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Ford GT dominates Le Mans qualifying, gets slapped with performance adjustment

Fifty years after Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon drove the Ford GT40 to victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Ford is poised for a historic return to the Circuit de la Sarthe. The new Ford GT took the top two qualifying positions in the LMGTE Pro class, and four of the top five. Ferrari's 488 filled in the rest of the spots in the top seven, the first two from AF Corse. In other words, we're primed for a reboot of the classic Ford-Ferrari feud at this year's race. Or not, as the ACO, which organizes the 24 Hours of Le Mans, announced sweeping pre-race Balance of Performance (BOP) adjustments this morning that make this year's GT class anybody's race. In LMP1, last year's overall winner Porsche locked up the top two spots with the 919 Hybrid and will lead the entire field at race start. Toyota's two-car factory effort followed with qualifying times 1.004 and 2.170 seconds behind the pole lap. Audi rounds out the manufacturer-backed LMP1 class in fifth and sixth. Full qualifying results can be found here. The storyline for the GT cars is perfect - some say too perfect. Ford's class-leading times came after BOP adjustment to the Corvette Racing C7.R before qualifying. BOP is intended to level the playing field in the class by adjusting power, ballast, and fuel capacity. (Check out this explainer video for more, or even just if you love French accents.) But the process is riddled with unknowns and ripe for accusations of sandbagging. That is, if the Ford cars were intentionally slow in practice they could hope for BOP adjustment to improve their race chances. On the Corvette side, last year's GTE Pro winner went from the top of the field to the bottom, barely improving from practice to qualifying. If you think Le Mans is as rigged at the NBA Playoffs, well, it's not that simple. Because if Ford and Ferrari held back until qualifying - the eighth-place Porsche 911 RSR is three-and-a-half seconds off the class pole time - it was a pretty dumb strategy. This morning, the ACO tried to put things back in order by limiting the boost in the Ford GT's twin-turbo V6 and adding 11 pounds of ballast. Ferrari was also given extra weight but allowed more fuel capacity. The Corvette and Aston Martin teams were both given breaks on their air restrictors, which will allow their engines to make more power. Both Ford and Porsche also received extra fuel capacity.

Porsche Cayenne diesel V8 may not be long for this world

Goodbye, Porsche Cayenne V8 Diesel. We hardly knew ye. Nor did the Europeans, apparently. Porsche's V8 oil burner is still on the European model list for the Cayenne SUV, but the mill won't go through the likely pricey process of being updated to adhere to new and stricter European emissions standards, Just-Auto says. A Porsche spokesman confirmed to the publication that it's a fairly complicated process to update the diesel V8 to be so-called "Euro-6 compliant." With Cayenne diesels selling in relatively low volumes anyways, the German automaker might just dump the V8 diesel altogether, as it'd be quite cost-ineffective to make the necessary upgrades. The V8 diesel was a 4.1-liter engine that delivered 385 horsepower in addition to what sounds like a little too much exhaust for European clean-air regulators. While that's a pretty powerful profile, the most recent gas-powered V8 for the Cayenne delivers about 570 horsepower, so the diesel engine won't likely be missed by European auto enthusiasts. Besides, there's still the V6 diesel that's also sold in the US. That's a 4,800-pound beast that moves from 0 to 60 miles per hour in about seven seconds and gets a relatively (for diesels) modest 20 miles per gallon city. For those who are curious, Autoblog's First Drive review of that model can be found here.

A closer look at the 2015 Porsche Macan

He assured us that "this is a sports car."
Porsche took the wraps off its all-new 2015 Macan at the LA Auto Show last week, and while it's easy to write it off as just a badge-engineered version of the Audi Q5, you'd be very, very wrong. For starters, 75 percent of the car's platform was re-engineered by the Porsche team, and with a choice of two twin-turbocharged engines, the Macan should absolutely live up to the brand's pedigree.