Quote:
Originally Posted by Akrapovic
It looks like an LMP1 that over-ate at Christmas. It's amazing how can see the additional weight on it.
I don't care about it tbh. It isn't ugly. It certainly isn't pretty. But I can understand why people are annoyed. Binning the LMP rules to get a road car and coming back with a far LMP that's slower and messes up every other class. I don't mind the car - I just don't agree with the slowing of the class.
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"Dumbing down" the hybrid systems and making the cars portlier was probably the only way the ACO knew how to slow down the LMP1 (now LMH/LMDH) cars to their long established 3:30 second laptimes around Le Mans--and even then I think they may be fortunate to slow the cars to current LMP2 laptimes for all we know.
But then again, look at GTE. GTE-Pro cars--which are now hybrids of GT1 and GT2 cars as far as tech regs--are much heavier than GT1 cars (1225+kg vs 1100kg) and have to run steel brake rotors (carbon or carbon ceramic was allowed in GT1), but now they're as fast or faster due to better areo, suspension R&D and especially tires, which are also narrower than allowed in GT1.
I don't think it's all gloom and doom, and maybe slowing down all classes a bit isn't a bad thing, given the relative abundance of FCYs and local yellows/slow zones compared to like say Le Mans in '06 (yes, I'm aware that slow zones didn't exist back then--it was just local yellows or pace car lead FCYs).
Also in some ways, the GR010 reminds me kind of what I'd expect a modern Bentley Speed 8 would look like or even an Audi R10 with a roof. Not to mention (though not required by the rules) it does look vaguely street legal and can maybe seat two people, though provided that they're really good friends. It overall looks better proportioned than the last gen LMP1s because of being 2000mm wide.
As far as slowing down the classes, as long as straightline speeds are different between LMP1/H/DH, LMP2 and GTE/GTLM (which has been the main problem since the 2011 power cut/engine downsizing), I don't see a problem with slowing the cars down. Besides, watching old ALMS videos does make me yearn for cars that are gutsier and simpler than the last gen LMP1s.