'09 LMS Round 1 • Catalunya April 3-5

[The Badger]

Brilliant to see some other names apart from Audi and Peugeot doing the winning for a change , and great to see that Enge has silenced his critics too .

Not really looking forward to Spa as both Audi & Pug will be back .

Great result for Racing Box , they will surely take the championship if they can keep up the points like this , with 2 cars . But 2 RS Spyders for Spa too .

Brilliant start to the year for Reiter Eng . I didnt think they would do it , especially since they started from the back of the grid . That Rusinov cant be too shabby ?

Looks like Porsche have been doing quite a bit of work since last year , great to see too .

Brilliant start to the series . Absolute ****e TV coverage though !!!

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by The Badger

Not really looking forward to Spa as both Audi & Pug will be back.

Only Kolles will be present in Spa, not? They will be no match for Peugeot and the top petrol privateers.

[Mal]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

Only Kolles will be present in Spa, not? They will be no match for Peugeot and the top petrol privateers.

Thats the current situation, yes. It wouldnt surprise me though if Audi did turn up and I would love to see another bout of the Heavyweight Title fight.

[JAG]

Originally Posted by jc_nl

Speaking of Audi's the Kolles performance has been shocking, I wonder if they will manage to improve for Spa.

I really wouldn't be suprised if they finished on the podium.

If the speed is in the car Audi will help the team extract it as they need the team to be upto speed for Le Mans.

[Mal]

The Fastest race lap by McNish & Co in the R10 last year was 1.34.953 wheras the fastest race lap by Kolles was 1.36.457 - ie a difference of 1.5s - that could largely be accounted for by the drivers. Coupled with the fact that the Aston Martin fastest lap this year was 1.34.014 as opposed to last year the Charouz Astons fastest lap was 1.35.531.

So the Audi was 1.5 secs slower and the Aston 1.5sec faster its easy to see how the difference has occured. Even the works R10 may have struggled to win this year.

The biggest difference though is the drivers they clearly have nowhere near the ability to run as consistently fast and trouble free as the top Audi team which we know is the best group of sportscar drivers on the planet at the moment.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Mal

The Fastest race lap by McNish & Co in the R10 last year was 1.34.953 wheras the fastest race lap by Kolles was 1.36.457 - ie a difference of 1.5s - that could largely be accounted for by the drivers. Coupled with the fact that the Aston Martin fastest lap this year was 1.34.014 as opposed to last year the Charouz Astons fastest lap was 1.35.531.

Besides drivers they also have the new rear wing, and if the R10 was such a handful the last few years, it can't be any better with less rear downforce.

[Lola T70]

Originally Posted by joeb

Besides drivers they also have the new rear wing, and if the R10 was such a handful the last few years, it can't be any better with less rear downforce.

Bizarrely it might help the balance, the R10 was supposed to push too much through the middle of the turns and this may actually help that problem.

[JAG]

The diesels have had a large restrictor cut, while the R10 hasn't seen the same aero development as the quicker petrol cars, so could have lost 2 seconds overall pace.

The R15 has aero to match or better the Aston, Zytek etc., but have they retained their power advantage, even after a 10% diesel restrictor cut.

[Mal]

Exactly - which all adds up to the fact that it is not so surprising that the R10 was not on the pace

[JAG]

Race Petrol

2008 - 655bhp

2009 - 660bhp (No restrictor change, plus winter development)

Production Petrol

2008 - 670bhp

2009 - 670bhp (3% restrictor reduction overcome with winter development)

New aero to overcome, and more, the rear wing change, tyre development etc.

= 1-1.5 seconds quicker in 2009


R10

2008 - 720bhp

2009 - 670bhp (10% restrictor cut, plus basic winter development as Audi concentrate on the R15)

Little aero development so a drop in downforce, for a car that already had conservative aero, no longer a tyre advantage as a customer car(?).

= 1-1.5 seconds slower in 2009.

[Fogelhund]

Originally Posted by JAG

Race Petrol

2008 - 655bhp

2009 - 660bhp (No restrictor change, plus winter development)

Production Petrol

2008 - 670bhp

2009 - 670bhp (3% restrictor reduction overcome with winter development)

New aero to overcome, and more, the rear wing change, tyre development etc.

= 1-1.5 seconds quicker in 2009


R10

2008 - 720bhp

2009 - 670bhp (10% restrictor cut, plus basic winter development as Audi concentrate on the R15)

Little aero development so a drop in downforce, for a car that already had conservative aero, no longer a tyre advantage as a customer car(?).

= 1-1.5 seconds slower in 2009.

I don't think I can agree with any of this............

[rustycrankshaft]

Comparing 2008 and 2009 Sebring fastest lap and qualifying times it seems as the diesels have indeed lost 1.3 secs this year (1m43.2 compared to 1m44.5 for fastest lap). The fastest time set by the Pug at Catalunya in 2008 was 1m33.5 compared to 1m34.0 by the Aston this year, i.e half a sec difference.

If the Sebring performance is mirrored in Spa I would say Aston do have a real chance of being the quicker car. Obviously this doesn't take into consideration fuel usage, reliability etc etc, but its interesting all the same.

I know there are a lot of variables here and you cannot compare Sebring to some of the European circuits but I'm just trying to get an idea of the loss of diesel performance vs the petrol LMS cars.

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by rustycrankshaft

Comparing 2008 and 2009 Sebring fastest lap and qualifying times it seems as the diesels have indeed lost 1.3 secs this year (1m43.2 compared to 1m44.5 for fastest lap).

Huh? It is the other way around. The Peugeot 908 was 1.3 sec quicker this year, with the smaller rear wing and the 10% smaller restrictor!

[Dunlop Corner]

Yes, the pole at Sebring was a big slower than last year. But in the race, the diesels were faster and more reliable than last year.

I don't think Aston has any chance challenge the big two. To just nip by a Pescarolo by the end, is not really the level needed compared to the big teams.

[henk4]

Here is our report from the weekend.
For those who are still discussing the Diesel-Petrol controversy, it might be probably be wiser to change that to Factory-Privateer.
The Kolles effort may not yet be fully on stream, but they were at no point in serious contention either for the pole or for the win.

http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/event...a-1000-km.html

[rustycrankshaft]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

Huh? It is the other way around. The Peugeot 908 was 1.3 sec quicker this year, with the smaller rear wing and the 10% smaller restrictor!

oops my mistake! yes they did run faster this year, however qualifying was much slower, probably explaining why we had an Acura on pole. I would expect Aston and the other top petrols would HAVE to be quicker than the diesels to make up for the extra fuelling stops, although couldn't put a figure on it. I still think it will be interesting to see what happens in Spa.

[rustycrankshaft]

I guess the only one team that really knows the difference in performance is Pescarolo! Are they going to race their new 908 before LM?

[henk4]

Originally Posted by rustycrankshaft

I guess the only one team that really knows the difference in performance is Pescarolo! Are they going to race their new 908 before LM?

no, they will bring two of the updated petrol cars to Spa and will run one of those together with the Peugeot at LM.

[JAG]

Originally Posted by Fogelhund

I don't think I can agree with any of this............

Why, because of Sebring?

At Sebring there was the R15 and a 908 that was way ahead of the competition last year, this is a comparison with an R10 that has gone backwards in all dpts., receiving little development to overcome the reg changes.

The petrol runners have not been hit with a major restrictor cut and have new aero, like the R15, to overcome the smaller rear wing.

Based on their Sebring performance I'd put Acura around Pescarolo's level.

As for Le Mans, that's when the diesel restrictor cut will really hit, at Sebring, Silverstone etc, the chassis and tyres are more important.

[airbusA346]

Does anyone know if the hour long highlights show will be repeated because I have missed 45 minutes of it.

Tom.

[jhansen]

Originally Posted by JAG

this is a comparison with an R10 that gone backwards in all dpts., and has received little development to overcome the reg changes.

True, but what about the team running them...

[JAG]

Originally Posted by jhansen

True, but what about the team running them...

I think we'd be talking about half a second, at most, for a qualifying/fast race lap.

Look at the team on pole, Strakka, it was their debut race and wouldn't be considered one of the big hitters, yet.

Kolles have DTM experience, a degree of Audi support, and decent drivers who could put in a flying lap if called upon.

I think it's just a case of the R10 losing 50bhp+, a notable amount of downforce (on a chassis that I believe was already inferior to the 2008 Lola Coupe and Zytek), plus the team/driver changes.

In addition the petrol competition, which were already snapping at the heals of the R10 in 2008, have taken another step forward.

[jhansen]

Originally Posted by JAG

I think we'd be talking about half a second, at most, for a qualifying/fast race lap.

Look at the team on pole, Strakka, it was their debut race and wouldn't be considered one of the big hitters, yet.

Kolles have DTM experience, a degree of Audi support, and decent drivers who could put in a flying lap if called upon.

I think it's just a case of the R10 losing 50bhp+, a notable amount of downforce (on a chassis that I believe was already inferior to the 2008 Lola Coupe and Zytek), plus the team/driver changes.

In addition the petrol competition, which were already snapping at the heals of the R10 in 2008, have taken another step forward.

But is the R10 and easy car to engineer and set up?

Race performance is a better indicator of a team's potential.

[Dani Filth]

i was happy to see the pace of the WR .. about half way through it was in 4th place in class .. anybody know what their problem was ?

[henk4]

Originally Posted by JAG

Kolles ha(s) decent drivers who could put in a flying lap if called upon.

That's a bit optimistically formulated, IMHO. They were called upon and did not perform sufficiently. We spoke with one of them in the hotel on friday evening
and he told that he had now done 19 laps in total in the car....Perhaps next race will see some improvement, also with the arrival of Karthikiyan, but the Audi needs top drivers to perform. None of the ones now engaged has any long distance racing experience.