[WEC Race] 2014 FIA WEC - Round 4 - Circuit of the Americas

[Purist]

I think you know that I agree with you on that one, Matt.

It also contributes to the more lackluster sense you get from a lot of the night camera shots. That is, there's little enough context for the track as it is, and when you lose even more of the surroundings to darkness, it can become confusing/disorienting sometimes. It's hard enough identifying many sections of these new F1 circuits in broad daylight.

You know you're looking at a special circuit when a single car in Qualifying is simply spectacular to watch. As comparatively good as they are, I don't truly get that sense from even Istanbul or Sepang.

[JacobP]

Today it was the same pattern as in 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans or the 2013 COTA race. Audis drop back at the beginning of the race, letting the competition show off what its capable of, and giving the competition plenty of opportunity and rope to hang itself by making a mistake or suffering a mechanical failure. Audi sits back always ready to pounce as soon as the cars in front break down or make an mistake. This happened at COTA this year, and it happened at Le Mans. Audi is also quite adept at double stinting on worn out tires as the last resort to snatch the win from under the nose of the other car like the last year at COTA.

I am pretty sick of Audi's one-sided domination of LMP1 racing, but my hats off go to Audi. Once again Audi schooled its competition, the way an old experienced master can put an eager youngster in his place.

[Simmi]

If it had stayed dry throughout would Toyota have pushed clear in the cooler temps or would Audi's tyre advantage have edged it?

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by Simmi

If it had stayed dry throughout would Toyota have pushed clear in the cooler temps or would Audi's tyre advantage have edged it?

I'd side with Toyota for this. From the restart to the finish #8 was 40 seconds faster than #2 - add that to the 30 seconds from before Lapierre ate gravel and that would be too much for Audi's double stints to overcome. The potential for Toyota to double stint in the cooler night running would only increase this lead.

[Acid09]

The #8 was clearly the superior car in terms of speed all the way until the end, if it hadn't been for the rain Toyota would have comfortably won this.

The rain caught them out but in the end, 3rd is a good result to do some damage control.

All in all, an encouraging race for Toyota, even without the LM-style rear wing the TS040 is still the car to beat, a good position to be in for the remaining four rounds

[Acid09]

Wurz on Twitter:

Austin #WEC a race weekend which was screwed before even started (for reasons I'm not allowed to disclose) Hoping for sharper knife in Fuji

Hmm...

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by Acid09

Wurz on Twitter:



Hmm...

Did they have an aero or other technical update which was not allowed by the officials?

[airbusA346]

I wonder if there will be a BOP update in GTE before Fuji.

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by Acid09

Wurz on Twitter:



Hmm...

Sounds a bit pouty if I'm honest. Unless it was specific to the #7, this issue also affected the #8 which clearly would have run away with the win if the race was fully dry.

[FstrthnU]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FutghJseE0s
The rain chaos is now on youtube!

[chernaudi]

Well, after the start the #7 was basically no where. Both Audis got by it and after that, it was just off the radar compared to the #8, which should've been contending for the race win on pace alone.

[TF110]

Wurz isnt too pleased with the events of the red flag situation. Cant say I blame him with how recovered cars get to start ahead of one that made a pit but caught in them by a red flag. His cryptic tweet may be the #8 car getting better updates? Id think thatd be unlikely, so maybe an engine issue with a new one in Fuji? Just guessing.

[chernaudi]

It was for sure off the pace compared to the #8 and both Audis. I just couldn't really go anywhere once both Audis got by and it was at times getting reeled in by the #14 Porsche.

[TF110]

Its top speed was 287kmh in fp1 vs 295kmh for the #8 during the race. Im guessing engine issues if the speed is anything to go by.

[Brownj]

Originally Posted by FIRE

Did they have an aero or other technical update which was not allowed by the officials?

Makes me wonder if it had something to do with the front-end aero. I was expecting to see the high downforce front-end that they ran at Silverstone (or some variant of it), but instead they showed up with the low DF kit they ran at Spa and Le Mans.

[Simmi]

God bless Trussers.

Sifting through the mess of that red flag: http://www.trussers.blogspot.co.uk/

[jasonjessica09]

Question: Which of the remaining WEC rounds this year will finish in the dark as far as you know?

[Purist]

The only one that comes to mind is Bahrain.

[ATLFalconsFAN]

I haven't had a chance to read through all of the posts in this thread yet. I did attend the race and wanted to share a few videos with you nice people.

Last year I was very fortunate to receive the VIP treatment from my good friends at Michelin for the COTA race. I figured I had my epic time last year and that it was a one time deal, and so I arrived to Austin with a general admission ticket for my wife and myself. I didn't realize that someone was paying attention to the fact that Tuesday was my birthday, and when I arrived I was told to stop by the Michelin compound to say hello. Upon arrival I was shocked to find out that I was being given two VIP passes for the WEC Spirit of Le Mans suite above pit lane. The experience was incredible and one that just like last year will never be forgotten.

So, I had a great view of the pit action during the race. When the rain started pouring I knew that teams would have to come in to switch tires, so I got ready for Rebellion to come in (as IMHO they have the best sounding car in the field), and got a video of them switching to wets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D64w...Syd1PsA19083HQ

However the highlight of the entire weekend was a special visitor that we had in the suite. We had many, Pierre Fillion, Darren Turner, the entire Toyota squad and a few others. However I was told to make sure that I was around at 4pm on Saturday as Mr. Allan McNish would be stopping by to say hello. What I expected was that he would be arriving and getting on a microphone to talk to the roughly 200 people that were in the suite. Instead he walks right over to our table where our group of 10-15 people were and sits down right next to me! He talked for about 20 minutes to us. I planned to video the entire Q&A, however I was a bone head and hadn't freed up space on my phone. So I missed about half of it while I went through my phone deleting old stuff to free up space. The first video is funny how it ends, Allan would never cut it as a weather man! However in the second video he was most prophetic as to what would come to pass. Hope you guys enjoy these as much as I enjoyed getting to take them:

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lyf...Syd1PsA19083HQ

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tmh...ature=youtu.be

Many thanks to Michelin for making this past weekend truly memorable!

[ATLFalconsFAN]

Originally Posted by divxx

I noticed one of the Rebellion drivers left the podium before the champagne started to spray, was it Heidfeld or Prost? Was surprised not to hear about those two considering their little incident last week.

I visited their table during the autograph session. They were kicking back having a good conversation and smiling with each other when I saw them. I was the jerk that said something along the lines of, "Glad to see you guys are still friends". They both looked up at me like, "Did you really have to bring that up?".

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Simmi

God bless Trussers.

Sifting through the mess of that red flag: http://www.trussers.blogspot.co.uk/

I think the issue is the timing of the red flag and the fact that there were cars who pit but were held while those that were stuck were allowed to go around. Imo, what they should have done was make the cars that were lined up go to the pits to change tires instead of doing so on the race track. I get that they were allowed to change tires because it was wet, but its just a little odd the red flag was held off until it was. I think a lot of other people are questioning the timing of the red flag as well.

[Ginaro Zukovsky]

Surely the cars that were in the pits, could have joined the back of the cars waved around (who were between the red flag line and the leader) - that was the problem, they lost a lap to those cars.

[ATLFalconsFAN]

Originally Posted by TF110

I think the issue is the timing of the red flag and the fact that there were cars who pit but were held while those that were stuck were allowed to go around. Imo, what they should have done was make the cars that were lined up go to the pits to change tires instead of doing so on the race track. I get that they were allowed to change tires because it was wet, but its just a little odd the red flag was held off until it was. I think a lot of other people are questioning the timing of the red flag as well.

As far as the timing of the red flag was concerned. You do miss a lot when you are there at the race without a method of listening to the commentary. So I'm sure I've missed out on the entire story. What I will tell you is that I was standing above the pits at the exact moment the red flag waved. It was pouring rain, there was a river of water in the pit lane, and less than five seconds before the time the flag waved I looked towards the direction of turn 1, and between turn 1 and the main grandstand off in the distance there was a serious lightning bolt. FWIW...

[CyberMotor]

Originally Posted by ATLFalconsFAN

I didn't realize that someone was paying attention to the fact that Tuesday was my birthday, and when I arrived I was told to stop by the Michelin compound to say hello. Upon arrival I was shocked to find out that I was being given two VIP passes for the WEC Spirit of Le Mans suite above pit lane. The experience was incredible and one that just like last year will never be forgotten.

Many thanks to Michelin for making this past weekend truly memorable!

Congratulations to you. I am envious.

My wife and I were fortunate to receive similar treatment at the very first ALMS event at Road Atlanta. Back then, most of the world were doubters that Panoz could make a difference. We were fortunate to be invited to a media breakfast overlooking turn 12 during morning practice.

No one else showed up while we enjoyed our catered breakfast from Chateau Elan when none of the other media showed up. They showed up later but breakfast was over!

[seanyb505]

[QUOTE=ATLFalconsFAN;3456696] ***I had an awesome time and did my part to make sure Sean has a terrible Christmas***[/QUOTE]

Sounds like you had a weekend much better than expected. I'm always pleased with myself when I can get a return hello wave, much less discuss the finer things of loading dishwashers in the McNish household.

McNish calling my wife to make sure she loads the dishwasher correctly would have been amazing...Glad you had fun at either rate!


On a more event oriented note, has anyone seen what WEC claimed their attendance was? I could care less about who was there for TUSC vs. WEC, just whether WEC viewed attendance this year as an improvement, par for Austin, or if it was enough to make a difference in a still-unannounced 2015 return.