[WEC Race] Sao Paulo 6 Hours 2012

[airbusA346]

Originally Posted by FIRE

Like at WEC Silverstone.

Silverstone was an out of date fire extinguisher and John Dagys has said on Twitter that it is ride height this time.

[FIRE]

Not very professional.

[gregtummer]

One interesting thing is that during the race the announcers said that McNish thought the GT cars could corner better than the LMPs in some of the twisty parts of the track since the LMPs rely so much on aero grip.

[MJones94]

I didn't see any of the race live and got impatient waiting for it to come up on Youtube.

Great news for a Toyota fan like myself that they get their first win and pole. It seems that Toyota are the fastest at the moment and have been since Silverstone. Let's hope that this victory even more cements Toyota's decision to stay past 2014.

Oh, and what kind of crowd size was at Interlagos?

[courageous]

Official attendence was 25,000 (not sure if that was 3-day or race day only).

I always love it when a team confounds us on strategy - I reckon Toyota could have even not needed that final stop had they paced themselves a little more.


If Toyota had done the whole season, Audi would have had a serious title fight on their hands

[GTfour]

Originally Posted by courageous

Official attendence was 25,000 (not sure if that was 3-day or race day only).

I always love it when a team confounds us on strategy - I reckon Toyota could have even not needed that final stop had they paced themselves a little more.


If Toyota had done the whole season, Audi would have had a serious title fight on their hands

That's why I'm rubbin'my hands allready for next years season.

[MJones94]

Originally Posted by courageous

Official attendence was 25,000 (not sure if that was 3-day or race day only).

I always love it when a team confounds us on strategy - I reckon Toyota could have even not needed that final stop had they paced themselves a little more.


If Toyota had done the whole season, Audi would have had a serious title fight on their hands

That is exactly what I thought. I imagine Toyota might have a big update package for the Fuji race. This seems very typical of Japanese brands in motorsport when they race in their home countries. Honda had their 'Suzuka special' engine for example.

[DeathOrGlory]

I don't think that Honda/HPD has the interest to update the ARX-03 for Japan. Wirth, yes. Honda? No.

[trahsub]

Originally Posted by Acid09

Looking at the quick success of Toyota I really don't see what keeps other manufacturers from entering.

Toyota is really liking their ROI with this sports car program, as compared to their F1 disaster!

[Victor_RO]

6 Hours of Sao Paulo will remain on the calendar next year: August 31st 2013. http://www.endurance-info.com/versio...nce-13326.html

[gwyllion]

Paul Truswell provides some numbers regarding stints and pitstops to explain why Toyota won: http://trussers.blogspot.com/2012/09...nterlagos.html

Toyota improved their strategy and pitstop a lot since Silverstone.

[TF110]

"How can they have made such gains in the matter of two weeks"... an interesting question indeed! If they made that much gain from that time period you have to agree with him in thinking, what will it be like in Bahrain? Especially looking forward to that because Audi can't and won't sit still. And Toyota expect the track to be even better towards their car.

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by TF110

"How can they have made such gains in the matter of two weeks"

Simple , its called research & development , and their doing it racing , where it should be done , much like the Viper programme .

All the simulation in the world doesnt count , as human factors come into the equation trackside .

[arakis]

Originally Posted by The Badger

Simple , its called research & development , and their doing it racing , where it should be done , much like the Viper programme .

All the simulation in the world doesnt count , as human factors come into the equation trackside .

Though the Japs would have done away with us pesky humans by now

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by arakis

Though the Japs would have done away with us pesky humans by now

Another 80 kg saved ..... you sure Lapierre-Wurz were actually in the car at all ?

[Gingers4Justice]

Originally Posted by Acid09

Well, it's no big surprise, isn't it? Outside of Le Mans, even Peugeot had them pretty much covered right from the start, even though their efforts where downright chaotic in the early years.. gifting Audi the 2008 LMS championship etc.

Audi is not very good when getting pressured, they tend to make mistakes and lose their temper, both the drivers and the team as a whole. The only exception seems to be Le Mans, their experience and record seems to give them extra confidence there.

But on other tracks, Audi just isn't that good. They`re also in a pretty tough spot regarding drivers. They have the new #1 crew which is set but other than that, most other drivers are just on loan or dropping off.

McNish and Kristensen have gotten awfully error-prone the last 12-16 months, I think time is starting to run out for these guys as well.

A few very good and interesting points which I hadn't quite noticed.

Trouble is with Audi, is that they only ever need to race the competition. All Peugeot had to do was be better than Audi to be the best, because Audi was the benchmark. But all that says is how good Audi and Peugeot were against each other - neither are necessarily the ultimate LMP team, as good as one can be.

Maybe Toyota's pace at this point shows that Peugoet and maybe Audi too were not as good as we thought they were!

[TF110]

Originally Posted by The Badger

Simple , its called research & development , and their doing it racing , where it should be done , much like the Viper programme .

All the simulation in the world doesnt count , as human factors come into the equation trackside .

It's not simple at all really. You don't just go from being more than 10 laps away in fuel economy compared to Audi all the way to only 4 or 5 laps overnight AND keep the same speed. I could see if they slowed down to save fuel, but they didn't slow any. It seemed like they GAINED speed, on top of better fuel economy. In the matter of two weeks, minus the time the cars had to be shipped to Brazil from Silverstone. Sure they went and did their homework, but I think Toyota may've had some speed in hand they just had to unlock. It was a definite step up, a quite big one. That's pretty tough to do in just two weeks.

[Rennen]

So....The TS030 must be the most technologically advanced Racing Car in World at the moment, and that includes Formula One cars.

[TF110]

I haven't thought about that. It just may be. The e-tron is pretty technical as well.

[gwyllion]

Indeed, both cars have a hybrid system. The only difference is the storage medium and the axle that is driven.

The engine of the Toyota is a prehistoric compared to the Audi's mono VTG turbo direct injection diesel engine. The weight saving done by Audi is also state-of-the-art, e.g., single piece monocoque and carbon fibre gearbox casing.

The (unraced) Peugeot 908 2012 is also extremely advanced: hybrid system, seamless gearshift, twin VTG turbo diesel, ...

[TF110]

Yup, and makes no difference if you lose or don't race it (damn Peugeot). If Toyota can do this with an 'outdated engine', what can they do with a brand new purpose built one?

[CTD]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

Indeed, both cars have a hybrid system. The only difference is the storage medium and the axle that is driven.

The engine of the Toyota is a prehistoric compared to the Audi's mono VTG turbo direct injection diesel engine. The weight saving done by Audi is also state-of-the-art, e.g., single piece monocoque and carbon fibre gearbox casing.

The (unraced) Peugeot 908 2012 is also extremely advanced: hybrid system, seamless gearshift, twin VTG turbo diesel, ...

Originally Posted by TF110

Yup, and makes no difference if you lose or don't race it (damn Peugeot). If Toyota can do this with an 'outdated engine', what can they do with a brand new purpose built one?

I'm thinking that Toyota could have debuted their new engine, or parts of it at Sao Paolo, but choosing to keep it out of the public!?

[MJones94]

Originally Posted by CTD

I'm thinking that Toyota could have debuted their new engine, or parts of it at Sao Paolo, but choosing to keep it out of the public!?

Do you mean new parts for the same engine, or a brand new engine altogether? It sounded pretty similar to the one at Silverstone IMO.

[CTD]

Originally Posted by MJones94

Do you mean new parts for the same engine, or a brand new engine altogether? It sounded pretty similar to the one at Silverstone IMO.

One or the other .

a new 3.4l V8 with the same exhaust system wouldn't sound drastically different than the current, but as a purpose build engine, it would perform better.

[gwyllion]

The program is running with a restricted budget, so there are no resources to implement big updates (to engine, hybrid system, ...) this late in the season. Toyota explicitely said that they have not changed the car since Le Mans except for the higher downforce aero package.

The better fuel consumption is just a result of the track layout and an improved strategy (deciding when to run the engine and hybrid system in which setting, asking the drivers to save fuel, ...).