2016 Nurburgring 24 Hours

[Jameson]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

I wanted a Mercedes win but I think they're right tbh. It was pretty clear that no Audi could get even remotely close, and are we really saying those teams aren't good enough? If one or two Mercedes teams had been better than you say that's just the team. But 4 or 5 teams all performing better than what is really a works Audi effort? That's silly.

And it'd be worse if BMW hadn't been found out and had the BOP adjusted against them pre-race. We need a be free way of balancing the cars.

And this is posted by a guy who wanted the #4 to win.

Found out?? BMW did a 1-2-3 in both qualifying and race at the final pre-24h VLN event. That doesn't look like sandbagging, does it?

They paid the price for being honest. Mercedes sandbagged and "cruised" to victory.

BOP is never going to be perfect, but if you punish the ones that go flat out showing their true performance and reward the ones that do not, it's a terribly screwed up system.

Talking of Audi, they seemed to have more straight line speed than BMW. I wonder why they were not more competitive. Weight? Aero?

[Rodger Davies]

Originally Posted by Jameson

Found out?? BMW did a 1-2-3 in both qualifying and race at the final pre-24h VLN event. That doesn't look like sandbagging, does it?

They paid the price for being honest. Mercedes sandbagged and "cruised" to victory.

BOP is never going to be perfect, but if you punish the ones that go flat out showing their true performance and reward the ones that do not, it's a terribly screwed up system.

Talking of Audi, they seemed to have more straight line speed than BMW. I wonder why they were not more competitive. Weight? Aero?

They didn't mean to be 'honest', it happened by accident. Hopefully by next year all these cars will have a year under them and BoPing will be easier and better.

I feel even more sorry for the Bentley, Nissan and Aston guys, although how much of that is drivers and prep I'm not sure; the German teams really do each bring extraordinary quality.


Amazing finish, really shows the beauty of organic racing with no safety cars and how that sort of ending is made so much better by the rarity of it. Congratulations to Maro Engel who really was Mercedes' #1 all weekend.

I need some time to gauge where that ranks amongst great races from the last decade; I struggled to get into the race for the majority of it, only when it was decided as a Merc-off did I start to take an interest in their inter-team rivalry, which became very intense very quickly. It probably won't topple some of the great BMW v Audi fights of recent years but will live long in the memory and only serves as a reminder that we're in a golden age of GT racing at the moment.

[chernaudi]

Problem also is that not just Audi, but no one else could really keep up with the Mercs. Only the WRT, and Phoenix Audis, the Manthey Porsche, and a couple of BMWs were able to stay within striking distance throughout most of the race.

And it wasn't tires, since the Phoenix Audis were split between Michelin and Dunlop. I did hear that Audi were down about 20-30bhp on the Mercs and they had a significant margin to the M-B's in terms of straightline speed.

This is why I don't like BOP. The teams that do well tend to get punished while those who sandbag tend to get a hand out. I don't mind a team getting some help if they're genuinely struggling or they have a problem with their car, but sandbagging to get a hand out from the race officials is the cheap and sleazy way out.

And I thought that the GT3 cars run the same anti-sandbagging performance loggers that IMSA uses in the GTLM and GTD (all of which are GT3 based for the latter), and will be used by the ACO and FIA in the WEC across classes next year as well as IMSA?

[TF110]

Maybe Merc just have better cars. Even in they slowed them up they would still be at the front. They were through the whole event in pratice and qualifying. And they had no issues.

[GTRMagic]

Originally Posted by TF110

Maybe Merc just have better cars. Even in they slowed them up they would still be at the front. They were through the whole event in pratice and qualifying. And they had no issues.

The Benz pilots weren't half bad either... Mr Engel seemed to be on a serious mission this weekend...

[Rodger Davies]

Originally Posted by TF110

Maybe Merc just have better cars. Even in they slowed them up they would still be at the front. They were through the whole event in pratice and qualifying. And they had no issues.

This was my logic to justify it, the Mercs were the only ones that ran a smooth race regardless, although #23 didn't spend much longer incapacitated than any of the top four.

The counter argument to that is whether that meant the others had to push harder to try to make up ground, or whether the advantage gained in qualifying made a significant impact on the race, which I'd argue it did for several cars.

[Akrapovic]

Seems I opened a can of worms with the BoP post lol.

Originally Posted by Jameson

Found out?? BMW did a 1-2-3 in both qualifying and race at the final pre-24h VLN event. That doesn't look like sandbagging, does it?

They paid the price for being honest. Mercedes sandbagged and "cruised" to victory.

This isn't what RLM said. BMW were honest by accident. They had all the cars in the pre-24H VLN race running to a Delta, but one car had the Delta setup wrongly and ran far too fast. At that point the cat was out of the bag and they had to go for it, and did. The result was a BoP downwards. BMW weren't honest - they tried to game the BoP and made a mistake and had to go with it.

As for Audi - no of course Audi didn't deserve to win. Mercedes deserved that win completely. Ignoring pure performance, I think only the HTP Mercedes, Black Falcon, and maybe the yellow Bentley only had trouble free runs. They deserve it purely on that basis, nevermind the speed.

However, do we REALLY think it's fair, that none of the works Audis, none of the works Porsches, and only 1 or 2 BMWs could even get close to any of the Mercedes? If only 1 or 2 Mercedes had a big gap then yeah sure, that's the team. But basically every Mercedes was streaks ahead of all the extremely good competition. That isn't just performance, that's BoP.

Now let's be honest - was the BoP fair? Probably not.

Did Audi deserve to win? No.

Did Mercedes deserve to win? Yes.

Why is the BoP different in every series that runs the same cars? Who knows

[rubberduck]

Finally i could watch the majority of a N24 again.
It had its moments, but i tend to attend a degree of "meh" to it. And that's being said with a grid full of all - new top blowers!

Obvious highlights:
-The first phase.
-Eifelwetter at its best (read: worst), that will be remembered. The M6 not being able to climb the hill at Fuchsröhre, legendary.
Huge driving after the restart, that was nailbiting just to watch. A lot of craft down there.
-Again, a silent performer is on top at the end of the day. It's either that or a Manthey-esque start-finish victory. Clear, but not overwhelmingly leaders always struggle from my point of expectation in the past years.
-If it had to be a Benz i hoped for the Haribo, those guys do well for almost a decade now, it's about time.
-The heterogeneity of the smaller classes is a bit declining in the meantime, but i'm maybe biased due to lacking in-situ experience, coverage simply focuses the upper classes (Sidenote: Foremost in the German coverage, the international stream clearly talked about standings more often)

My thoughts to BoP and Teams:
-I would have liked to see a Porsche on top at the end. I have the feeling that the GTE project just takes too much of resources. Bad luck on top of that. Especially with the #911, i was curious how quick those guys would turn out.
Also, from all big GT3 the 911 seems to be struggling the most.
-Audi, well. Strange lineups imo, why did they split some successful squads? Maybe BoPped, maybe not. I'm good with them not winning.
-BMW as always, seems to be cursed at the Ring, if it's not a Schnitzer resp. Waiver'ed LM car...i'm also wondering why they let go so much of Eifel experience, Müller D., Alzen, all still doing well, Dirk Adorf being sent to the commentatory box on top of that. Okay, maybe those guys are a bit too much Schleife - locked - in, but still...
-To the Benz: as someone in a German board wrote: With more works cars even Audi never dared to field during their prime, a victory comes not that surprisingly. What's to be said however: The car was sorted out the best. Successful last year already, a proven power unit under the hood.
However²: Almost all of them surviving AND being faster maybe hints to a certain degree of positive discrimination, i sign that.

What i hope for last year:
-A sorted out and better backed Porsche effort.
-Mercedes not trying to sell their product magnitudes more than the other works
-Neither another work doing so
-Better weather
-VLN efforts not silently phasing out after the 24

[Miguel]

Well, that was quite the weekend lol.

That sunrise 33

[rich07]

Originally Posted by Miguel

Well, that was quite the weekend lol.

That sunrise 33

Fantastic pic mate

[Jameson]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Seems I opened a can of worms with the BoP post lol.

This isn't what RLM said. BMW were honest by accident. They had all the cars in the pre-24H VLN race running to a Delta, but one car had the Delta setup wrongly and ran far too fast. At that point the cat was out of the bag and they had to go for it, and did. The result was a BoP downwards. BMW weren't honest - they tried to game the BoP and made a mistake and had to go with it.

Why is the BoP different in every series that runs the same cars? Who knows

OK, thanks, I had missed that one completely! I just saw the result of VLN3 and it looked to me like they had gone for it without trying to hide anything.

There should be a basic BoP for all GT3 series, but running on different tracks, with different tires and different rules (it's not pure GT3 spec at the Nordschleife), they need to do series-specific BoPing and that's why it's not consistent.

[Rodger Davies]

Wow, Miguel, what a photo!

[Martin90]

Originally Posted by Miguel

Well, that was quite the weekend lol.

That sunrise 33

Awesome shot!

[airbusA346]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

And I thought that the GT3 cars run the same anti-sandbagging performance loggers that IMSA uses in the GTLM and GTD (all of which are GT3 based for the latter), and will be used by the ACO and FIA in the WEC across classes next year as well as IMSA?

As far as I am aware the performance loggers are already fitted to the GT cars in WEC. And cars competing in ACO racing have had to run a PI/Cosworth logger for the ACO since at least 2012, might have been before '12. And the data cards had to be swapped at the majority of pit stops and the data uploaded to the ACO network within a certain time limit.

[FIRE]

What an end of the race.
Great race.

I have no problem with the overtaking. Hohenadel left room and Engel took advantage.

Hopefully next year Audi, BMW and Porsche are more competitive.

[divxx]

Originally Posted by GT3.14

Audi PR joining post-race whining.

They did have a miserable time this year, but that was a bit unexpected. At the very least, the Audi appeared to be the fastest car on the straights, which was a very weird sight after all these years of high-drag R8s, as every time I saw them together, Audis were either closing in on or pulling away from the likes of Porsche and Bentley on the Dottinger Hohe.

Now that I think about it, my least favorite thing about BoP might be the brands all trying to whip up their fan boys with these public twitter campaigns. Of course #BoP is to blame when your favorite car doesn't dominate, at the same time, of course it's only because of team preparation/driver quality when it does win.

For what it's worth, I think Mercedes have built a car very well suited to the realities of GT3 racing: it seems to maintain pace over a tire stint better than any other car, I've noticed this in Blancpain and GT Masters races run this year, it's not spectacular in qualifying and actually pretty slow with a full tank, but by the end of a stint, it's in a different class. How do you BoP against that particular advantage?

Regarding the HTP protest, one point that stuck out in the DSC article is that Vietoris is apparently the only AMG factory driver on their lineup. Surprised van der Zande isn't. For that matter, does anyone know the full list of AMG factory GT drivers? I'm only sure of Schneider, Jager and Engel. For a long time, it was only the two old guys, who were also responsible for car development and customer relations.

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by divxx

Regarding the HTP protest, one point that stuck out in the DSC article is that Vietoris is apparently the only AMG factory driver on their lineup. Surprised van der Zande isn't. For that matter, does anyone know the full list of AMG factory GT drivers? I'm only sure of Schneider, Jager and Engel. For a long time, it was only the two old guys, who were also responsible for car development and customer relations.

Found this on autosport.com:

Briton Adam Christodoulou has been signed as an official AMG Mercedes driver for the coming season.

The 26-year-old, a regular aboard the German manufacturer's GT3 machinery over the past three years, joins AMG's 10-strong pool of contracted GT drivers alongside the likes of Bernd Schneider, Maximillian Buhk, Maro Engel and Yelmer Buurman.

[Beryl]

Originally Posted by Rodger Davies

This was my logic to justify it, the Mercs were the only ones that ran a smooth race regardless, although #23 didn't spend much longer incapacitated than any of the top four.

The thing is, the Rowe cars weren't representative of the BMW's ultimate pace as both Schubert cars (#18 and #100) were both able to run consistently at the same pace (in the dry at least) as the top Mercs until they ran into issues. The Rowe cars were much more irregular.

[MaskedRacer]

Should the N24 be opened up to GTE/GTLM cars once more to race alongside the GT3s?

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by MaskedRacer

Should the N24 be opened up to GTE/GTLM cars once more to race alongside the GT3s?

They are perfectly legal right now in SP7 and SP8...

[TF110]

They would probably be ballasted to 1350kg and breathe through a straw imo.

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by TF110

They would probably be ballasted to 1350kg and breathe through a straw imo.

Only if they are foreign...

But seriously - finding a remotely fair BoP for GT3 alone is hard enough.... adding a serious GTE-effort to that would be another complication that really isn't needed right now.

[Deleted]

They weren't killed the death back in 2010-2011 when Farnbacher run the Ferraris and BMW their waiverwagons, but then again, times change.

Could someone give me a brief summary of in which positions the Glickenhaus cars (not the P4/5 but the others) situated in
A) OVERALL Qualifying
B) OVERALL Race
Also why

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by Chiana

They weren't killed the death back in 2010-2011 when Farnbacher run the Ferraris and BMW their waiverwagons, but then again, times change.

Could someone give me a brief summary of in which positions the Glickenhaus cars (not the P4/5 but the others) situated in
A) OVERALL Qualifying
B) OVERALL Race
Also why

Both lost lots of time in the race due to broken exhausts. Only arrived at the track Saturday morning, so no idea about Q'ing.

[TF110]

One was top 10, the other was around 20-30; near the sp-pro RC F.