Important LMP900/Hybrid Update

[JAG]

The ACO have confirmed that LMP900 cars will be able to race upto and including the 2006 season as Hyrid cars.
Importantly, to be classed as a Hybrid, cars will only have to update there bodywork to 2004 LMP1 regs.

This finally alays the fears that many current LMP900 cars, planning to race in 2004, will be virtually forced out in 2005 (with draconian extra restrictions), and actually banned in 2006 if not converted to a hybrid.

As hybrids will not need expensive new chassis/components, all cars will be able to be raced with only comparitively easy bodywork modifications.

[Fab]

Not sure they will be competitive with those restraints...

[paul-collins]

"Comparatively easy" in what context? The undertray changes are still going to screw up chassis packaging...

[Tim Northcutt]

Boy...we've been over and over this one....

Every time this issue comes up, the issue of "how easy are those conversions" is the real burr under the saddle....

Mr. Thorby, as a highly-recognized and regarded designer, says that these "conversions" will be very difficult at best....and very costly.

Mulsanne Mike...whom I would say, and I'm sure many of us would agree, is probably the most knowledgeable among the many "Often" Forum participants, also has told us many, many times that "converting" a car to be a "Hybrid" would be extremely expensive, very difficult, and would change many aspects of the aero geometry of the chassis that is being "converted"...

All the ACO has done is to give them another year to ponder a way to make this very expensive and difficult change.....

And in many ways, doing a "revision" might be more hassle and headache than it is worth....

and actually buying something "new" that is a purpose-built design with the regs as the guide would be the proper route to go....

At least this "extension" would allow teams another year to save the $$$,, or to explore possible options, while they race with exisiting equipment that has had minor modifications like the rear wing size, etc., to make them meet ACO regs...

Thaht's the way I see it, anyway...

Feel free to disagree....I've been wrong before....but I don't believe that I am in this case...

[JAG]

Why not if they are running the same aero regs, and maybe the same larger LMP1 restrictors.

By 2006 most teams will be running new LMP1 cars anyhow.

But in 2005 many LMP900 cars could have been restrcited so much that they would not have had any hope of being competitive. Now at least they will have 2 years competitive racing, with the option to continue, relatively competitivly, with a hybrid in 2006 if they so wish.

[paul-collins]

I'm not disagreeing with you that it is at least an alternative - it gets you a car that's good for two years, at something less than the going price of a new car for 2005 (whatever that may turn out to be). If the economics dictate that this makes sense for teams, then they'll do it.

I just wonder if the cost reduction over buying a new Lola, for example, will be worth it.

[BSchneiderFan]

A question I was going to ask on a separate thread, but here seems appropriate. If I was suddenly a multimillionaire, and wanted to run a Riley and Scott Mk. IIIC in the LMES, for how long would it be realistically competitive?

(As an aside, can anyone tell me how adaptable the Mk. IIIC is in terms of engine packaging? For example, could I whack in a blown Porsche flat-six?)

[jhansen]

I have to agree with paul-collins. If the changeover is in the upper range in terms of expense, why not buy a new car. We know Lola has a new LMP2 concept. Do makers such as Lola, Dallara, Dome and Courage have new options for LMP1? They may not be producing them right now, but surely they must have an idea and are just waiting for a few customer purchases.

[Tim Northcutt]

To expand further on what Paul-collins, jhansen, and I have said concerning this hybrid issue look at it from two more angles -- the chassis builders themselves and the teams that will choose to pursue this option -- and the issues that could arise from it:

1. ACO regs clearly state that the manufacturer MUST homologate changes to a car....for sheer liability purposes alone, they will have to be involved in some way with those changes in one of two ways:

...either through directly creating the "conversion Kit" packages, the methodology for installing it onto the existing chassis as cost-effectively as possible, and testing the packages they develop to ensure that they work and are safe, or

...by verifying, in order to provide their approval and the necessary paperwork to the ACO stating that approval, and testing and "conversions" done by a team with assistance from enginerers, designers, composite shops, or whatever that a team would hire to do it...kinda like Pescarolo hiring de Constanze to do the aero changes to their Courage last spring...

In either case, given the fact that people who already have designed some of these exisiting cars (Mr. Thorby) or worked with builders like R&S and Kudzu say that this will not be easy or cheap to do...

Manuafacurers will be using valuable resources (time, personnel and money) to develop and test the "Hybrid" kits, or to test, monitor or verify any outside contractor work in order to homologate them with the ACO, that is taken AWAY from their development of the new purpose-built cars they want to sell...and the return they receive from this kits will likely be less than thier return on investment from building a news car...

2. In the ACO's regs on "Hybrids", they also state that "further changes in regulations can be made as they deem necessary," and they use the added weight to 950 kg as an example....

For the teams who will pay for these conversions to create a "hybrid" this could be the first of a whole series of changes that would have to be made over this three year period....so the total cost of the "conversion" will not be a "one-shot deal" here...

make no mistake about it...if the 2004 regs purpose-built cars are not competitive with the "hybrids," more changes to the "hybrids" will be mandated...not only is this possible, but it is highly likely...

Which in turn will not only add costs to the eams who will have to keep paying for changes to remain in compliance, but also to the manufacureres who will ahve to develop those changes under the homologation provision...

All of this money, time and effort spent out on a "Hybrid" that in three years will not be eligible....

and if you think the ALMS teams were upset over the changes for 2004 when they were told that there would be no changes that prompted the ALMS to go to the ACO to get the exemption for their teams, they will really blow a gasket if the target keeps moving and their "Hybrids" become big money pits via a series of changes...

[JAG]

As I read it, the Hybrid cars will not be subject to extra restrictions. That will only apply to unconverted LMP900s.

The teams I have in mind are the likes of Rollcentre, Jota Creation etc. who have purchased 'new' LMP900 cars.

Previously it was believed these cars would be restricted to such a point in 2005 that they would be uncompetitive. Converting the car to a hybrid was believed to iinvolve a new chassis etc. which could be very expensive for a small team.

Now these teams will be able to make 'bodywork/aero' changes to there cars for 2005/6 and run as a hybrid with no extra restrictions.

We could have had a situation were one or two teams dominated in 2005 with new LMP1 cars against the vast majority of the field still running LMP900 cars.

Now at least these LMP900 cas can be run as hybrids, with no restrictions, and run competitively.

By 2006 most teams will have switched to new cars, but a significant number will still be running hybrid cars. Afterall we still see the Lola B2K/10 pounding around the tracks, and very welcome they are too.

[Tim Northcutt]

I see what they are trying to accomplish for this transition, JAG, and on the surface, it makes sense....

But if the "Hybrids" with the new bodywork, etc., would be faster than the new cars, you can bet that the ACO will put added restrictions on them....there is too much at stake for them when it comes to keeping the chassis builders ultimately happy...

Like I said earlier..the only good I see coming from this is an added year that it provides teams to ultimately make their switch to the new cars....

But I see a Pandora's Box full of issues that can or will arise based on other rules the ACO already has in place that will place the very burdens I described above on both teams and on the manufacturers...

Those issues worry me...because if eithr one of those parties gets fed up with what is going on over the next three years with these types of scenarios, they will go into other lines of race car building, or other racing series in teh case of teams, and it will hurt, instead of help the ACO's long term health and stability...

and the builders want to put their resources into developing and selling the new cars...they can't be very excited about having to spend resources on creating kits, especially when it has been repeatedly stated by people who are in this industry that the conversions will be difficult and expensive....

[JAG]

Regarding the expense of the conversions, this is my point.

Previously conversions were expected to be very expensivve, but now they will only consit of bodywork changes.

Similar in fact to Pescarolos bodywork updates in there scaope.

Lola have already said they will be producing a new car, and a bodywork update kit.

I can't see the hybrids being quicker than new LMP1 cars, seeing as the ACO belive current LMP900 cars, with only a slightly smaller rear wing and fuel tank, will be slowr than new LMP1 cars.

The top teams will all buy new LMP1/2 cars, this rule just gives current cars a little more life, and the potential for teams to sell on there cars. Similar infact to how the Lola B2K/40 has been given a new lease of life with the LMP2 regs.

Most teams will buy the new Lola, and so I so not think they will be short of business.

Other manufactuer will build cars if there is demand. In Group C only Porsche and Sppice were building competitive customer cars. In LMP1 you only need 2 manufactuers building cars to produce good racing.

Its supply and demand, and Lola have already moved there LMP1/2 plans forward by confirming there new car will actually be built due to the upturn in interest in protoypes.