2015 Liqui Moly Bathurst 12 Hour: 6-8 February

[nafe!]

Originally Posted by GreenMachine

Don't think so, it would have to be visual I think. It's overlap, which I understand means that at the line, you must be behind the car you are overtaking. Only at, or at least after, the line, can you 'overlap' the other car (ie partially alongside) and complete your overtake. Don't see how a transponder can allow a call about the position someone's back bumper and someone else's front bumper.

The photo I saw, taken at an angle, looked VERY close, but that may have been misleading. Race control should have been watching, and in a great position to make the call, so I presume it was 'close, but no overlap'.

First of all from my perspective what an absolute epic race! That start in the dark was incredible and it was amazing how many people had turned up so early in the morning compared to previous years to witness the start.

Now this particular issue is something that troubled my mate and I immediately after it occurred.

All day long there were cars being given drive throughs for overlapping at the restart. There was no clear explanation (that I heard anyway) as to what exactly was an overlap. Was it making a pass prior to crossing the start finish line or was it simply being next to the car and beginning an overlap of the two car bodies as they crossed the line.

If it was the latter there is no way in hell that the Nissan wasn't overlapping. My mate and I were just past the start finish line and as you can see clearly on tv the Nissan was well up the inside of the audi as they crossed the line. We immediately said to each other that the Nissan would have to re address or face a penalty while the rest of the crowd cheered completely oblivious to the seemingly obvious event that just occurred in front of us.

Personally I wanted the Nissan to win, the comeback drive at the end was amazing and I certainly felt they were worthy victors. However when it crossed the finish line my mate and I were left feeling a little empty as we were certain that there was going to be a post race investigation and also for the last lap incident with the remaining podium getters. Neither case eventuated.

I think Nissan would have won anyway but I have found it highly unusual that there as been no correspondence from any of the teams as far as I know regarding these issues.

[GreenMachine]

If it is visual they would need a judge of fact and or some video or photo evidence to nail them. There must have been a process and some basis for the other penalties so, if as you say it was clearcut, why no penalty? Perhaps some flaw in the regs that prevented a finding and therefore a penalty?

[peckstar]

or, and possably the truth, do we really want the result decided by a technicality with two laps to go?

[Shane001]

Originally Posted by peckstar

or, and possably the truth, do we really want the result decided by a technicality with two laps to go?

True, though tbh after watching the replay I was worried this is what we would wake up to on the Monday morning. I'm glad this didn't happen. It was clear after less than half a lap the Nissan would have won it anyway.

[bortall]

Originally Posted by Shane001

True, though tbh after watching the replay I was worried this is what we would wake up to on the Monday morning. I'm glad this didn't happen. It was clear after less than half a lap the Nissan would have won it anyway.

So it's ok to break the rules because you were going to win anyway

[GreenMachine]

Rules don't apply to winners? Rules don't apply on the last lap? Rules don't apply to big name international drivers who punt people off at Macphillamy? There may be a pattern here ...

[peckstar]

Well Ive just sat through Googlebox, apparently the 12 hour was not on the viewing list

[Shane001]

Originally Posted by bortall

So it's ok to break the rules because you were going to win anyway

No, that's not what I said.

[RedZedMikey]

Originally Posted by Shane001

No, that's not what I said.

Is that Shane001 from the 300ZX forum?
When I look at the screenshot put up earlier, I see the Audi's rear wheels on the control line, and the Nissan's front wheels have not yet reached it. Overlap, if there was any, would have been absolutely minimal. The angle of camera shot, plus the foreshortening created by the long lens, make the situation look worse than it was.

[Bell_End]

https://insidesecond.wordpress.com/2...12hr-analysis/

NISMO took the win in the Am classed GT-R GT3 or Godzilla as it’s known in Australia, beating the mighty M-Sport Bentley, Phoenix Audi R8 LMS-Ultra and the Craft Bamboo Aston Martin Vantage, an extremely exciting finish to a 12hr race, I’m sure you’ll agree. Top 4 cars remained on the lead lap with minutes left of the race, so exciting in-fact I thought John Hindhaugh (commentator from Radio Le Mans) was going to keel over with excitement, thankfully he didn’t.

As far as data analysis goes, there really wasn’t too much to shout about, however I looked at the main talking point of the race and analysed the safety car data. I’ll be taking a look at the best strategy to adopt when faced with a stop-start race, and what the teams have to do, for the best chance to win the race, I liken it to a NASCAR strategy, more on this later.
As you can see I have prepared a few tables to show some facts from the race. In the first table on the right, you can see each individual occasion of a safety cars, how many laps and for how long, there were 20 safety car in total. The longest period of yellow was for 8 laps and lasted for 34 minutes in total. I think this occasion was for the MARC Mazda 3 that crashed quite heavily at the top of the mountain. The shortest period of yellow was for the final one for the #4 Porsche spun and got it’s self stuck in the gravel, great job by the marshals to clear giving us a grandstand finish.

...

Some people reading this may be thinking, all that time wasted behind a safety car, what can be done to get more green flag running. Well, I’m going to say this, for those of you who say code 60, I’m not so sure. For many of the incidents an intervention vehicle had to use the track to get to the incident and back, I’d be a bit nervous about having both on the track at the same time without a safety car. I’d also assume access roads around the track are a limiting factor too other wise they would have used them. I also noted that most of the incidents not all happened as a result of, lack of concentration and not collisions with other car, so there should be no blame at the slower car (lower classed car), on the whole they raced together well. I for one want to congratulate the marshals and race control for turning around an incident with relative speed.

5 1/2 hrs of Safety car

Ironically if the safety car driver remained constant, they he/she would have broken the max driving time regulation of 4hr 30min.

[s111spp]

Originally Posted by RedZedMikey

Is that Shane001 from the 300ZX forum?

When I look at the screenshot put up earlier, I see the Audi's rear wheels on the control line, and the Nissan's front wheels have not yet reached it. Overlap, if there was any, would have been absolutely minimal. The angle of camera shot, plus the foreshortening created by the long lens, make the situation look worse than it was.

I'm just getting the gist of this conversation. For what it's worth, the official line from Team Managers briefing was that overlap from the last turn to the control line is fine.

[Shane001]

Originally Posted by s111spp

I'm just getting the gist of this conversation. For what it's worth, the official line from Team Managers briefing was that overlap from the last turn to the control line is fine.

Really? I thought they penalised a couple of cars for overlapping at the control line? With drive throughs no less?

The Nismo if it was overlapped, would have been splitter to wing only looking at that pic, if anything.

RedZed, one and the same

[Hingo]

Looking at the picture, it didn't overlap. The rear wheels of an Audi R8 are basically at the corner of the car. There is barely any rear overhang.

[GreenMachine]

Originally Posted by GreenMachine

The photo I saw, taken at an angle, looked VERY close, but that may have been misleading. Race control should have been watching, and in a great position to make the call, so I presume it was 'close, but no overlap'.

That is the photo I saw. Looking again, with the benefit of RedZedMikey's comments, I am happy to go with race control's (no) call.

[bathurst]

Maybe we could start earlier again next year, and eventually get back to the 04.30 start. That would be great. We would just need some illuminated paddles for the flag points. You could only just make out the flags when the first SC came out for the kangaroo. Lucky the SC sign was lit up a bit by the car lights.
Great wknd of racing on the mountain. Thanks to the organisers.

[jasonjessica09]

The safety cars/full course yellows ruined the race I think. Way too many endurance races are ruined by all of these FCYs. This decade it seems to have gotten much worse. It takes the endurance aspect out of it. I don't like this start/stop thing at all. This was as bad as the 2014 12 hours of sebring I think. Overall big thumbs down to the 2015 Bathurst 12 hours. But it is becoming a problem everywhere. When the heck are we going to get a endurance race not overrun by safety cars. I guess Sebring is the next hope now. I am starting to hope that grids are smaller now so it will reduce the chance of more FCY's coming out. Perhaps in 2015 Bathurst can be just A and B class cars.

[Reload]

Originally Posted by jasonjessica09

The safety cars/full course yellows ruined the race I think. Way too many endurance races are ruined by all of these FCYs. This decade it seems to have gotten much worse. It takes the endurance aspect out of it. I don't like this start/stop thing at all. This was as bad as the 2014 12 hours of sebring I think. Overall big thumbs down to the 2015 Bathurst 12 hours. But it is becoming a problem everywhere. When the heck are we going to get a endurance race not overrun by safety cars. I guess Sebring is the next hope now. I am starting to hope that grids are smaller now so it will reduce the chance of more FCY's coming out. Perhaps in 2015 Bathurst can be just A and B class cars.

I think that we are a chance of seeing just the 2 classes as early as next year, remembering that we only had around 15 non Class A & B cars this year.

[peckstar]

Last year the announcment about the following year was made on the Monday after the race.

Bit slower this year, wonder what the delay is?

[ff s conscience]

I don't think its fair to say the class c and others caused the most safety cars is it?

This race was still well over 1100 km of green flag racing. By any imagination, that's an endurance event.

Safety cars are part of racing, yes, 20 is too many in 12 hours, but there's no need to knee jerk reaction anything.

Let it roll along, it's a great race.

It may be fun to introduce compulsory front pad change or something to stir the pot a bit.

[Reload]

Originally Posted by ff s conscience

I don't think its fair to say the class c and others caused the most safety cars is it?

This race was still well over 1100 km of green flag racing. By any imagination, that's an endurance event.

Safety cars are part of racing, yes, 20 is too many in 12 hours, but there's no need to knee jerk reaction anything.

Let it roll along, it's a great race.

It may be fun to introduce compulsory front pad change or something to stir the pot a bit.

I agree and said as such on here after the event that it seemed that overly forceful Class A drivers were mainly responsible for numerous incidents and many close calls from where i was sitting at least.
My comment of us possibly seeing just the A & B classes as early as next year has nothing to do with the slower classes being responsible for the shite load of stoppages.
On a different note, one of the events most loyal participants in his crowd pleasing Fezza is weighing up whether he will return next year due to being extremely unhappy with the seedings issue.
This also may be an emotional reaction at feeling a little unlucky as to how the cards fell towards the end of the race ?

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by Reload

I agree and said as such on here after the event that it seemed that overly forceful Class A drivers were mainly responsible for numerous incidents and many close calls from where i was sitting at least.
My comment of us possibly seeing just the A & B classes as early as next year has nothing to do with the slower classes being responsible for the shite load of stoppages.
On a different note, one of the events most loyal participants in his crowd pleasing Fezza is weighing up whether he will return next year due to being extremely unhappy with the seedings issue.
This also may be an emotional reaction at feeling a little unlucky as to how the cards fell towards the end of the race ?

If they did away with the smaller classes - and I still don't think that's a smart idea - wouldn't it make sense to allow for an all pro class like in BES at the top? I mean, the top teams are already doing and end run around the pro/am requirement anyway, so why not simply acknowledge that (and the grown international stature of the race) and allow fully professional driver line-ups?

[scudd]

Originally Posted by bathurst

Maybe we could start earlier again next year, and eventually get back to the 04.30 start. That would be great. We would just need some illuminated paddles for the flag points. You could only just make out the flags when the first SC came out for the kangaroo. Lucky the SC sign was lit up a bit by the car lights.
Great wknd of racing on the mountain. Thanks to the organisers.

I'm guessing the organisers don't like running in the dark for too long?
Not sure if the whole circuit is able to cope?
This year at 5:50am the light was just starting to show over the horizon, and every minute after that it obviously got brighter.

[scudd]

Originally Posted by Reload

I agree and said as such on here after the event that it seemed that overly forceful Class A drivers were mainly responsible for numerous incidents and many close calls from where i was sitting at least.
My comment of us possibly seeing just the A & B classes as early as next year has nothing to do with the slower classes being responsible for the shite load of stoppages.
On a different note, one of the events most loyal participants in his crowd pleasing Fezza is weighing up whether he will return next year due to being extremely unhappy with the seedings issue.
This also may be an emotional reaction at feeling a little unlucky as to how the cards fell towards the end of the race ?

Mok?

What happened to them?
Seemed to be 'P nowhere' all day?

Starting the slowest driver is a huge gamble, and for the second year in a row, it hasn't worked.

[scudd]

Originally Posted by Speed-King

If they did away with the smaller classes - and I still don't think that's a smart idea - wouldn't it make sense to allow for an all pro class like in BES at the top? I mean, the top teams are already doing and end run around the pro/am requirement anyway, so why not simply acknowledge that (and the grown international stature of the race) and allow fully professional driver line-ups?

Obviously for personal reasons, I'd hate to see a full pro line up.
Plenty of aussie V8 teams would run a car with their guns, apart from factory OS teams.
I'd heard Roland was going to run a car this year.
Would leave all us privateers feeling disappointed at never having another chance of winning outright.
I've advised the organisers they need a bronze driver in the line up.

[Reload]

Originally Posted by scudd

Mok?

What happened to them?
Seemed to be 'P nowhere' all day?

Starting the slowest driver is a huge gamble, and for the second year in a row, it hasn't worked.

Yep.
They were one team that i had no idea as to where they were during the day after seeing them drop dangerously behind pretty early whilst gambling ?
A lot of things can go wrong playing that card !!
How long did he go for first up and how many laps behind did they get ?