Everybody loves an underdog. Whether it’s the Minis fighting the Galaxies in the 60s, Jordan mounting an unlikely title challenge in 1999 or Brawn GP delivering that championship in 2009. Unfortunately, David doesn’t always win, and such is the case with the ByKolles CLM P1/01. One of the longest serving LMP1 cars, first seeing action in 2014. Unlike some underdogs, the ByKolles never had its day in the sun. While it did score 3 “Privateer” class wins in the WEC, these were not impressive performances.

2015 6 Hours of Nurburgring-10 laps behind the class winning LMP2 and 1 lap behind the GTE-PRO winner, 18th overall.

2015 6 Hours of COTA-1 lap behind the LMP2 winner, 8th overall

2016 6 Hours of Shanghai-1 lap ahead of the LMP2 winner and “only” 14 laps off the leader, 7th overall

More impressive were its results at Le Mans which consisted of DSQ, fire, overheated, crash, gearbox and rear wing failure. In 6 attempts it never once saw the finish. But that’s not the point. During this period, LMP1 was dominated by an arms race between Audi, Toyota and Porsche (and briefly Nissan). LMP2 provided a cheaper, and in some cases faster way for smaller/privateer teams to go prototype racing. Even in the dying years of LMP1 the biggest threat to Toyota were the Rebellion and SMP teams, both well-funded and running upgraded LMP2 cars. For a team as small as ByKolles to design and build their own LMP1 car is not something to be taken lightly. It is the decision to try that must be commended as motorsport thrives on the little guy going “What if?”. Without the big thinking little team, we may not have aerodynamics, mid-engine layouts, ground effect or active suspension. While the car may not have been great, the commitment was. ByKolles have since created an entry for the Hypercar class, and with the structure of the category, they stand their best chance of success (or at least finishing Le Mans).