[WEC Race] WEC 6 HOURS SPA FRANCORCHAMPS

[justracing]

Originally Posted by Artur

That's my point. Hartley is racing for the win there, he's not cruising. They have to go for the gaps that the slower cars leaves. Dumas left it very open to him almost as if conceding the place to, then, turn in at the last moment without any awareness that the spot was already about to be occupied. If LMP1 drivers had to wait only for 100% clean circunstances to lap the P2s and GTs, then their race pace would significantly drop.

I think that's one of the things that frustrated Webber and encouraged his retirement, ie, people not looking into their mirrors.


Really don't think Dumas was predictable there. I totally understand Hartley and would've done the same, tbh. Dumas drove as if conceding the corner to be lapped with no problems then suddenly ignored what was already going on. Brendon was not fully alongside but Dumas should've let him through. He seemed like napping.

BTW, I know Hartley forced the move a bit and is, at least, partially to blame for. I just don't think it was only a "poor Dumas got tagged" kind of incident.

I can't help but agree, I think this take on the incident is a pretty measured observation regardless of whether he was alongside or not. Hartley is quick but not reckless.

[Akrapovic]

I personally disagree. The lapped car is running his own race, he has the right to a racing line, especially when the car behind isn't close enough to legitimately pass him without massive assistance. And although I'd like to see the accident again, I think due to the lock up that Hartley would've hit Dumas no matter when he turned in, because he was just going to slide into him after the panic brake.

Hartley isn't reckless, but he's always had issues with traffic. Sometimes he gets away with it, sometimes he doesn't. There doesn't appear to be the understanding from him that a lower class car can't change direction like he can and won't, and often can't get out of his way. Same as his Silverstone incident with the Gulf Porsche. The GT car is on the absolute edge there and was always going to need that bit of road, and he decided to put his car there.

Should've waited till after the corner IMO. Wasn't alongside enough, and even if Dumas ran wide to give him the gap then he'd have dropped the Porsche onto the outside for the second part, ending up with no change of position till after the corner anyway.

[justracing]

We agree to disagree but for me a P1 driver makes a split second decision whether or not to overtake given the gap that appears to be opening in front of him and if at the last moment that gap disappears then the overtaking car gets the blame. In a multi class form of racing with often huge speed differentials this sort of incident is almost inevitable in my view. It demands a high degree of circuit/vehicle awareness and there are numerous similar incidents to report involving some of the sports elite drivers not the least of which was a certain accident involving Macnish at Le Mans at the Esses some years back which I seem to remember resulted in a horrendous impact destroying the Audi. All I am saying is that such manouevres require not only perfect timing but also compliance.

[chernaudi]

And we do have to remember that everyone's in closed cars now, and visibility out of any prototype isn't great.

It's just like McNish's accident at LM in 2011. Allan thought he had the Ferrari cleared and made similar passes earlier that weekend. But out of the Audi, you only had good visibility straight ahead. That lead to the rear view camera that Audi started to run in testing later that season.

And in the Ferrari, Beltoise was in a 458, which has ridiculously bad rear visibility. He turned in not thinking that Allan was there, just as Allan though based on what he saw he was clear. That lead to GT and LMP2 cars having mandatory rear view cameras on them like what Corvette was using for a few years.

I know that we can criticize slower drivers for not using their mirrors and making it hard on overtaking cars, especially if it's not a fight for position. But they're driving their own race too, with their own cars and often their own issues. Just look at even a LMP2 steering wheel, or a GTE steering wheel. Those make the Audi R8 LMP's steering wheel look insanely simple. And we have to remember in fairness to Dumas that he and everyone else in that car were fighting no functioning ASR and probably other electronic gremlins.

[justracing]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

It's just like McNish's accident at LM in 2011. Allan thought he had the Ferrari cleared and made similar passes earlier that weekend.

Thanks for that, couldn't remember the year(must be my age!). It's probably also quite relevant that all prototypes nowadays are closed cockpit with the inherent visibility problems. The odd thing for me about this particular incident was Dumas apparent lack of awareness throughout the whole race, as we all know the guy has demonstrated an incredible driving talent over the years not the least of which was the performances in the Porsche RS Spyder in the ALMS series.

[ederss7]

Some LMP1 drivers are just too optimist. They want to put their cars between the corner tangency and the slower car. A classic example of this is the Esses at Le Mans, where Mcnish crashed in 2011 and Davidson hit a GT car in 2010. You simply can't put the car on the right hand side going downhill there. IMO that's only possible in very slow corners or hairpins.

[Irie]

Quick question why weren't the byKolles drivers awarded points in the drivers championship? G-Drive got the points for the 6th place according to the pdf, with Kraihamer, Rossiter and Webb marked DNS.
http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Res..._AFTER_SPA.pdf

[TF110]

Looking at the timing results for the race, it's clear that the #9 in Kunimoto's hands were a good deal slower than the other drivers. Especially so on the double stint. He never broke in to the 1:59's. It was his first race though so I think that can be looked at as a given. I expect him to be given a lot of Spa test and LM test-day laps to get him up to speed.

[chernaudi]

How bad was the #9 Toyota compared to the Porsches? And was the Toyota in plain jane LM spec, or boogered up like the Porsches have been?

[TF110]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

How bad was the #9 Toyota compared to the Porsches? And was the Toyota in plain jane LM spec, or boogered up like the Porsches have been?

Read the link in the Toyota thread posted by Japanese Samurai. Murata says the 9 car wasn't in the same downforce as the Porsche even though they were both using the LM package. Sector 2 provides a good example of this. The Porsche still had the big gurney on the engine cover. Toyota was the same as it was at Monza.

[Simmi]

Watched the race on a couple of day's delay.

Really struggling to understand why race control didn't utilise a slow zone on either of the two occasions. They affected the outcome of the race so much when it didn't seem like they were totally necessary.

Couldn't follow live timing but it did seem like Kunimoto getting up to speed was what took the biggest chunk out of the #9 car's advantage. Like they said on the broadcast, you can't simulate the traffic in testing. He needs a lot of seat time across test day and race week next month.

Enjoyed all the P2 action for the first couple of hours. Not sure I've ever seen so much close-quarter racing in that class.

First time watching the new official commentary. McNish's biggest job is reining in Haven but I enjoyed it on balance. Would like to have heard more from GG but I think there were just two mics in the studio. Agree with everyone that said a long race broadcast needs a strategy guy like Trussers. Took a while for them to clock the big lead change during the first FCY for example.

Ferrari and Ford are about to get BANGED.

Bring on Le Mans. Can't wait to get down there.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Simmi

Enjoyed all the P2 action for the first couple of hours. Not sure I've ever seen so much close-quarter racing in that class.

Indeed, make the cars all the same and the performance between teams is pretty dang close!

[Artur]

https://www.motorsport.com/wec/news/...ictory-903540/

Maybe that's why ByKolles beaten the P2s so confortably?

Dunlop has been doing a great job over all these years and I expect much better tyres from them, at LM. It didn't even make for better battles as is commonly believe among F1 circles.

[bobec]

Originally Posted by ederss7

Some LMP1 drivers are just too optimist. They want to put their cars between the corner tangency and the slower car. A classic example of this is the Esses at Le Mans, where Mcnish crashed in 2011 and Davidson hit a GT car in 2010. You simply can't put the car on the right hand side going downhill there. IMO that's only possible in very slow corners or hairpins.

I believe Davidson's 2010 incident happened at the Porsche Curves, involving a Corvette. To be fair, Davidson didn't even touch the Corvette, but by passing it through one of the tricky corners he denied it the room it needed to stay on the road, and therefore the Corvette lost control. Otherwise he would have had to crash into the 908.

[chernaudi]

Nope, not the same incident. That car also went off in the curve that replaced the straight that went into the Esses. That's where the damage to the left side of the Pug happened.

[Akrapovic]

We all agree to disagree (and I'm not telling anyone here they are wrong - you're all entitled to your opinion, and mine is worth no more than yours), but 3:45 is the incident -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gOaDIIRlHI

He doesn't even pull alongside him into the braking zone - at that point you have to concede the corner. If you're not alongside by the time you're into the braking point, you don't have the right of way. As far as Dumas is concerned, there is a car in his mirrors which is still behind him. It won't be able to make the pass (due to the chicane being a switch back) unless Dumas basically parks on the outside of the right hander, so he should (and did) continue normally, and the P1 will blow by on the straight.

To me, that's a very similar accident to Tandys accident at Spa with the Porsche GT car, where he expected the slower car to simply jump out the way. ACO penalised the GT car for that one and I've never agreed with it.

At least with McNish, and to an extent Davidson, they were alongside (or ahead) by braking and turn in. Hartleys accident he wasn't even close to alongside and expected the LMP2 to yield far too early. But in both cases the issue is the same - expecting slower cars to get out of the way when they don't necessarily have to, and sometimes cannot. The whole point in the P1 massive hybrid power outputs is so they don't have time divebomb cars anymore.

[Ospi]

I don't think it could be any more black and white. Porsche fault 100%, was a simple sloppy divebomb.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[GT6]

In case anyone is interested currently watching the race on motors tv in UK, not seen me i the stands yet but you never know

[claude2cv]

Originally Posted by GT6

In case anyone is interested currently watching the race on motors tv in UK, not seen me i the stands yet but you never know

I did wave at the screen just in case any of the small blobs in the stands were you :-)

Sean

[Simmi]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

We all agree to disagree (and I'm not telling anyone here they are wrong - you're all entitled to your opinion, and mine is worth no more than yours), but 3:45 is the incident -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gOaDIIRlHI

He doesn't even pull alongside him into the braking zone - at that point you have to concede the corner. If you're not alongside by the time you're into the braking point, you don't have the right of way.

This makes sense and is all well and true for a conventional overtaking move. I can only assume that this wasn't a divebomb, but that Hartley thought Dumas was ceding the corner and letting him through, only to then turn in.

At the end of the day Hartley is the guy coming from deep and the onus is on him to get the move done without contact.

I'm at the point now where I find it hard to slate drivers for moves like this. They are making 100s of these decisions each race and over the course of time you're going to get some wrong. The alternative is you throttle back in every instance and lose time, and your seat. It's the reality of multi-class racing.

[chernaudi]

And at least in the McNish/Beltoise accident both drivers have the IMO legitimate excuse of poor visibility. The driver in the Ferrari sits on the left side of the car, which in the 458 makes a big blind spot in the right rear. Which means that they're unlikely to see someone coming on the right side of them quick enough to avoid. Not to mention that 458s had a metal bulkhead that took away whatever rear visibility they had.

Not to mention that the rear quadrants were and probably still are big blind spots on LMP cars. So McNish had the same problems that Beltoise had, as well as the fact that visibility wasn't good out of the R18 except dead ahead. IMO, perfect storm: poor visibility, the LMP1s being down 100bhp compared to the previous year, and S bend put in to replace the straight for Moto GP who use the Bugatti Circuit which was criticized for taking away an easy overtaking zone for prototypes and faster GT cars.

Not to dwell on the distant past too much, but IMO, watching replays Dumas' line was a bit erratic, but in fairness to him the ASR and electronics on that car were junk. He was struggling with that car. IMO, if Hartley knew that, if I were him, I'd have yielded the corner or let Dumas's TC issues screw up his next corner and cruse on by. But then again, that's also an alleged advantage of the hybrid systems.

Granted, I do feel that this is still an instance of where giving LMP2s the same power on engine wasn't a great idea. Dumas would've been passed a lot earlier down the straight if the LMP2s still made 100bhp less power. Not saying that it excuses Hartley from his bad timing, but it didn't help.

[TF110]

I dont think visibility was a factor. It looked like a misunderstanding and it resulted in a collision. Pretty sure Hartley knew he was there, and it looked like he felt he was being given way but was not.

[justracing]

"I'm at the point now where I find it hard to slate drivers for moves like this."

I'm inclined to agree, there is no denying the fact that Hartley was to blame in the strictest sense of the rule particularly having now had the chance to view the incident again however, I'm beginning to wonder where on earth this leaves us with regard to the dozens of last minute moves which succeed without incident. As has already been said it's the reality of multi class racing demanding drivers to make split second decisions and in such cases as this they spot an opening and at the last minute the door closes. As long as we have feisty drivers willing to take the risk these incidents will continue to happen, without the feisty drivers we wouldn't have a race.

[chernaudi]

I never implied that visibility was an issue here. Go back and re-read my post. Only thing that Dumas can be faulted for was his somewhat erratic line where he turned in late as if Hartley wasn't there. At least he had the excuse of having stuff going wrong with the car that might have distracted him.

Still, with the lock up there was no way Hartley was going to get by unscathed unless Dumas stopped and let him have the corner. You do have to expect to get cut off by slower cars into tight chicanes, and usually you have to let the slower car have the corner.

[GasperG]

Again some nice visual statistics from GT-Eins




We can clearly see the diference between #7 and #8 Toyota, it also shows Kunimoto under performing. We can observe similar with Porsche #2 being faster than #1.