[WEC] Porsche Prototype Discussion

[Spyderman]

Whilst Porsche seems to be pleased with their first day's performance, they are aware that there is a lot of sand in bags being thrown about.
Good! The season will be very tough, and the opposition have not been resting on their laurels.

[GasperG]

Sorry I don't get it, why would any one want to sandbag at this point, to prove what?
Toyota ran 2s faster than their last year time, this is what they said and was expected, but Porsche just swept the competition, with 4s faster lap than their last year.

1s difference would be nothing, a mater of car setup or a little tune up, but 3s difference is quite a gap to close.

[Spyderman]

2 reasons: 1) It all depends on the testing program that is being run by the teams. Yesterday Toyota was concentrating on endurance and reliability, not on an outright lap.
2) If you show your cards now, it gives the opposition notice that they need to immediately start what ever measures they think are required for them to catch up. At this point , that translates into a 2 week advantage in terms of development time, as opposed to them only finding out at Silverstone.

[YorkshireLad]

Toyota are no where near their actual pace, 'even' just watching their promo vid you sort of get the picture.. Davidson said its one of thee best cars he's ever driven, buemi said its like a lion

Also like spyderman said, it won't be on their priority list.

[PascaLM]

We should keep in mind that the maximum allowed consumption is calculated on three consecutive laps. So in case of busy lap, a pilot can save a small part of fuel or petrol and use it for the next lap.
I notice yesterday a Porsche doing a 1'50'' then 1'38'' in the following lap. The fastest laps are just peaks in the average of the laps. Anyway, the average times are better than they were last year

[Giba]

Originally Posted by GasperG

Sorry I don't get it, why would any one want to sandbag at this point, to prove what?
Toyota ran 2s faster than their last year time, this is what they said and was expected, but Porsche just swept the competition, with 4s faster lap than their last year.

1s difference would be nothing, a mater of car setup or a little tune up, but 3s difference is quite a gap to close.

Another factor is whether the cars are going to Silverstone after the test or not as if they are then the drivers will be making sure that the car stays in a good condition for when it really matters

[MyNameIsNigel]

Originally Posted by PascaLM

We should keep in mind that the maximum allowed consumption is calculated on three consecutive laps. So in case of busy lap, a pilot can save a small part of fuel or petrol and use it for the next lap.
I notice yesterday a Porsche doing a 1'50'' then 1'38'' in the following lap. The fastest laps are just peaks in the average of the laps. Anyway, the average times are better than they were last year

This being said, the ACO-FIA are not imposing any restriction in respect of fuel allocation/consumption at the Prologue. All LMP-H manufacturers are basically free to consume as much fuel as they want.

[Spyderman]

Porsche not running their Low DF package.

[kvenom]

Originally Posted by Spyderman

Porsche not running their Low DF package.

umm....wow.

[Rodger Davies]

Originally Posted by kvenom

umm....wow.

Ditto.

Unless they are running 'R1' for the first three rounds and developing the HD one for the races after LM.

[Spyderman]

Originally Posted by Rodger Davies

Ditto.

Unless they are running 'R1' for the first three rounds and developing the HD one for the races after LM.

Correct. Have another two 30 hour tests where they will use test DF package before LM

[MihokS5]

I still have a sneaky suspicion that they will have their work cut out for them even with the all the hours logged. Audi had ridiculous testing in the past and they had 2 turbo failures last year which has never happened to them before. Toyota will surely be a force to be reckoned with, and the big question is whether Porsche be able to keep the lighting laps consistently over a stint in traffic.

As someone mentioned yesterday, they had the fastest lap times, but not the most consistent laps under 1:41...

[hcl123]

yes 1.37:22 is simply amazing, 4 secs better times was never in my calculations, meaning IMO Hybrid systems are evolving fast (including electric motors for the same density of electric current supply)...

8 to 6 MJ can make more difference than at first supposed... Toyota may be caught off guard in this (thought i think they were sandbagging a little)

Audi evolution is also remarkable, inside the same (or close) ~4secs as Porsche.

[tomazy]

Originally Posted by MihokS5

As someone mentioned yesterday, they had the fastest lap times, but not the most consistent laps under 1:41...

That was me, and at this morning seson, Porshe did much better in that statistic:

Porshe:51 laps (out of 152 laps)
Audi: 21 laps (94 laps)
Toyota: 2 laps (108 laps)

Sub 1:40.

Porshe: 5
Audi: 7
Toyota: 0


It seem that both Audi and Porshe can go sub 1:41 at will, whereas Toyota is strugaling.

[Spyderman]

Originally Posted by MihokS5

I still have a sneaky suspicion that they will have their work cut out for them even with the all the hours logged. Audi had ridiculous testing in the past and they had 2 turbo failures last year which has never happened to them before. Toyota will surely be a force to be reckoned with, and the big question is whether Porsche be able to keep the lighting laps consistently over a stint in traffic.

As someone mentioned yesterday, they had the fastest lap times, but not the most consistent laps under 1:41...

No one said or expects it to be easy. It's just very satisfying for us Porsche fans to see that they finally have a competitive car and that they stand as good a chance as any of the other two/three competitors in winning Le Mans. Lets face it; last year's car was never going to do it.

[Spyderman]

Fritz Enzinger, Vice President LMP1 : “For sure we have got a very fast car…But we are also leaving Paul Ricard impressed by the performance of the competition on longer runs.".

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by Spyderman

Fritz Enzinger, Vice President LMP1 : “For sure we have got a very fast car…But we are also leaving Paul Ricard impressed by the performance of the competition on longer runs.".

I guess that he is referring to the impressive long runs of Audi yesterday afternoon

[Spyderman]

One of the "issues"with going to 8MJ is tire ware, so I imagine they will be working on this over the next weeks.

[tomazy]

Looking at the data from seson 2 today http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Res...%20Day%202.PDF
#18 Porshe was much slower in speed traps on this sheet than #17, even slower than Audis, yet it recorded the highest top speed http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Res...%20Day%202.PDF

What is going on there? Diffirent fuel saving strategy?

[MyNameIsNigel]

Originally Posted by Spyderman

One of the "issues"with going to 8MJ is tire ware, so I imagine they will be working on this over the next weeks.

Indeed, and motorsport-total.com do report that Porsche appeared to have issues with double-stinting the tires:

(…)Der Porsche zeigte sich speziell über eine Runde als scharfe Waffe, aber auf die Distanz hatte die Mannschaft aus Weissach immer noch mit abbauenden Reifen zu kämpfen. Versuche mit Doppelstints brachten bisher nicht die gewünschten Ergebnisse.
"Wir haben noch Arbeit", fasst Porsche-Entwicklungsvorstand Wolfgang Hatz im Gespräch mit 'Motorsport-Total.com' zusammen. "Es geht schon besser als im Vorjahr, weil der Drop etwas hinausgezögert kommt, aber wir müssen da noch weitere Verbesserungen schaffen", fügt LMP1-Leiter Fritz Enzinger an.(…)

Some more work ahead, but the new Porsche is clearly a top performer.

[Spyderman]

Thanks!

So no double stinting for Porsche. Lots of work ahead.

[tomazy]

Originally Posted by tomazy

Looking at the data from seson 2 today http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Res...%20Day%202.PDF
#18 Porshe was much slower in speed traps on this sheet than #17, even slower than Audis, yet it recorded the highest top speed http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Res...%20Day%202.PDF

What is going on there? Diffirent fuel saving strategy?

To answer my own question, The max speed data is max speed of the entire prologue. Does this mean, that #18 had difirent configuration today (high downforce aero)?

[MyNameIsNigel]

Some interesting shot of the new Porsche 919 thanks to John Dagys:


To be compared to last year's car:

[Filos]

Very interesting photos

[hcl123]

Originally Posted by tomazy

To answer my own question, The max speed data is max speed of the entire prologue. Does this mean, that #18 had difirent configuration today (high downforce aero)?

What do you mean by much slower ?... Porsche was consistently the fastest 'top speeder' of then all... perhaps they (Porsche) are not using a HD package (not exactly) as they did last year in the prologue, their balance is already very good, match very nicely the characteristics of this circuit... difference in 'top speed' between Porsche and Audi reached ~20kmh (is quite substantial) in favor of Porsche, yet Audi engine is considerably more powerful than Porsche, and for top speed 'hybrid traction' is not working ( only count for launching, which is crucial in anycase), so it must be due to aeros (DF e drag)...

Who was really running 'high downforce' was Audi (as usual), consistently the worst 'top speeder' of the all 3, but attending the lap times, the creepy issue of lack of power at low(er) revs seems solved, and corner speed is as good or better... ( they can afford to have a high downforce bias in all circuits - more than the rest - because the engine has the necessary torque to do it, and can compensate for being substantially faster on corners - hopefully they don't overdose the remedy like last year, specially Spa - )