WEC round 2, Spa 6H - 3, 4 & 5 May 2012

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by CTD

The DBR9's looked the best in the BRG colors, so i would imagine the Vantage would too

We already know what it looks like in BRG ..... Cocker drove one for Drayson .

Looked good too .

[TF110]

I don't think Audi are sandbagging. They are down on power from before, and Spa is a long sweeping track good for cars with power. They minimized the losses and did a great job to get in the 2:01's.

[pach233]

Any update on whether the stream will be available in the US?

[GTfour]

All great news ! Fantastic speeds, beautifull liveries and one of the greatest tracks on the planet...
And the greatest thing is, it's run on a Saturday(so sleeping things of on the Sunday) and the start is at the mellow hour of 14:30 ! No early rising then.

Raingear packed, camera's charged, bring it !

[alexkiller8]

Originally Posted by TF110

I don't think Audi are sandbagging. They are down on power from before, and Spa is a long sweeping track good for cars with power. They minimized the losses and did a great job to get in the 2:01's.

well, in sebring audi was using the 2011 r18 TDI but with 2012 restrictors and with a weight ballast. Meanwhile these handicap, has been able to run almost 1 second faster than 2011 pole position (ok maybe the 908 that debuted at sebring still hadn't an aero efficency like the 2011 r18 but had much more power and a bit lighter)... now what i want to show you is this:

spa: lola rebellion 2011: 2.06.7 / lola b12/60 TMG 2012: 2.04.2
oak pescarolo 2011: 2.07.7 / oak pescarolo 2012: 2.07.5
oreca 03 nissan 2011: 2.10.1 / oreca 03 nissan 2012: 2.09.3
zytek nissan 2011: 2.11.2 / zytek nissan 2012: 2.09.7
oak pescarolo lmp2 2011: 2.12.3 / morgan 2012: 2.09.6

as you can see these car improved their best timelap from last year... is a little suspicious that a hugely update car like the 2012 r18 etron and ultra cars couldn't be able to run considerably faster than 2011. Focus about 2 things:

1. during free practice 3, an audi car was already able to run under 2.02 and most important

2. the #2 etron came back to boxes when there were still almost 10 minutes for some other lap, and the #1 ran for less time, the #4 was called to come back to boxes during an intersting hot lap...

in my opinion this is a clever sandbanging by audi to avoid bop adjustments before le mans.

[chernaudi]

I think that Audi may be sandbagging to misinform Toyota as much as to avoid any unfavorable BoP adjustments, but that's sort of out the window anyways, as the FIA/ACO have rules on how they make such changes--a car must race twice in its most updated technical specs before LM for changes to be made. Audi ran 2011 cars at Sebring, and I think that might be more indicative of what they're able to do with the new e-tron and Ultra cars, as well as the 1:43.2 that one of the e-trons ran in testing at Sebring, which was well over 2 seconds faster than the 2011 cars did in qualifying, and though the R18 (in un-ballisted form) is lighter than the 908, it was always down on top speed, but even considering that and the 15kgs of BoP ballast, Audi were still nearly a second faster than the Pug Q-time of '11. I think that that was a probable taste of things to come.

I think that Audi are trying to go fast enough to win Spa and get a realistic "real world" test under their belts before LM and the LM test, and aren't showing their full hand, because we all know that Toyota is watching.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by pach233

Any update on whether the stream will be available in the US?

Says "worldwide" on fiawec.com.

[pdxracefan]

Gonna get up waaaayyyy too early and try and catch any streams that are available. Not much sleep here on the Left Coast tomorrow.

[pach233]

Originally Posted by deggis

Says "worldwide" on fiawec.com.

Let's hope so. Qualifying was blocked and I have a feeling Speed isn't allowing streaming in the US because they have exclusive rights............. to show 1 hour highlights in December.

[lemansfan]

Will start at 7am , a 1h Drive to Spa . For the Moment it's raining at Home .

[AUTOLEGEND]

Originally Posted by pach233

Any update on whether the stream will be available in the US?

Same question. Blocking of my whole Sat to watch this.

If not, please PM a stream.

[chernaudi]

TWC predicting 90% chance of occasional rain showers and a high of only 47 degrees F. Cold and probably rainy enough that there'll probably be no dry running at all today, be it warm up or race.

[TF110]

What time GMT does the race start?

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by TF110

What time GMT does the race start?

The race is from 14:30 to 20:30 local time. At the moment it is 8:43 in Belgium. You can calculate that to your local time zone.

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by pach233

Let's hope so. Qualifying was blocked and I have a feeling Speed isn't allowing streaming in the US because they have exclusive rights............. to show 1 hour highlights in December.

Eve from RLM said that the stream was geoblocked by mistake for qualifying and should be available in the USA for race day.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by TF110

What time GMT does the race start?

Originally Posted by gwyllion

The race is from 14:30 to 20:30 local time. At the moment it is 8:43 in Belgium. You can calculate that to your local time zone.

= GMT/UTC +2 hours.

This never fails: http://timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

[tbz]

Originally Posted by pach233

Any update on whether the stream will be available in the US?

FIAWEC Stream will be available in the US. FIAWEC has just confirmed

[TF110]

Great, I will have to get some sleep to be able to catch all of it.

[gwyllion]

Warmup starts in 3 minutes. Video is available at http://live.fiawec.com/

[TF110]

Not available in my country.

EDIT: I can only watch the Audi onboard. Kinda sucks, but at least it's just warm up.

[Simmi]

Ouch Brian Vickers drops it under breaking for the final chicane and hits the wall with the right rear hard.

Suspension damage and rear wing ripped off.

[Simmi]

Rain got very heavy at the end of the session. If it's like that in a few hours for the race it would probably start under safety car conditions.

[gwyllion]

Judging from http://www.buienradar.be/radar-verwachting it will stop raining in Spa around 1PM. So perhaps the start of the race will be reasonably dry.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

Warmup starts in 3 minutes. Video is available at http://live.fiawec.com/

Improvement over Sebring stream, which still isn't much.

[deggis]

Direct links:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xpg...c-onboard_auto
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xpg...-wec-live_auto

This live timing seems to work again (shows Speed Series = support race):

http://livetiming.alkamelsystems.com/lms/