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Old 11 Feb 2012, 07:37 (Ref:3024454)   #2585
chernaudi
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chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!
How would LHD and RHD mean anything since the drivers sit just immediately opposite the center-line of the car? I don't see much difference there.

I've seen the Toyota onboards, and I don't know if it's the camera or not, but it does seem that the windsheild has some areas of distortion on it, though it can be the camera distorting the image because I don't think that the cockpit air intake hoses are supposed to be wavy/distorted in some areas.

The Toyota, like the Audi, run the wider front tires, but like the 908, lacks the extreme fender bulges that the R18 runs.

But we have to remember that guys like Ben, Andre, and Marcel are all over 6'0", while Allan and Tom are the shortest guys on the Audi squad now as far as regular drivers. I don't think it's a coincidence that they had the most incidents last year until finally at Zhuhai Audi made changes to the cockpit arrangements of the R18 (per TK's comments following PLM where he admitted that there were issues with visibility and that Audi were trying something).

Maybe Toyota got a coup when they got Alex Wurz, probably the tallest driver in sportscar racing today. But Audi's big issue with Allan and Tom seemed to be that the R18 favored taller drivers who had a much easier time looking over the front fenders.

Also, the R18's relative lack of top speed was an issue to, and they had to maximize cornering speeds and cutting though traffic to gain and edge on the 908 last year. But it's still easier to pass down the straights than in corners, so I hope that Audi have improved the R18 from that respect, too.

And I'm curious about Audi running the old R18s at Sebring instead of running the R18H tubs without the hybrid systems on the cars, which will likely happen with the non-hybrid cars at Spa and LM. I know that they'll probably test the newer cars at Sebring after the race, but why not get some more race miles on the new tubs/bodywork/front suspension? I know that as long as Audi keep out of trouble at Sebring that they very well might have it locked up, but with the old R18, that was often the problem.
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