Spyker C8 Laviolette GT2R 4,0 liter
After three succesfull years of competing in the international arena with the C8 Spyder GT2R, Spyker choose a new weapon for the 2008 season: The C8 Laviolette GT2R. It's not just the same car with a new Laviolette body, no, the car has a lot of new components. The chassis is upgraded and much stiffer now and, on top of that, has better aerodynamics. The roof of the Laviolette is more sloping than that of the Spyder which also improves airflow and reduces drag. But the biggest changes were probably made in the engine department. A lot of up-dates are planned for this season, quite a few were allready implemented for the LMS Spa race. The crankshaft was altered, the firing order changed and the capacity enlarged, to name just a few. The race at Spa proved that the new engine was reliable over 5 hours, the team have doubts though if it will last for 24 hours. The new engine is quicker but has a lot more vibrations, the team is concerned that these vibrations will cause other components to fail. At this point it is hard to tell if the new engine will be used for the Le Mans race.
If we look at the qualifying results in the comparable LMS races so far we can see that in Monza, the time gained from last year was 1,5 seconds, at Spa, where the new engine was introduced, the benefit was 0,1 second compared to last year. It is obvious that the new engine takes some time to get familiar with, hence the fact that it is only 0,1 seconds quicker.
Le Mans testday times of the last three years:
2005 - 4:13,263
2006 - 4:07,328
2007 - 4:09,236
Prediction Le Mans testday 2008:
#85 - 4:09,001 (Based on the old engine, with some up-dates to improve reliability, but without the up-dates to improve speed)
#94 - 4:11,473 (same specs.)