[WEC] 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship

[TF110]

Originally Posted by JoestForEver

It's privateers that support and keep a championship running successfully. F1 is supported not by Merc, not by Honda, but by people like Sir Williams, Bruce Mclaren, Jordan, Brabham and so on. However, all I see in WEC is a shrinking field of P2 and private GT entry. Yes there are manufacturers racing fantastic prototypes which totally dwarf any other racing cars out there, but it's a dangerous prosperity situation. What if one factory project is cancelled? Car makers just come and go. Without more privateers coming, it's hard to call it a success.

Privateers have come and gone. Wheres teams like Pescarolo? You cant name a privateer lmp1 team besides Rebellion from 5 years ago thats still racing in the class. Joest- teamed up.with Audi. Oreca- built Rebbelions car. And P2 go to elms because they can win overall, plus the competition. Most teams are european, so what do they choose? Obviously the european series.

Id be fine with lmp1 and GTE pro and am in the wec if they had larger numbers. With two cars from Toyota, Nissan, Audi, Porsche and Rebellion plus at least 1 Lotus, theres going to be 11 cars in lmp1. GTE has Porsche, Aston, Ferrari and possibly Vette next year, theres potential for a larger grid there next year also. Citing one class that decreased isnt convincing enough to say the wec isn't succeeding.

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by TF110

Privateers have come and gone. Wheres teams like Pescarolo? You cant name a privateer lmp1 team besides Rebellion from 5 years ago thats still racing in the class. Joest- teamed up.with Audi. Oreca- built Rebbelions car. And P2 go to elms because they can win overall, plus the competition. Most teams are european, so what do they choose? Obviously the european series.

Id be fine with lmp1 and GTE pro and am in the wec if they had larger numbers. With two cars from Toyota, Nissan, Audi, Porsche and Rebellion plus at least 1 Lotus, theres going to be 11 cars in lmp1. GTE has Porsche, Aston, Ferrari and possibly Vette next year, theres potential for a larger grid there next year also. Citing one class that decreased isnt convincing enough to say the wec isn't succeeding.

That just shows how ridiculously expensive the show has become. I think Fogelhund hit the nail on it's head (although I wasn't sure about it at that time) when he campaigned for a Manufactories championship only- it's obvious that only they can afford to go racing on this level year after year, before the drop out again - just like Pug.

Promo talks about potential bigger grids are getting tiring too, we've heard this too many times in the past, they haven't materialized and the grid is capped anyway. So if you're lucky you'll gonna see 30 cars, 25ish is more realistic though.

One of the charms of sportscar (& GT) racing for me has always been the various race-by-race entries, we hardly see those anymore in this World Championship.

[Salamus]

During the ALMS days, people touted quality over quantity.

Now with the WEC, people want quantity over quality.

What is it exactly that sportscar fans want?

[Deleted]

Didn't initially agree with Fogel's idea either but reccently I've began to think it would've made quite a bit of sense, considering.

@Acid09 - We could probably sit here for weeks talking about this but I've already expressed my exhausting list of opinions and arguments over WEC countless times on this forum so I'm not going there again. Sufficient to say that I probably wouldn't be this negative if WEC wasn't preceeded by the amazing ILMC, which I felt was superior to this series every way imaginable (except clumsy title)

Originally Posted by TF110

Privateers have come and gone. Wheres teams like Pescarolo? You cant name a privateer lmp1 team besides Rebellion from 5 years ago thats still racing in the class.

But that's not all down to costs but because the class has been killed off from all three regional series, forcing you to do the world series behind factories if you want to run at all. That is F1 mentality.

[Rodger Davies]

Originally Posted by Coach Ep

One of the charms of sportscar (& GT) racing for me has always been the various race-by-race entries, we hardly see those anymore in this World Championship.

I feel exactly the same, it's one of the reasons I really enjoy the various GT series, GT Masters, BES, PWC etc

Originally Posted by Acid09

All this constant negativity is so tiring.

...

Everything's professionally organized, the on-track officiating is top notch, unlike in other series (TUSCC *coughcough*)

[Deleted]

Very much agreed.

One of the worst things about FIA GT1 WC was the forced grid of 24 (and later less) entries with strictly 4 cars from each 'brand' for no reason.

[carbon_titanium]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Very much agreed.

One of the worst things about FIA GT1 WC was the forced grid of 24 (and later less) entries with strictly 4 cars from each 'brand' for no reason.

actually a reason behind there was... Ratel wanted to organize a world championship, important enough to have appeal to manufacturers, so the rule was made with 2 main goals:
2 cars per team, both score points for teams championship like in F1
4 cars per brand, the best two placed, score points for manufacturers championship... in theory with 2 cars per team and 4 cars per manufacturers, each team and each manufacturer had the same chances to battle for the titles.
Unfortunately, nissan was the only manufacturer really intersted (world fia gt1 was usefull for them to promote nissan gt-r in europe).
Reiter and Matech were 2 tuners poorly supported by the manufacturer; Matech went in bankrupt at the end of 2010, indeed already at the beginning of 2011 season, lamborghini and ford teams had had almost no spare parts available.
P&M main focus was ALMS and LM with the new ZR1 GT2/E, so SRT, DKR, phoenix racing and carsport were simply left on their own.
Maserati MC12 was updated by Kessel Racing and Ferrari just kept on supporting vitaphone racing.
Prodrive supported officially young drivers team (3 drivers on 4 were AMR work drivers).

The fia world gt1 worked only in 2010, the next season was basicly a dead horse... the idea was brillant in my opinion, maybe could work in 2004-2006, but 2010 was too late. GT1 class was already dying.

[lms]

Originally Posted by Salamus

What is it exactly that sportscar fans want?

dayton prutos at lemons!!!

[Deleted]

2011 GTWC season was rubbish but not as crap as 2012.

To me the idea of GTWC always seemed something that would've been quite appropriate for GT1... 90's GT1*! Big budget manufacturers spending high dollars in neatly organized (relatively) easy-to-understand environment. It was insanely naive to expect success from such format when only privateer teams are accepted, and as you said the class was already on it's march to twilight. Although, personally (as per suggestion of GG) I think the real final nail in the coffin of that category was ACO's decision to kill of LMGT1, not anything done by the SRO.

* ALTHOUGH when you look at the first two seasons of FIA GT, entry AND calendar wise, they already kinda were the world championships of their time. Just with more conventional execution

Originally Posted by lms

dayton prutos at lemons!!!

Ah the powerful prutos at the world centre of racing, GoDaddy.com 24 Heures du Mans 500. The ultimate dream.

[MagVanisher]

500 miles is too short for Le Mans. Make it 2000 miles!

Anyways, any chances of WEC staging a race in the Autódromo Hermanos RodrÃ*guez (since F1 will be back there next year)? They can race there before or after the Austin round.

[Rodger Davies]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Ah the powerful prutos at the world centre of racing, GoDaddy.com 24 Heures du Mans 500 at Daytona. The ultimate dream.

Fixed it for you

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by MagVanisher

500 miles is too short for Le Mans. Make it 2000 miles

No that would bring the event too close to Daytona. Haven't you been reading these totally-accurate press releases

Originally Posted by Reliable news agency

Continental Tire and Sunoco - the proud partner of NASCAR - are pleased to present the new premier sportscar championship in ASIA, the United ASIAN Sports Cars powered by Pepsi. This glorious new challenge takes it root's from the famous French endurance classic, the GoDaddy.com 24 Heures Du Mans 500 - second only to annual Daytona 24 Hours in prestigiousness.

--

[lms]

Originally Posted by Rodger Davies

Fixed it for you

[gsmith2424]

New EOT out. Gas stays the same and Diesel gains on fuel flow but loses on the Hybrid side.

http://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/p...ges-confirmed/

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by gsmith2424

New EOT out. Gas stays the same and Diesel gains on fuel flow but loses on the Hybrid side.

http://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/p...ges-confirmed/

While LMP1-L gets 10 kg less, more fuel tank+fuel flow and a refuelling restrictor that's about 30% larger than what the factory cars have.

[Deleted]

Diesel also gets 0,1 liter capacity increase

The factory side looks fine tbh, it's satisfactory for what it is and if it indeed stays tightly locked for the next 12 months (though I suspect the fuel restrictors probably do get altered before 2015 again, they seem to be separated from the EoT...)

As much as I'd like Rebellion - and Kodewa I guess - to shine I do hope they won't start flickering their BoP on race by race basis like in LMGTE as that becomes silly very fast. Couple of adjustments per year for that sub class as a whole is enough...

The interesting bit about the Lotus is that they gave them the same values as Rebellion even though this happened:

Originally Posted by Chiana

Anyway, I just remembered reading/hearing that at least one manufacturer vetoed even further BoP helps for the Rebellion before Le Mans on the basis that the car had only done one race. And therefore they "only' got -40kg / +3,7liters / no consumption limit instead of even more. Which would imply that if Rebellion now gets further BoP for the next race, ACO couldn't (?) be able to give the same values for Lotus as they hadn't had the mileage so...

I guess the works cars don't care what they're given as they don't see them as threats whatsoever

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Diesel also gets 0,1 liter capacity increase

The factory side looks fine tbh, it's satisfactory for what it is and if it indeed stays tightly locked for the next 12 months (though I suspect the fuel restrictors probably do get altered at some point again...)

As much as I'd like Rebellion (and Kodewa I guess...) to shine I do hope they won't start flickering their BoP on race by race basis like in LMGTE as that becomes silly very fast. Couple of adjustments per year for that sub class as a whole is enough...

The interesting bit about the Lotus is that they gave them the same values as Rebellion even though this happened:

I guess the works cars don't care what they're given as they don't see them as threats whatsoever

I suspect they've gone that far with the LMP1-L adjustments to take into account the "new car" factor, so if they develop the cars at their rate, they can still stay somewhat in touch with the factory cars (if they break) for the races up to LM next year.

[Deleted]

I guess.

Another reason not to hope for race-by-race or even semi-constant L BoP is that if they start implementing that, there not much incentive for Rebellion and Kodewa to try to find improvements & upgrades on their own to catch the factories (= @ the possible break ups) when they just can automatically rely on that... also cause the inter-subclass rivalry is in it's infancy

[nasdriv87]

Can I smell a LMP1 Aston Martin One back?!?!!?

[Deleted]

No.

[Victor_RO]

1: open-top LMP1 cars no longer exist.
2: Aston is too focused on GT now.
3: YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. The worst factory LMP1 in history and there is actually a wish for it to return?

[nasdriv87]

Nope. One of problem from that proto was the engine and another one was LMP1 engine rule...

Maybe if they do something better and uses another kind of engine unless that 6L model...

[Flo aus N]

Just taken a few calculations. The increase in max. fuel flow for Diesel should give them additional 6 bhp. This would be good for about 0.35 tenths per lap at Le Mans while accelerating. Thus with the small reduction in energy per lap leads to additional 1,4 secs. a lap of coasting. This additional coasting would cost them only about 0,1 sec. So at the end, this looks the be a 0,25 secs / lap buff for the Audis

But to be honest, to calculate the time penalty under coasting, i had to do many assumptions including speeds after coasting and before braking, calculation the cw for the R18 and frontal area (which would be at 0.52 and 1,74 m² btw...)

[rich07]

Originally Posted by Rodger Davies

I feel exactly the same, it's one of the reasons I really enjoy the various GT series, GT Masters, BES, PWC etc

That's what I loved about FIA GT before it became World GT1. You'd get random Saleens etc showing up whenever people found the money etc.

[Breitling24]

Originally Posted by Rodger Davies

Fixed it for you

I thought he keeps typing "dayton" in reference to protos, because he'd like to see Duncan back.