Jan Lammers has confirmed that his Racing for Holland team will not take part in the Le Mans 24 Hours in June.
The financial risks of contesting the race, and commitments within A1GP, have led to the decision to not enter the team into the famous French event – where the Dutch outfit has been amongst the leading privateer entries in recent years.
“Entering Le Mans demands a commitment of approximately 1.5 million Euros,” he said. “The moment you receive your first sponsorship payment is also the point of no return. Then you have the obligation towards your sponsors to go to Le Mans. From then on the only thing you can do is work hard and pray that you will generate sufficient revenue. Now I want to meet all my obligations from the past years first.
“I do not like hiding behind some holding company. I accept full responsibility. When we win we are on a podium, so if it goes wrong you must not hide. To me these kind of difficulties are an opportunity to strengthen the bond with people instead of terminating the relationship. We all have our problems, it is the way you deal with it that makes the difference. Through the years a lot of great people helped us out on important occasions and they have injected huge amounts of money, knowledge and motivation. I see it as my duty to reward this enthusiasm and trust in a fitting manner.
“I did not want to compete at Le Mans again with a big chance that we would lose money as a business because of this. Le Mans is held mid June and then you must be there and ready, also financially. We are not going to succeed in doing this for 2008, so we will have to skip Le Mans this time.”
However, Lammers denied certain press reports that the team was going to close its doors – with the Le Mans programme being the only one sidelined for the coming campaign.
“This only concerns our Le Mans activities,” he said. “Also as a racing team the bottom line is first to earn more money than the cost you generate and thus make a profit. Second you have to be able to secure the revenues before you need the money. When you only get money halfway through February, but the payment deadline is already in January, you are continuously playing catch up.
"From that moment on you are mainly occupied with explaining to people why you cannot pay them. I did not want to put others and myself through this again. As far as our Le Mans project is concerned our costs were amongst the front runners, with our revenues in constant pursuit.
“A1GP is going really well, the sponsor budget is complete and already for next year we are well underway. We will be very busy so it will be more difficult to determine what we are not going to do. It is not unthinkable that in the future Racing for Holland will return to Le Mans again, but only if the right 'win-win' conditions are there.”
Lammers himself will drive the Horag Racing Porsche RS Spyder in the Le Mans Series and has a number of offers to drive in the Le Mans 24 Hours.
