'10 LMS Round 1 • Castellet • April 9-11

[Victor_RO]

13 minutes into the session and... who else but McNish? Already under 1:43.

[arakis]

bruni taking the 430 to the limit, 3-4 laps now below 1:59 nad one 1:59.002 lap

[arakis]

AF corsa 1-2-3

[Victor_RO]

#009 into the 1:44s and up into 2nd at the moment... also, what a surprise, RML leading P2.

[chernaudi]

McNish recently ran a 1:42.0, with the Pug in 3rd and 3 seconds off, and shown as "out" on the scoring.

[sssssssss]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

McNish recently ran a 1:42.0, with the Pug in 3rd and 3 seconds off, and shown as "out" on the scoring.

That 'out' thing is weird... What's the scoring you are viewing? On lemansseries.com there isn't anything like that mentioned...

[Martin90]

Originally Posted by sssssssss

That 'out' thing is weird... What's the scoring you are viewing? On lemansseries.com there isn't anything like that mentioned...

http://www.lemans-series.com/data/co...s/lmsfree3.htm

[sssssssss]

Thx for that one!

[HORNDAWG]

Originally Posted by sssssssss

Thx for that one!

You could also look in the first post of this thread!









L.P.

[sssssssss]

True, forgot about that. Anyways, Aston Martin got into the 1:43s (1:43.428)... That's some good news!

[chernaudi]

Well, the Pug is still running, but struggling--it's still almost 3 seconds off and the AMR Lola is also much faster(to the tune of nearly 1.5 seconds). Is it the guys new to the diesels, or is there a problem, as it seems that the Pug is very sensitive to track temp and such, and has a narrow window of optimum perfomance with its setups.

[sssssssss]

... and the Peugeot 0.001 seconds behind the Aston now 1:43.429.

[Martin90]

Interesting thing though, I believe Stephane Sarrazin hasn't been driving the car yet today so I'm assuming he'll do the qualification? (as expected)

[sssssssss]

It's starting to go quicker... fastest lap 1:43, latest lap 1:44. The Aston also seems to be getting out nice 1:43s, didn't really expect that after yesterday.

[Victor_RO]

Strakka ahead of the Mansells.


EDIT: In the 1:45s as well!!!!!!

[chernaudi]

Problem is that the Pug is still well off the Audi's pace. A bad sign, seeing as how Stephane almost certianly ran the fastest laps that car has turned thus far, and are only competitive with Audi?

I think a factory 908 would match the Audi, because it has a more expireced driver line up.

[sssssssss]

1:42.9, second place for Peugeot.

[chernaudi]

Practice should be over about now since's it's over an hour since it began. The Pug narrowed the gap, but that's by far the furthest a 908 lagged behind an Audi's fast time since at least Sebring last year, and even then things were closer.

Is it the guys new(er) to the diesel game, or has Audi sorted the R15 to be competitive with the 908, or has the 908 started to hit a wall development wise? Because during practice, I can't remember since Sebring '09 where Audi has lead the practice sessions so much over Peugeot and by as much as they have in sessions 2/3.

After all, the Oreca car is in the same spec as the factory cars, and they have Sarrazin, who is probably the fastest of the full time Pug drivers.

[Victor_RO]

If I read the screens correctly, Sarrazin did not drive this morning, they probably used the session to make sure Lapierre and Panis were more and more accustomed with the car. And it was Nicolas who did the time.

[sssssssss]

@chernaudi But the Oreca Pug is still a 2009 908, right? Or is it the 2010 version of the car? I think all three causes you mentioned there make sense and it's probably a bit of all of them. For sure, Audi did their best to overcome the performance gap between the 908 and the R15 (well, actually, last year they were taken by surprise and had little time to re-develop the R15 to be competitive since they were forced to change some crucial elements during the season - but if we remember Sebring 2009, the R15 looked faster and more competitive than the 908). On the other hand, the 908 seems to be the perfect sportscar, there's really no need to develop it too much; you just can't get much better than that with any car, so if Audi manage to match the 908 in pace, with their greater (recent years) experience, I suppose it would be enough to have Peugeot beaten.

[Martin90]

The peugeot is 2010 spec.
And as Victor_RO said, we mustn't forget that Sarrazin didn't drive at all this morning whereas he set peugeot's fastest times yesterday.

[Dario911]

Audi has improved very much the car: R15 Plus could be considered another car, if compared to the old one. Audi is in Le Castellet with the works team, Joest, and works drivers. So, this make the difference. But I think Audi has now a larger potential than Pug, because 908 is the same of 2009 season. It has been only marginally improved, while Audi has been forced to revise the car deeply. Pug 908 in 2010 is closer to the 2009 spec one, tha R15 and R15 Plus are.
Audi has set the pace, but I was convinced about this, due to a difference between a works team and a customer one.
But I still think Audi is not there to show how much the car is really fast. This is a race condition test, as declared by Ullrich.
But we have to consider, Audi would risk a real poor figure, if they should lose with a non-works Pug, or Aston Martin. So, Audi is there also to win, of course.
Pug has sent Sarrazin to Le Castellet to measure the Audi potential compared to a Pug in works specs, raced by a works driver.
The race will be long: to win Audi will have to show it is fully reliable. Peugeot has shown this in Sebring.
Audi must show the same to all the opponents. A mechanical failure would be a bad sign for Le Mans, at the same way of a lack of speed in race conditions (the same happened il LM 2009).
I'm pretty confident Audi will be in Le Mans to play the role of the challenger in the better way as possible.
Germans have never failed twice.

[sssssssss]

@Martin - He didn't, but his yesterday time was slower than the Pugeot's fastest time of today, so I'd say the other guys got quite familiar with the 908. Afterall, the 908 is known to be a car very pleasant to drive (I remember the official Peugeot drivers saying that back in 2008 @ Barcelona).
@Dario - Yes they did... Grand Le Mans and Petit Le Mans last year, for instance .

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by sssssssss

@Dario - Yes they did... Grand Le Mans and Petit Le Mans last year, for instance .

That's a bad sign, it just means that they'll commit themselves now to creating another 10-year string of domination because those failures have angered them deeply.

[Martin90]

Originally Posted by sssssssss

@Martin - He didn't, but his yesterday time was slower than the fastest time of today, so I'd say the other guys got quite familiar with the 908. Afterall, the 908 is known to be a car very pleasant to drive (I remember the official Peugeot drivers saying that back in 2008 @ Barcelona).
@Dario - Yes they did... Grand Le Mans and Petit Le Mans last year, for instance .

That's true but Sarrazin set his fastest time in the lap where he pitted (and that's why the pug's ideal lap was over 6 tenths quicker than audi's in FP2)