[WEC Race] 2012 Six Hours of Shanghai

[TF110]

Well, Lapierre just did his 2nd personal best and 2nd fastest overall lap. Gap now around 34 seconds and he pits.

[Maelochs]

Looks like Toyota finished 47, so 24-lap stint this time. And a quick 1:12 stop.

[TF110]

1:12.0 for that stop, 4 seconds better than their last!

[TF110]

Great rear camera on that Vette, 4 classes all within 20m of eachother.

[chernaudi]

I think that we need to look at not just pit stop time, but also elapsed time to get on/off pit road on top of that, unless the 1:15 estimate also covers that.

It seems that Toyota may start to gamble on double stinting tires unless the pick up issue gets bad--Nico says that they changed tires on his first stop because of excessive pickup.

[gwyllion]

Audi is really struggling in traffic because of the 120 km/h rule.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

I think that we need to look at not just pit stop time, but also elapsed time to get on/off pit road on top of that, unless the 1:15 estimate also covers that.

It seems that Toyota may start to gamble on double stinting tires unless the pick up issue gets bad--Nico says that they changed tires on his first stop because of excessive pickup.

You can clearly see all the marbles getting thrown up by the cars. It'll probably be single stints for tires if I were to guess.

[Purist]

Chernaudi, the times they have been showing ARE the elapsed times from the start to the end of the pit lane speed zone, and include the pit stop in that time.

[gregtummer]

The two Audis have picked up the pace in the last few laps.

[chernaudi]

Originally Posted by TF110

You can clearly see all the marbles getting thrown up by the cars. It'll probably be single stints for tires if I were to guess.

I'm not watching the race, but it does go in hand with the comment from Toyota's press release about tire issues. It might not be a wear issue for them, but it seems like everyone else's wear issue is an issue for them because of them getting junk on their tires.

If it gets really bad (and let's face it, it can only go down hill from here), they might be forced to single stint, and if it's that bad already, their hand has probably been forced.

[TF110]

The Toyota lead is now 48+ seconds after Audi exits the pits.

[chernaudi]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

Audi is really struggling in traffic because of the 120 km/h rule.

Goes back to my quote about Audi needing to make the R18 better for the Tilkedrome F1 tracks. Not every track will be like Spa, Le Mans, Road Atlanta, Sebring, Mosport, or about any other permanent ALMS-type track which has faster, more flowing corners than a lot of Tilke-designed F1 tracks.

That's the penalty that they have to pay for not keeping that in mind with the 75mph/120kmh limit, which I'm betting that Audi hopes that goes away or is lowered for next year, or (as some private teams are hoping) that Toyota get slapped with a similar limit.

Of course, it should be noted that Rebellion got fairly close to the Audis in practice 2 and at Bahrain their fast lap was within a second of the fastest Audi and Toyota times in the race--and they're considering running a Flybrid system because of traffic advantages next year.

[gwyllion]

On average Audi has lost 1 second per lap to Toyota. At this rate, Toyota will gain almost 3 minutes before they have to do their final splash. Like I predict, this will be a very easy win for Toyota.

[chernaudi]

But at the rate that things are going, Toyota might get almost all that 50+ second lead erased if the ACO/FIA officials have to throw a FCY for all the astroterf getting pulled up it seems everywhere. Bet you that TMG would be considerably annoyed by that, especially since fans and teams and commentators haven't had much nice to say about astroterf on these tracks.

[TF110]

At the end of this stint, they'll be over a minute ahead. That's almost a whole stop.

[kaivo]

Ferrari hates LMP cars ? almost crashed audi

[chernaudi]

Wurz is pitting--seems early.

[Maelochs]

Slow stop (1:17) but two laps longer stint for Toyota. Now the question is how short can Toyota's last stop be?

[chernaudi]

I don't know, but that stop seemed early to me--the last one didn't feel like it happened that long ago.

Of course, Toyota now have a big enough lead (about half a lap) that they can back off and save fuel and won't be in immediate danger of Audi overtaking or challenging them.

[gregtummer]

The #57 just went 2 hours 25 minutes until it made its second stop.

At that rate, they will only need 4 pit stops.

[gregtummer]

Toyota and Audi on track battle for 2nd.

[Maelochs]

The Ferrari, with its new smaller fuel tank, can still cut a full fuel stop in a six-hour race. Leads to interesting strategy options.

[gregtummer]

Toyota just overtook the #1 Audi for 2nd place.

[TF110]

24 laps was his last stint. That same distance would be to lap 72. He came in 75.

[gregtummer]

4 second gap between 1st and 2nd