[LM24 Race] Le Mans 2011 - Race Week Thread - Scrutineering/Qualifying/Race

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

No way - that would be an even bigger loss of face. It is sad, but, as has been said many times, they've been either brave or foolish to come here and do their development under the public glare. Yes, we could have had two other competitive entries, but we have what we have. I just want to see them last as long as possible.

Well right now they've painted themselves into a corner, whatever they do now is going to be a massive loss of face.

[Dunlop Corner]

Looking at the data it seems like Audi has gone for a slightly higher topspeed. They are still a little slower on the trap speeds than Peugeot but the gap has closed.

Pagenaud did a rolling lap of 3:25.5 but unfortunately for him that lap did not coincide with the finish line. Kristensen was really going for it but time after time was unable to finish his flyer. Trelyuer set the pole on the 10th lap of a long run! Suddenly he just found something in the final sector.

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by Dunlop Corner

Trelyuer set the pole on the 10th lap of a long run! Suddenly he just found something in the final sector.

He had some luck with traffic. In fact he started his stint with used tyres. According Audi his tyres were 21 laps old when he set the pole. Pretty impressive.

[Victor_RO]

Starting drivers for the Peugeots:

#7 - Alex Wurz
#8 - Franck Montagny
#9 - Sebastien Bourdais

(from @peugeotsport on Twitter)

As far as I'm aware, these three were the starting drivers at Spa as well.

[Danny_GT2]

The only bigger joke than the Aston's are those Lotuses run by Jetalliance! Seriously, why bother running cars that slow at Le Mans?? It's dangerous more than anything! I will be fuming if I were in the Young Driver AMR crew who seem to have a good car, not sure if the Pro Robertson car would do anything in GTE Pro but would like to see what they could do!

[ubrben]

Just a final word on the BMW debate from me. The first version of the car (ALMS 2009) was more worthy of criticism than the current car. The car debuted at Ricard last year and now used (with its update) in all racing this year is actually pretty legal.

I can understand the consternation amongst some people about the restrictor size - but performance balancing means a higher drag base road car will be allowed a larger restrictor if it's not competitive. The BMW did ~280km/h at LM last year and is now doing 290 like the Corvette. The Corvette did 150 laps last year with a top speed over 300km/h, so it's not like they don't have something in reserve...

As for the cost of the car. A Porsche GT3 road car is ~100k, double an M3? What if McLaren do a GTE version of the MP4/12C a road car that's nearly double the cost of the Porsche? Can I then slag off the Porsche as a cheap middle manager's perk car???

GTE is a performance balanced category and it is implicitly written into the regs that the base cost and performance of the road car is irrelevant.

Ben

[arakis]

Originally Posted by ubrben

Just a final word on the BMW debate from me. The first version of the car (ALMS 2009) was more worthy of criticism than the current car. The car debuted at Ricard last year and now used (with its update) in all racing this year is actually pretty legal.

I can understand the consternation amongst some people about the restrictor size - but performance balancing means a higher drag base road car will be allowed a larger restrictor if it's not competitive. The BMW did ~280km/h at LM last year and is now doing 290 like the Corvette. The Corvette did 150 laps last year with a top speed over 300km/h, so it's not like they don't have something in reserve...

As for the cost of the car. A Porsche GT3 road car is ~100k, double an M3? What if McLaren do a GTE version of the MP4/12C a road car that's nearly double the cost of the Porsche? Can I then slag off the Porsche as a cheap middle manager's perk car???

GTE is a performance balanced category and it is implicitly written into the regs that the base cost and performance of the road car is irrelevant.

Ben

while I agree on some points, the basic fact remains that the speed, and performance of the bmw is not do to expetise and ingenuity of the BMW/RLR/Shnicer staff as it is being advertised, but due to the ACO gettign the BoP wrong. if you want to speed up a slow car that is fine, but you don't over do it and alow it to dominate, because the only contoling factr at this point is the ACO and they chose how fast the BMW will go.

no insult intended to the BMW/RLR/Shnicer staf, just that their expertise and ingenuity is curently overshadowed by the ACO BoP. I have nothing but respoect for them, they did and still do a great jub at prepairing the cars, and the reliability of those beemers is unbeliveble, and hats of to them!

[Andy77]

I have had a longer article in my (german) newspaper (longer than the 4 line stuff anyway ) today regarding the Audi pole at Le Mans and about the race too. If there is interest I'll post a copy later

Don't miss to join 10 Tenth Chatroom for Warm Up from 0300 EST / 0700 UTC / 0800 BST / 0900 CEST Saturday morning



A safe & enjoyable Le Mans 24h 2011 to everyone involved !

[dxk1]

Originally Posted by Holt

Aston Martin is the biggest joke in motorsports

Hideous, unreliable, pathetically slow car

Hopefully there is a mercy killing of the project before 3pm Saturday

Maybe they're sandbagging!!

DK

[Gingers4Justice]

Originally Posted by dxk1

Maybe they're sandbagging!!

DK

Biggest PR stunt of all time, maybe

[ubrben]

Originally Posted by arakis

while I agree on some points, the basic fact remains that the speed, and performance of the bmw is not do to expetise and ingenuity of the BMW/RLR/Shnicer staff as it is being advertised, but due to the ACO gettign the BoP wrong. if you want to speed up a slow car that is fine, but you don't over do it and alow it to dominate, because the only contoling factr at this point is the ACO and they chose how fast the BMW will go.

no insult intended to the BMW/RLR/Shnicer staf, just that their expertise and ingenuity is curently overshadowed by the ACO BoP. I have nothing but respoect for them, they did and still do a great jub at prepairing the cars, and the reliability of those beemers is unbeliveble, and hats of to them!

I think you're being a little unfair.

Top speeds on Wednesday night were 291.9 for the Corvette and 291.1 for the BMW - so the lap time wasn't all straightline speed.

The fastest GTE on the straight at Long Beach was the Porsche.

The Corvette's did 300km/h in the race last year and a little bit larger gurney isn't 9km/h slower so they are demonstratively not flat out, so there is no true evidence to show the BMWs have an unfair advantage due to the restrictor.

Yes it's a big restrictor but it's a draggy shape with a large frontal area, and the rules are there to facilitate balancing this.

If the BMW does 300km/h and the Porsche's etc only 295 fine. But if they all do 295 and the bmw is quicker over the lap it means it's been developed better and a good result would be entirely deserved.

Ben

[Gingers4Justice]

Radio Le Mans is down online, or atleast it won't play out of my laptop.

[arakis]

the diff between the ferrari(witch is the only car not running any restrictor breaks) and bMW is 8kmph, bruni and priaux.
-its only fair to compare two fastest cars. while some other ferraris are faster down the straits thats only due to setup, and their overall time is slower.

yes the top speed is the same between corvette porsche and bmw, but that has nothing to do with the speed around the circuit. more important factor is how fast you get to top speed, and thats where its plain as night and day that BMW has a huge addvantige, and that is all down to larger air restrictors.

proof. its simple just look at the sector 2 times!
BMW 1:31.775
Porsche 1:32.551
Ferrari 1:32.559
Corvette 1:32.9

so while the BMW and porsche and corvette have almost identical top speeds the BMW is 0.8s faster down the straits then the porsche, and 1.2s faster then the corvette.

P.S. I am not saying that BMW is not good at development, they are excelent, just look where the y were 2 years ago, with even more performace adjustments, its cleer they they have progressed very far in a small time frame. but its time to take off the rookie BoP, and let them play with the big boys on the same lvl

[gttouring]

Wow rockenfeller laid down a 3.27 acording to radio lemans

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by gttouring

Wow rockenfeller laid down a 3.27 acording to radio lemans

Yesterday. It's a re-run.

[Livininthinair]

I hope what you are saying regarding development and progression of design when it comes to the M3 we will be saying about the AMR1 in a year or two. I hope they just finish 24 hours...

[ubrben]

Originally Posted by arakis

the diff between the ferrari(witch is the only car not running any restrictor breaks) and bMW is 8kmph, bruni and priaux.
-its only fair to compare two fastest cars. while some other ferraris are faster down the straits thats only due to setup, and their overall time is slower.

yes the top speed is the same between corvette porsche and bmw, but that has nothing to do with the speed around the circuit. more important factor is how fast you get to top speed, and thats where its plain as night and day that BMW has a huge addvantige, and that is all down to larger air restrictors.

proof. its simple just look at the sector 2 times!
BMW 1:31.775
Porsche 1:32.551
Ferrari 1:32.559
Corvette 1:32.9

so while the BMW and porsche and corvette have almost identical top speeds the BMW is 0.8s faster down the straits then the porsche, and 1.2s faster then the corvette.

P.S. I am not saying that BMW is not good at development, they are excelent, just look where the y were 2 years ago, with even more performace adjustments, its cleer they they have progressed very far in a small time frame. but its time to take off the rookie BoP, and let them play with the big boys on the same lvl

If you honestly believe everyone has shown you're again being naive.

Did you not see the Risi car and the Corvette battle last year? If Ferrari are slower than that in a straight line in practice do you honestly believe they can possibly be flat out yet??

Ben

[arakis]

btw, the ACO equavalancy seems to have missed the 2% margin, the difference between fastest diesels and fastest petrols is 3.4%. although it is ment for race lap speeds.

I think its between best average laptime during a 20% of a stint. it remains to be seen tomorow, but I guess the difference will be even greater. So we can expect more restrictors for the diesels after Le mans, for the rest of the ILMC/LMS seson.

Also they totaly missed the 0.5% for the GTE class. difference between the fastest porsche and BMW is 0.8% and if last years le mans is anything to go by that difference will get biger during the race.

[arakis]

Originally Posted by ubrben

If you honestly believe everyone has shown you're again being naive.

Did you not see the Risi car and the Corvette battle last year? If Ferrari are slower than that in a straight line in practice do you honestly believe they can possibly be flat out yet??

Ben

If you are correct, then I will retract everything I've said.
I am how ever sure Risi/Luxary and JMW did not show their full potential yet.

If it turns out that Corvette/Ferrari/BMW slug it out with similar speeds then the ACO got it right bang on, and I am sorry for my previus coments.

P.S. I dont mind BoP, I jsut get iritated if it gives an edge to someone to dominate.

I am suprised at corvettes lack of pace, even thoug Risi was keeping up with them last year, it was clear that corvetts were holding some speed back. it was clear from how agressive Melo rode the curbs while the corvettes seemed more relaxed at the same laptimes.

[ubrben]

Originally Posted by arakis

If you are correct, then I will retract everything I've said.
I am how ever sure Risi/Luxary and JMW did not show their full potential yet.
If it turns out that Corvette/Ferrari/BMW slug it out with similar speeds then the ACO got it right bang on, and I am sorry for my previus coments.

P.S. I dont mind BoP, I jsut get iritated if it gives an edge to someone to dominate.

You could ultimately be right to some degree. But it's crazy to make judgements based on practice on;y. The regulation is clear best 20% of the laps. Let's see on Sunday where that leaves us.

Ben

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by arakis

btw, the ACO equavalancy seems to have missed the 2% margin, the difference between fastest diesels and fastest petrols is 3.4%. although it is ment for race lap speeds.

Don't forget that the fueling time for diesels will be 20 secs longer than for petrols. That translates to 2 sec a lap over one stint.

[arakis]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

Don't forget that the fueling time for diesels will be 20 secs longer than for petrols. That translates to 2 sec a lap over one stint.

I don't thik that is calculated into the 2% difference.

it stats the average time for best laps during 20% of the distance. and pit in and pit out laps are not calculated into it.

I guess they wanted to keep it below 2% so that those 2s could realy make it interesting.. because if they did keep it in 2% the diesel best time bould have been 3:28-3:29 and if you add the 2s it would have been really close with the top petrol car

[AGD]

Originally Posted by arakis

I don't thik that is calculated into the 2% difference.

it stats the average time for best laps during 20% of the distance. and pit in and pit out laps are not calculated into it.

I guess they wanted to keep it below 2% so that those 2s could realy make it interesting.. because if they did keep it in 2% the diesel best time bould have been 3:28-3:29 and if you add the 2s it would have been really close with the top petrol car

I think the reason for the fuel flow restrictor was that the ACO did not want to add weight to the diesels because that might make them more unreliable. Maybe I'm off on that, but at least that was what RLM were saying.

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by AGD

I think the reason for the fuel flow restrictor was that the ACO did not want to add weight to the diesels because that might make them more unreliable.

The rules state the slowest cars will get performance adjustments. So the ACO never considered slowing down the diesels.

Given the time constraints it was impossible to give the petrol cars a bigger restrictor/weight break. So the ACO decided to adjust the performance with the fuel flow restrictor change, which is very easy/cheap to implement.

[Holt]

Originally Posted by arakis

btw, the ACO equavalancy seems to have missed the 2% margin, the difference between fastest diesels and fastest petrols is 3.4%. although it is ment for race lap speeds.

I think its between best average laptime during a 20% of a stint. it remains to be seen tomorow, but I guess the difference will be even greater. So we can expect more restrictors for the diesels after Le mans, for the rest of the ILMC/LMS seson.

Also they totaly missed the 0.5% for the GTE class. difference between the fastest porsche and BMW is 0.8% and if last years le mans is anything to go by that difference will get biger during the race.

If Peugeot and Audi used gasoline engines Im sure their cars would still be 5 seconds quicker then the dinosaur Pescarolo

Check out the old 908. ONE YEAR of no development and the gasoline cars are only 3 seconds away from it. Its 15 kph slower down the Mulsanne then the new 908 and R18

Also drivers like Sarrazin, McNish etc are part of the gap from diesel to gasoline, not just the cars