hour grid.
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!!! get excited!!
 
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Button will never have a chance at Le Mans while he is a F1 driver, the days when that was possible are gone.

In fact, I think Ecclestone has a petty war against LM and there's ALWAYS a GP during the LM weekend. David against Goliath I'd say, F1 being the Goliath in this case, and we all know David won :D
 
Hun200kmh
In fact, I think Ecclestone has a petty war against LM and there's ALWAYS a GP during the LM weekend.
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There isn't a clash in 2012.

I know that Martin Brundle is looking to get a deal together for him and son Alex to race together. I don't know what car or team he's looking at.
 
Right you are daan, I missed that info. 👍 Checked it out and apparently a deal was made to stop this nonsensical "war". Le Mans will have the testing on the weekend of 2/3 and the actual race on the weekend of 16/17. Canadian GP will fit nicely in the middle weekend of 9/10.

Also didn't know about Brundle, it'll be a busy schedule for him if he's still to attend the Canadian GP.
 
The possibility of JB being there only makes me want to go even more - I've been pondering the possiblity of visiting Le Mans a couple of years now but I've yet to get together a bunch of mates willing to go and spend the money.

However, being realistic, JB would have a tough time jumping in a GT car. He would need to run a fair bit of testing and perhaps do some races before hand if he wanted to make a serious challenge for a class victory (assuming McLaren enter in GT with the MP4 and aren't going to pull an LMP out of nowhere). I'm not sure he's really going to have the necessary time to do that next year with the very busy F1 season but lets see.

I would have thought it more likely that he would retire from F1 and then go for Le Mans glory like almost every other ex-F1 driver. But perhaps this was one of his requests in his new contract?

On a side note, I feel sad that very few F1 drivers are doing any guest drives in touring cars nowdays. You would have thought that it would be much easier to jump in WTCC or whatever fairly easily and have a decent race or at least have some fun chucking a car about (at least compared to more demanding series like Le Mans and rallying!). Although I guess V8 Supercars counts, it hasn't had many F1 drivers in their special guest race.
 
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Ardius
The possibility of JB being there only makes me want to go even more - I've been pondering the possiblity of visiting Le Mans a couple of years now but I've yet to get together a bunch of mates willing to go and spend the money.
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I tell you if I was a brit it would be a no brainer. I already travelled past La Sarthe a few times and funnily enough in all of those I was traveling by road to/from the UK. It is very close to you guys. And although my trips never coincided with the race, just passing by, checking a few famous places, visiting the museum, looking at the Hunaudiéres straight from the door of the Tertre Rouge pub ... being there ... was awesome! :)

Sadly, you'll have no chance of watching JB race there while he is a F1 driver. Such is our world today. The guy can't even play tennis !!!!! :lol:

autosport (Jonathan Noble)
Interestingly, in Japan McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh revealed that his drivers were banned from taking part in any sporting activity that held a high risk of injury – a position that was further strengthened after what happened to Petrov's team-mate Robert Kubica earlier this year.

"I normally remind them of such incidents, but it's the nature of drivers that in a very healthy way they feel invisible so they won't help themselves," said Whitmarsh.

"It happens reasonably frequently: can I do this, can I do the other? They introduce additional risk. But there is already risk in F1, so to introduce others is something that we are not wildly enthusiastic about."

When asked if tennis was on McLaren's approved list, following Juan Pablo Montoya's shoulder injury a while back, Whitmarsh said: "No, we have banned that. We had an incident a few years ago – to play tennis on a motorbike is quite difficult!"
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Anyway ... I'm going there. Not sure what year, but I definitely am, so maybe we meet one day :)



PS - Maybe you can get a ride next year with these guys. They appear to be nice blokes and money shouldn't be a problem, you fill the tank once and that's it ;)

[YOUTUBEHD]P-dGEV9ZS48[/YOUTUBEHD]
 
Its very close perhaps for people in southern England, but not so much where I live. Put it this way, I've only been to Silverstone twice and that was a fair bit of hassle! I've never been to Brands Hatch nor Donington Park or Croft or a lot of UK circuits. So proximity is not really the issue.

I realise JB isn't likely to be there next year but it has been rumoured and mentioned a fair bit recently (even long before the contract announcement). I do wonder that he has signed a contract with McLaren that extends beyond simply just F1.

In any case, I don't need JB there to encourage me to go. I've wanted to go for a long time. Its just being a Button fan obviously makes it even more a must for me. I have plenty of other drivers that I'm a fan of already there every year.
 
Not only will Button not be allowed to race while he is in F1, the GTE car is currently under development, and will probably not be ready for LM next year. It may appear in some of the Le Mans series by the end of 2012.
 
Mt. Lynx
Not only will Button not be allowed to race while he is in F1, the GTE car is currently under development, and will probably not be ready for LM next year. It may appear in some of the Le Mans series by the end of 2012.
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did you not finish reading my post?

Button Eyes Le Mans In 2012: Jenson Button has expressed interest in racing a McLaren at Le Mans. The 2009 World Champion has just signed a new contract with the famous British F1 team, which is also the manufacturer of the high performance MP4-12C sports car. The car will be on the 2012 Le Mans 24 hour grid.
Click to expand...
 
Le Mans will have the testing on the weekend of 2/3 and the actual race on the weekend of 16/17. Canadian GP will fit nicely in the middle weekend of 9/10.

Also didn't know about Brundle, it'll be a busy schedule for him if he's still to attend the Canadian GP.[/QUOTE]

While i was watching the race this year on eurosport the commentaters hinted that the F1 commentry might be based at the Le Mans circuit for this very reason and with the F1 season being shared with sky they may not need the current team for that race
 
Button won't race Le Mans 2012 and neither will McLaren. GTE spec MP4 isn't ready.....GT3 cars delivered for 2012, GTE 2013. Speed TV journalism FTW :lol:

Oh, don't forget in the RadioLeMans McLaren podcasting Mr. Dennis said McLaren unlikely to go until rules allow cars styled like road machines can win overall...
 
Blaze_409
did you not finish reading my post?
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Yes I did. I only corrected you. The information given is either wrong or a simple lie. The fact that Speed-TV is the only source for this shows it´s not credible.

It was said during the development of the GT3, that a GTE would be built for 2013 (and that it would be a further development of the GT3 car, so that car has to be up and running first), but nothing more has been heard from that project AFAIK.

Not even anything on either McLarens homepage, or CRS, who will do the development work for the customer program. So no Maccas at LM next year.

And we still have the problem with Buttons F1 contract and the fact that Ron Dennis has stated as quoted earlier.
 
still find it incredibly ironic that F1 drivers, men who drive F1 cars, are forbidden from doing dangerous things in their contracts. So i guess its not okay to break your leg in a lemans car crash but its totally ok as long as you do it inside your MP4-27.......F1 is dangerous lol. ask Kubica
 
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daan
Who?

It makes your argument invalid that Kubica was injured driving a rally car then...
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oh. Robert Kubica. also thats was my point. my argument isnt invalid. in fact i dont have an argument. Its simply pointing out something that is ironic. It just goes to show you that F1 is just as dangerous as any other sport in theory so its ironic that theyre forbidden from playing sports such as tennis or rally driving. Despite Kubica's freak accident due to insufficient safety inspection of the rally course.


Also im pretty sure that Mclaren would not deny Jenson Button the opportunistic to race inside of a Mclaren GT2. Its a Mclaren After all.......

Didnt Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas compete in Porsche rally cars? this year and last. Im sure theyres some clause saying they cant skii etc... but when it comes to driving for the same brand or a VAG brand for that matter.
 
F1 drivers are forbidden from rally driving, yet Kubica got his injuries from rally driving. Meaning that he was not forbidden from rally driving?

The reason they didnt want (not forbode) Kubica rallying was because they didnt want to risk injury that was not needed. Rallying is far more dangerous than modern F1.

As for being forbidden, it's obviously not the case, just like Mark Webber who still mountain bikes after his accident.
 
YES!!!!! IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS! ITS BEEN RACING IN THE FIA GT3 SERIES AND NOW LE MANS!!!!!!! I WISH IT WOULD BE IN THE DLC THOUGH. MCLAREN WILL TRY TO MATCH THEIR STATS WITH THE F1 GTR IN THE 90's. Hopefully the MP4-12C GT3 will be able to perform just as well!
 
Bigbazz
F1 drivers are forbidden from rally driving, yet Kubica got his injuries from rally driving. Meaning that he was not forbidden from rally driving?
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you probably dont understand as well. kubica had to get the teams blessing to go do those Rally forays that he participated in. Eric Bouillier Mentioned that they just let him go because he's a driver and all he wants to do is drive.

clearly when i said f1 drivers i didnt assume you meant the entire field including senna R.I.P, fangio, lauda, schumacher.....anyways you get the point. most f1 drivers arent allowed to do that. Unless your Kubica who asked the team if it was ok to race in those events that he did.
 

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