Audi LMP1 Discussion

[MyNameIsNigel]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

The fact that Bonanomi is mentioned as reserve driver for Spa, indicates that Audi will enter 3 car in Spa as well.

Was there a doubt that Audi would enter three cars for the 6h of Spa ? I thought this had already been announced officially.

[gwyllion]

You are correct:

2013 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) driver combinations

Spa 6 Hours and Le Mans 24 Hours
Marcel Fässler/André Lotterer/Benoît Tréluyer (CH/D/F)
Loïc Duval/Tom Kristensen/Allan McNish (F/DK/GB)
Marc Gené/Lucas di Grassi/Oliver Jarvis (E/BR/GB)

All other 2013 FIA World Endurance Championship races (WEC)
Marcel Fässler/André Lotterer/Benoît Tréluyer (CH/D/F)
Loïc Duval/Tom Kristensen/Allan McNish (F/DK/GB)

source: http://www.joest-racing.de/en/index....2h-sebring-usa

[gregtummer]

One interesting piece of information was that the #1 Audi last year qualified faster than any of the R10s ever did at Le Mans.

It's true, look it up!

[PascaLM]

Originally Posted by gregtummer

One interesting piece of information was that the #1 Audi last year qualified faster than any of the R10s ever did at Le Mans.

It's true, look it up!

Yes but in the meantime the Hunaudières and the "new" section (Porsche...) had received a new surface. That's also a reason why GTE lap now under 4 minutes.

[gwyllion]

Column from Andrew Cotton: The difference between Toyota and Audi

[MyNameIsNigel]

The guys on www.sportaudi.de are suggesting that Audi had to renounce using a "system" that was banned a few weeks ago by the FIA. They have no clue as to what this "system" is, but were apparently told that this ban would not seriously slow down the cars.

Link to the short article (in German) here

[ger80]

Originally Posted by MyNameIsNigel

The guys on www.sportaudi.de are suggesting that Audi had to renounce using a "system" that was banned a few weeks ago by the FIA. They have no clue as to what this "system" is, but were apparently told that this ban would not seriously slow down the cars.

Link to the short article (in German) here

Maybe a gun to take out Am Ferrari's coming close to Nishy?

[MulsanneMike]

Wonder if the FIA took issue with the forward camera system?

[CTD]

Originally Posted by MulsanneMike

Wonder if the FIA took issue with the forward camera system?

Why should they ban a drivers aid which is beneficial for safety?

[MyNameIsNigel]

Originally Posted by MulsanneMike

Wonder if the FIA took issue with the forward camera system?

On the ground that the regulations only allow for a rear vision camera ? Maybe, but one may wonder why a front-vision system should be banned by the FIA if it potentially improves safety. Assuming that this is the "system" that was allegedly banned, the FIA might have feared that this additional system would create too much distraction for the driver. Who knows...

[broadrun96]

It also leads down a slope of knowingly allowing cars with poor forward visibility to race. It's a small thing but saying we know you can't see and our rules make it possible to run this has to make them feel a little stupid.

Not sure who would know how to sort out the rules either through shrinking the rim/tire size or raising the base level of the cockpit/windshield to a minimum height over the wheel arches but it seems like that should be close to the top of a rules list or at least something to review or think about.

[Creep89]

Originally Posted by MyNameIsNigel

On the ground that the regulations only allow for a rear vision camera ? Maybe, but one may wonder why a front-vision system should be banned by the FIA if it potentially improves safety. Assuming that this is the "system" that was allegedly banned, the FIA might have feared that this additional system would create too much distraction for the driver. Who knows...

Do you really think its about the camera? I don't think so, but I'm not an expert. For me it sounds like Audi had something which improves performance.

[MyNameIsNigel]

Originally Posted by Creep89

Do you really think its about the camera? I don't think so, but I'm not an expert. For me it sounds like Audi had something which improves performance.

I have no clue. It could basically be anything.

[Pandamasque]

Originally Posted by CTD

Why should they ban a drivers aid which is beneficial for safety?

Unless the camera really was a death ray machine *dum-dum-dum!!*

[chernaudi]

One issue could the the maximum height rule--and yes, I said maximum. The height given that the cars have to measure up to is the max overall height, which is unique among racing cars in that the ACO enforces a max height of 40.6 inches/1030mm. I have no doubt that the camera probably exceeded the height and they asked Audi to remove it and not run it until the redesign it to suit the ACO's rules.

And it should be remembered that while the FIA enforce some of the sporting regs and help promote the series, most of the sporting regs and almost all the technical rules as far as their conception and enforcement is the realm of the ACO.

[CyberMotor]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

One issue could the the maximum height rule

Interesting. If that is the case, the camera can probably be easily integrated into multiple positions on the car. I envision that in the future, cars will have multiple cameras on the front of the cars... forward, left and right views. Later, they'll have collision avoidance capabilities built in. If it can pass the tests in racing, it'll be a huge safety advancement in the future.

I drove my mother-in-laws car this weekend. She knocked off the passenger-side mirror years ago. She didn't replace it because she never used that mirror anyway!

I felt very blind whenever I looked for that mirror to see what was beside me before I changed lanes. Could've used a camera many times!

[MyNameIsNigel]

We still do not know which "system" was banned, but assuming it does indeed relate to the (suspected) front vision sensor/camera, the rules only expressly allow for a rear vision camera. Since the ACO applies the "what is not expressly authorized is prohibited" rule, it may be as simple as that.

As regards the maximum height rule, this rule basically relates to bodywork height and one may wonder if the (suspected) front vision sensor/camera is actually part of the bodywork or not. If that's the case, what about the existing rear vision camera ? Doesn't it lie above that height limit too ?

[TF110]

I doubt the maximum height rule would be something that would get rid of the so called camera. They have antennae on their cars that're above the height as well. Audi could use a word trick and get it through. This must be something different.

[ger80]

Anybody asked Audi yet?

[MulsanneMike]

Originally Posted by ger80

Anybody asked Audi yet?

Yes, they wouldn't describe the system involved but only to say that once the FIA made adjustments it made the system less viable from a performance standpoint. Nothing has been banned. No discussion as to what end of the car we're even talking about or anything related to what this may pertain to.

[MyNameIsNigel]

Thank you Mike. I wonder if we will ever get a chance to understand what the "adjustments" made by the FIA actually are. The more we dig, the more mysterious it gets...

[rich07]

Originally Posted by MulsanneMike

Yes, they wouldn't describe the system involved but only to say that once the FIA made adjustments it made the system less viable from a performance standpoint. Nothing has been banned. No discussion as to what end of the car we're even talking about or anything related to what this may pertain to.

No surprises there..

[ger80]

Leena and her sis at the science museum on Sunday
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visi...ighperformance

[gwyllion]

The January 2013 edition of PMW magazine has an interview with Ullrich Baretzky because he won the Motorsport Engineer of the Year award during the Professional MotorSport World Expo 2012. In this interview he talks about the technology transfer from motorosport to road cars.

My absolute conviction is that we in motorsport are responsible for driving our sport in directions that are socially and environmentally acceptable. In doing this we can’t be followers; we have to be leaders. This justifies the long-term existence of motorsport in the future, just as it has justified motorsport for many decades in the past.

People believe racing is just another form of entertainment. They are wrong; the idea is wrong. Huge technical developments have been achieved because motorsport exists – and that role is one we have to play. And we have to play it even more intensely in the future. This is okay: we have the capacity to do it. We have very clever people who are used to realizing difficult projects with short lead times, much shorter than those same projects would take if developed by the mainstream road car industry. Also, with a great platform such as Le Mans or Sebring we can showcase the effectiveness and efficiency of our ideas and the results of those ideas very easily to the public.

Let’s just say the FSI was like winning the lottery. It was a once-in-a-century perfect fit. Everything in the road-going version, right down the spray angle, is identical to Le Mans. I have no idea how many millions of engines have been produced using the technology as a result of that: certainly you cannot buy a petrol-engined car in the VW Group that doesn’t use this technology.

In diesel, the tech is a little more difficult to transfer – but it does happen. At Audi Sport we are a long way ahead of our road-going colleagues. This is because there are cycles in road car technology and well-defined points in the cycle when they can bring technology into production. In FSI technology we slotted into the right time gap, just two years before a new generation of engines came into production. Audi managed to introduce this technology into that generation of engines. Our diesels didn’t fit perfectly into a cycle and so it is taking longer – but the links between the sporting engineers and the road car engineers are very strong. I think we had around 50 engineers from the road-car team come to see us after Le Mans last year to crawl all over our engine and learn everything they could learn about it. They went away with wide eyes and lots of ideas, and they keep coming back – which is how it should be, because we do these things for the sake of the company.

We are seeing results coming through. We’re seeing the next generations of diesel engines unveiled for Audi and Volkswagen; they feature technology inspired by what we’ve done on the track. For example, we see our racing developments on injection pressures coming to the road. Road cars normally are at 2,000 bar; we are far beyond that, approaching 3,000 bar. It was something we needed to prove was worth spending money on. We needed to prove it internally within Audi, but also we needed to convince people like Bosch that they should invest in developing new injectors. We in motorsport, with a relatively small investment, can prove that things like this are the right way to go, that they can deliver greater efficiency, reduce consumption, cut pollution.

[MyNameIsNigel]

Dr. Baretzky is a true technical genius. Always thinking forward. Bravo.