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Originally Posted by AGD
Ok, the diesel giants have had problems with bumper cars and such, but that is a whole different discussion. Anyway, Porsche will be coming in and I don't think they are going diesel. They must feel pretty comfortable with the way the rules will be. Whether Audi and Peugeot switch to petrol or stick with diesel is to be seen, but I don't think fuels will be a problem.
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Yippee, a manufacturer to get rules their way in 2014. Only 2 years of intense bore to go.
The bumper car problem is not that the factory cars do it, it's that they're so fast that they can still finish in front of untroubled cars.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AGD
I know some here say the gap between the diesels and petrols is too much for the rules to be legitimate, but I don't necessarily buy that. There was a 7 second difference between the pole sitting Audi and the top petrol runner (Rebellion) at Le Mans in qualifying. Ok, that is a lot, but in 2010, there was a 7.5 second difference between Strakka and the fastest non-HPD powered LMP2 car (Quifel-ASM Zytek). The difference was 8.3 seconds to the fastest Judd powered car (OAK Pescarolo). Keep in mind that all of these engines are the current LMP1 engines plus the TMG Toyota. How do you explain those massive gaps? The cars were running to the same rules. There's no "unfair" diesel advantage at play here. Maybe Strakka is better than OAK and Amaral's team, but I don't think that is true by a huge amount. It's simply that the engines and the chassis those teams are running are inferior. They are inferior to the ex-factory HPDs and RS Spyders and they are definitely inferior to the diesel giants. Frankly, it almost seems as if the gaps should be even bigger than they are!
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There are many imperfect comparisons one can do but we'll never get a clear and final answer that stops all debates. We can only look back afterwards and things appear a little clearer based on the development and rule changes from the following year(s)... and when we look back at 2010 stats, what we can all agree on is that there is no way to compare the Highcroft HPD's speed because it didn't come back. Good efforts like these keep disappearing, entries don't look serious anymore because they don't go with only pro drivers and pretty soon we are faced with a lack of competition that stems not from the diesels' superiority, but simply from the fact that everyone else has given up. Nothing to compare, even harder to know how big the injustice was in the first place. And very few people left to complain.
I was completely disappointed by the lack of serious entries for my first time at Le Mans this year. It seems everyone has moved way past competing for winning the race and either lets sons of millionaires drive their cars, is content with half-measures and getting paid to merely show up. When someone talks about winning... it's the petrol class. Maybe it's just because I idealized that whole thing as an actual sport.