[LM24 Race] Allan McNish's Crash

[Mal]

Originally Posted by CTD

Just to clarify, i dont want Allan sacked. I simply want him in another car than Tom, that he will get a lifted finger and conversation with Dr. Ullrich, so he will learn from these mistakes!

To push at Le Mans is something every driver has done, and also made mistakes because of this. Where i see an error with Allan is that he cannot relax when running in the front. If Allan just kept a sensible pace for the remaining hour of his stint, before handing the car over to Tom, Audi team orders might have saved them a final battle with #1.

We do not know what the teams instructions were. They still needed to make up time on the #1 car which is no mean feat - it may have been the team telling him to go flat out.

It is best not to draw conclusions when we dont know all the facts. To me Allan has been the most exciting driver to watch in sportscars for many years and he has earned Audi many victories as a result.

I recall that TK had a spin at Dunlop avoiding a backmarker in the last hour or so when they last won in 2008. That could easily have ended the same way.

[chernaudi]

In the Audi R18 forum, Gwyllion posted some stats he's gleened from the ACO/FIA's PDF files on their sites for the WEC, and he did conclude that the #2 Audi (with Allan and TK onboard) was the faster of the two e-tron quattros, though only just, between it and the #1. That showed that Dindo was no slouch himself in his final year, but Allan and Tom had their work cut out, as well as Dindo, to run down the #1 after the #2 lost that track position with that early stop to pry that rubber out of the rear suspension.

I think that both Allan and Tom were really pushing to make up for that lost time, and that the #1 Audi, especially with Lotterer behind the wheel, would be extremely hard to catch without help. But that is the issue with traffic--it can help or hinder. Also, I do believe that Ben was catching (or pulling away from) Allan at the time of the spin, and Allan needed to maintain a gap if the 12 lap stint deal was to work in the #2's favor, as it was thought that the #1 would likely need a splash of fuel, and the #2 had to be within 30 seconds of the #1 for that to work, so it was a bit of a math's game.

But with the #1 and #2 being so equal on pace, time had to be made somewhere, but Allan and Tom haven't had the best of times with the R18 in traffic, and it showed at LM with Allan's spin and Tom's hairy moments. As I said, having a driver who was slightly faster than Dindo could've slung things their way in the balance, because though Dindo was fast, we're still talking fractions of a second here, and what amounts to a few tenth's of a second can make all the difference.

Fact of the matter is that it seems that Dr. Ullrich would rather have guys like Allan and Tom, Ben and Andre on the team than someone who's ultra cautious. But then again, Audi themselves are largely responsible for turning the 24 Hours of Le Mans into a sprint race by building their cars to be able to do such a thing, and thus, it can be said, are victims of their own success, Allan and Tom likewise.

[GTfour]

Guys,guys. All this talk of McNish's mistake, did he make a overly risky move, did he make an overly heroïc mistake last year? ...
Then we also had Davidsons' crash this year.
There is a red line connecting all these crashes... an italian red line...

[chernaudi]

The ironic thing is that both of Allan's deals were the #59 Luxury Ferrari, and I've been wondering what the issue with the 458 is, but the guy who took out Davidson saw him and turned in anyways, and this year with Allan, according to witnesses, both Allan and the guy driving the Ferrari hesitated with their moves and that miscommunication caused the accident. Maybe it's a Luxury Racing and pro-am driver deal rather than it being a flaw with the 458. I believe that the deal with Allan this year was a racing accident caused by a miscommunication between two drivers.

[Dead-Eye]

Originally Posted by CTD

Just to clarify, i dont want Allan sacked. I simply want him in another car than Tom, that he will get a lifted finger and conversation with Dr. Ullrich, so he will learn from these mistakes!

Do you think Tom actually wants another team mate? I doubt it.

[CTD]

Originally Posted by Dead-Eye

Do you think Tom actually wants another team mate? I doubt it.

Hard to say.
I know Tom and Allan is close, but if a greater shuffle is up, it might not matter.

Besides Tom wants to win, and no matter how kind he is, that will come first.

[Tim the Grey]

As promised, I dug out the photo taken about 5 seconds before McNish hit the wall. How/Why, I don't know, I did not see it...


To me, it looked like just another LMP pass of a slower GTE.

[chernaudi]

Based on the photo, I think that Allan and/or the Ferrari driver, or both, misjudged the closing rate just like what happened with Davidson, and hence the miscommunication on the intent of both drivers, and it happened in a pass attempt that happened several times before, with LMP1s going on the outside of GT cars in that very corner. Either Allan slung out too late (maybe trying to avoid debris or tire pick-up), or he got mixed signals from the Ferrari driver, and their wires got crossed.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by Kpy

The point I'm trying to make is that there are too many folk here criticizing drivers, team managers, designers and the like who have never been involved in motor racing at any level.
That's all.

The point I made was that we will not be stopping people with little or no direct involvement in motor racing posting here. Not least because I'm not up for discussing these things with just you and a few others. Everyone's opinion is welcome. Hurrah!

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by Tim the Grey

As promised, I dug out the photo taken about 5 seconds before McNish hit the wall. How/Why, I don't know, I did not see it...
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8011/7...49856b07_b.jpg
To me, it looked like just another LMP pass of a slower GTE.

Thanks for the picture. All looks good at that point...

[Mike007]

Racing is racing. There will always be accidents and always will be, it is the nature of the beast. It is probably exacerbated when you have a race with different classes and speeds of cars as you have to make split second decisions based on your speed, their speed, and indeed the different handling characteristics of the cars. And we haven't even got into the experience of the drivers.

Don't blame Allan for pushing too hard.The last thing we want is a procession of drivers taking it safely.

[chernaudi]

And I think that things are exacerbated by the fact that Allan has been esteemed by his ability to work traffic virtually without fail up until the past year or so. Since we don't have photos or video to see who's more at fault, based on Allan and the Ferrari driver's comments, we have to write this one off as a racing accident for now with what we have, and as we all know, racing accidents happen, especially when two guys are in a fight for position, like Allan and Ben were at that time.

[Aysedasi]

I agree.