WEC 2024: Round 2, Imola

[tomcug]

Originally Posted by Matador

Honestly, the #7 crew has been absolutely immaculate today. Unexpected win, but great strategy calls and excellent driving.

Kobayashi did a mega job on wets. That won them this race.

[Adam43]

Good stuff.

[tomcug]

I think Porsche and Toyota are both satisfied considering Ferrari looked so strong after qualifying. Spa next, I wonder if we see power gain BOP for the first time.

[flatlandsman]

Interesting to see how the rain affected things, can you imagine how quick the old Peugeot would have been lol!! Bamber and BMW were mighty out there in the rain,

Amazing stuff at the end, other than the idiotic tv people obsessing with pit reaction over footage, fabulous work from Kamui, and also the whole of that crew, they deserved this.

My onkly query how on earth did Manthey lose that race in GT!

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by flatlandsman

My only query how on earth did Manthey lose that race in GT!

They put wets on during the worst of the rain; the WRT BMWs stayed on slicks.

[Matador]

Originally Posted by tomcug

I think Porsche and Toyota are both satisfied considering Ferrari looked so strong after qualifying. Spa next, I wonder if we see power gain BOP for the first time.

Yeah, I think Ferrari has a speed advantage with the current BoP, they completely bottled it with strategy.

Originally Posted by flatlandsman

Interesting to see how the rain affected things, can you imagine how quick the old Peugeot would have been lol!! Bamber and BMW were mighty out there in the rain,

Amazing stuff at the end, other than the idiotic tv people obsessing with pit reaction over footage, fabulous work from Kamui, and also the whole of that crew, they deserved this.

My onkly query how on earth did Manthey lose that race in GT!

The irony.


That Caddy really did come alive in the rain didn't it? Can't wait to see what JOTA do with it next year. I hope Bamber and Lynn still get seats.

Originally Posted by tomcug

Kobayashi did a mega job on wets. That won them this race.

Definitely, but I can't discount Conway's impeccable opening stint and Nick's speed and that absolutely surgical precision restart to grab P2 off the #50 Ferrari. True team effort.

[Simmi]

Definitely a fun one and held the attention.

Can't help thinking the rain and changeable conditions really helped in that respect. I'm not convinced about Imola to be honest as a WEC track. Having an Italian round is a no-brainer, it should just be at Monza. But it's nice to try new tracks I guess.

[PascaLM]

If the #50 and #51 were not in competition one against the other, as shown since last year, Ferrari would have chosen two different tires strategies for the cars.
A catastrophic race for Ferrari at home.

[Bentley03]

What fun that was!

BMW now on the pace, Lamborghini finding some pace, just a pity the incident at the start denied us the opportunity to get a feel for the race pace of the Pugs and Alpines.

IF feel like the new Bykolles, which is sad, because the quality of the other 18 Hypercars is simply outstanding. They affected the race detrimentally, in my opinion. The bar in this series has been raised significantly. They are not even close.

Can't wait for Spa!

[flatlandsman]

I think with Isotta it is not the car, the drivers are next to useless to be honest they have very little experience at this level, if you put two or three decent drivers in that car I am sure it would be much better and have less incident, I think the car is fairly decent considering how late it all came together and the team issues.

[JoeW04]

Originally Posted by Simmi

Definitely a fun one and held the attention.

Can't help thinking the rain and changeable conditions really helped in that respect. I'm not convinced about Imola to be honest as a WEC track. Having an Italian round is a no-brainer, it should just be at Monza. But it's nice to try new tracks I guess.

I don’t rate Imola at all for sportscar racing, what about Mugello?

[Simmi]

Ferrari admitting they got it wrong on multiple fronts today. Chucked away a clear speed advantage.

https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/...imola-chances/

[Mike E]

That was fun, right up to the end. The difficulty with on track passing at Imola is an issue though.
And please 'guys and girls in the truck', stop cutting to people in the pits watching themselves watch themselves on the telly when there is action on the track. No one cares.

[flatlandsman]

Is there any way we as fans can contact the people who do the tv, I have seen numerous complaints about it, I doubt it will change, they seem obsessed with it, but if several people mail in they might at least take it on board?

[Adam43]

Average Lap time

Rank	Car	Fastest	Top 25	Top 50	Top 75	Laps
1	50 Ferrari	1:31.794	1:32.531	1:32.845	1:33.113	205
2	51 Ferrari	1:32.515	1:32.850	1:33.047	1:33.223	204
3	7 Toyota	1:32.601	1:32.969	1:33.199	1:33.392	205
4	5 Porsche	1:32.590	1:33.107	1:33.297	1:33.485	205
5	8 Toyota	1:32.790	1:33.138	1:33.319	1:33.468	205
6	6 Porsche	1:32.759	1:33.110	1:33.319	1:33.498	205
7	83 Ferrari	1:32.698	1:33.084	1:33.352	1:33.573	204
8	99 Porsche	1:32.742	1:33.217	1:33.423	1:33.634	167
9	2 Cadillac	1:32.795	1:33.226	1:33.463	1:33.707	203
10	20 BMW	1:32.891	1:33.293	1:33.560	1:33.790	204
11	93 Peugeot	1:32.798	1:33.539	1:33.798	1:34.024	203
12	63 Lamborghini	1:33.086	1:33.518	1:33.844	1:34.099	203
13	12 Porsche	1:32.987	1:33.501	1:33.863	1:34.095	200
14	15 BMW	1:33.256	1:33.680	1:33.957	1:34.260	163
15	38 Porsche	1:33.359	1:33.658	1:33.959	1:34.204	203
16	36 Alpine	1:33.036	1:33.648	1:33.967	1:34.229	199
17	94 Peugeot	1:33.208	1:33.814	1:34.180	1:34.487	199
18	35 Alpine	1:33.281	1:33.818	1:34.189	1:34.445	201
19	11 Isotta Fraschini	1:34.191	1:34.773	1:35.257	1:35.696	191

Ferrari could pull out a decent lap. But looking in consistency over all conditions it didn't have that advantage.

Isotta Franschini starting to suffer from the usual small team - lack of testing. They boxed it up in Qatar and unboxed in Imola. And it had less testing already.

Ferrari/Toyota/Porsche top 3. However the others are so close that at different points they had their moments.
Cadillac could do with another car in WEC (another team?!). Lamborghini too, but that's so that could get more mileage. Alpine not as strong as Qatar. Had they tested at Imola, I can't remember.
Peugeot new car, could be worse, I suppose.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by flatlandsman

Is there any way we as fans can contact the people who do the tv, I have seen numerous complaints about it, I doubt it will change, they seem obsessed with it, but if several people mail in they might at least take it on board?

Good plan. Try the ACO? Keep it civil and considered. Can't hurt.

[Truckosaurus]

Indeed. They should only show garage reactions as a highlight after the fact and only if something interesting happened, not just a live shot of people watching the TV screen.

I think I've said before, that there probably is some technical reason why it is necessary to cut away from the track footage for a handful of seconds while the director blows his nose or they get the cameras cued up to follow a certain car or cars.

[Mike E]

Proton had a shocker yesterday. 99 not classified, 88 disintegrating and 77 in P9 (not terrible), and with a bunch of penalties too. One to forget.

[Sodemo]

Originally Posted by JoeW04

I don’t rate Imola at all for sportscar racing, what about Mugello?

Mugello would absolutely get my vote.

[tomcug]

I usually don't read comments on motorsport.com but made an exception after this race and I found a very "interesting" discussion:
https://www.motorsport.com/wec/news/...s-block-anchor
Open the link at your own risk


Anyway, something more useful here:
https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/...ce-notebook-3/
22nd WEC win for Conway, 17th for Kobayashi.

Estre doesn’t feel any disappointment in missing out on victory in his late-race battle with Kobayashi. “I think when we came here a month ago [to test] we knew this was going to be a hard one,” said the French driver. “We missed peak performance compared to the Ferrari, and in the race, our tire degradation was a lot higher than Toyota and Ferrari.”

Porsche LMDh factory director Urs Kuratle admitted surprise that Ferrari didn’t opted to split its cars on strategy during the crucial wet phase of the race. “We were looking into it very carefully, and yes we were surprised,” Kuratle told reporters post-race. “But we have to be careful, and we were not 100 percent sure this was not the right call [at the time].”

Ferrari opted to triple-stint its Michelin tires in the dry early part of the race, while Toyota took fresh right-side tires at its second stop and Porsche changed all four tires owing to higher-than-anticipated degradation.

Some tire notes. Ferrari's genius strategy surprised everybody it seems.

[Sodemo]

Ferrari do have a bit of a reputation for mucking it up on strategy.

[KlBD]

Weirdly, the Hypercar and F1 teams both seem to have trouble with how seriously to weigh driver input with the pitwall's strategy. Arguments with Leclerc in F1 and with Calado on the WEC side seem to spring to mind. That said, perhaps when the race strategy confuses even the drivers and causes lengthy debate, there does need to be an improvement in communication.

Brings to mind the bit of Truth in 24 where TK is arguing with H about whether to take inters or not, and in the end, TK acquiesced and it worked out for Audi.

[TF110]

Imo, that was the best wec race since the beginning of the hypercar era. Definitely for the overall, hypercar win. I didn't know who would come out on top, Porsche Toyota or Ferrari. Even the BMW was showing some pace. Leave it to mother nature to be the entertainer and the equalizer.

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by KlBD

Brings to mind the bit of Truth in 24 where TK is arguing with H about whether to take inters or not, and in the end, TK acquiesced and it worked out for Audi.

On the flip side, in Truth in 24 II, Kristensen and other drivers from the retired Audis were consulted on whether the #2 crew were going to take new tyres or try to save time in the pit stops. They agreed with TK, and it worked out for Audi.

It's not a great look for Ferrari; I'm sure other teams had these discussions, but it's hard to imagine them letting the disagreement reach that extent.

[KlBD]

Originally Posted by J Jay

On the flip side, in Truth in 24 II, Kristensen and other drivers from the retired Audis were consulted on whether the #2 crew were going to take new tyres or try to save time in the pit stops. They agreed with TK, and it worked out for Audi.

It's not a great look for Ferrari; I'm sure other teams had these discussions, but it's hard to imagine them letting the disagreement reach that extent.

Yeah true, it's nice that it worked out for the Audi team both times. Maybe the key is whoever wins the argument, you reach a conclusion quickly enough to react on track?

The tidbit from the S365 article about the team seemingly misinterpreting the weather data also boggles the mind. If that's true then doesn't it mean they were on the radio to the drivers with incorrect information when they were telling them the rain "won't last"?