Sportscar/GT (and Le Mans) Rumours and Repetition

[Pontlieue]

Originally Posted by JorritVD

Looks like Algarve Pro Racing Team bought TDS's Ligier. Nothing about a possible programm. Let's see if Nicky Catsburg will drive the car

will look good in our colours but unfortunately not time before the first test with our new car on 17/18 December

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Algar...897?fref=photo

Most likely ELMS, I think. By now, so many teams have expressed interest in LMP2, that even if only half of them show up, ELMS will have a great P2 class next year.

[Koenigsegg]

I just hope that all their budgets aren't based on a Le Mans entry.

[Deleted]

There's gonna be overflow of those Oak Coupes next year!

Anyway, Rusinov wants new points WEC system for LM
http://www.dailysportscar.com/2014/1...ns-points.html

Rather than screw around with SRO style midway-points debacle, why not just award points to all competitors in class regardless whether they are part of the championship or full season or not? Le Mans Series used to give points to everybody, whether you did one race or five. Which is perfectly logical, give credit to whom it belongs! It makes no sense for the 14th place finisher or whatever to be declared the WEC class winner just because he was full season entrant and the others were not, this year really showed how farcial it can be.

Drivers already collect points no matter how many races they do, why cannot the same apply to teams? Or is it the FIA bureaucy in the works again.

[Pontlieue]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Rather than screw around with SRO style midway-points debacle, why not just award points to all competitors in class regardless whether they are part of the championship or full season or not? Le Mans Series used to give points to everybody, whether you did one race or five. Which is perfectly logical, give credit to whom it belongs! It makes no sense for the 14th place finisher or whatever to be declared the WEC class winner just because he was full season entrant and the others were not, this year really showed how farcial it can be.

Drivers already collect points no matter how many races they do, why cannot the same apply to teams? Or is it the FIA bureaucy in the works again.

That would be the most simple solution. That's why the FIA isn't going to use it.

By the way, apparently it doesn't depend on doing all races, but on wether the team was entered for the full-season at the start of the year. For example the CLM was still eligible for points, despite missing the first half of the season.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by Pontlieue

By the way, apparently it doesn't depend on doing all races, but on wether the team was entered for the full-season at the start of the year. For example the CLM was still eligible for points, despite missing the first half of the season.

True but the point stands

[isynge]

Originally Posted by Chiana

There's gonna be overflow of those Oak Coupes next year!

Anyway, Rusinov wants new points WEC system for LM
http://www.dailysportscar.com/2014/1...ns-points.html

Rather than screw around with SRO style midway-points debacle, why not just award points to all competitors in class regardless whether they are part of the championship or full season or not? Le Mans Series used to give points to everybody, whether you did one race or five. Which is perfectly logical, give credit to whom it belongs! It makes no sense for the 14th place finisher or whatever to be declared the WEC class winner just because he was full season entrant and the others were not, this year really showed how farcial it can be.

Drivers already collect points no matter how many races they do, why cannot the same apply to teams? Or is it the FIA bureaucy in the works again.

Totally agree with this. To my eye SMP weren't the class winners of the 24 Hours, they came in nowhere, having been completely trounced by the ELMS runners. Giving the one off entrants points for where they run makes for a way more complete picture of what actually happened during a season - for example I assume Jota would have ended up with quite a haul from their pair of entries - and rightly so too in my book.

Maybe it's Christmas cheer on my part but I do hope someone has the wit to apply a common sense approach like that, if not in 2015 then at least in a reasonably meaningful time frame.

[Pontlieue]

I quickly calculated the championship standings if all entries were eligible for points. In my opinion it reflects the performance of the teams much better than the official standings:

1. #26 G-Drive Racing 130
2. #47 KCMG 127
3. #27 SMP Racing 88
4. #38 Jota Sport 68
5. #35 OAK Racing 58
6. #37 SMP Racing 52
7. #46 Thiriet by TDS Racing 38
8. #30 Extreme Speed Motorsport 33
9. #36 Signatech Alpine 30
10.#24 Sebastien Loeb Racing 24
11.#43 Newblood by Morand Racing 16
12.#33 OAK Racing - Team Asia 12
13.#31 Extreme Speed Motorsport 10
14.#34 Race Performance 8
15.#50 Larbre Compétition 4
16.#29 Pegasus Racing 2

[Rodger Davies]

Spot on, that's absolutely how it should be, no questions asked. Works perfectly in Blancpain and how its always worked historically, but now we're in an age of only awarding points to those who pay extra. Weren't Honda the Manufacturer Champions of WTCC last year despite being trounced by the private Chevy's? WRC has the same absurd logic in its second and third classes.

Just out of interest, did Jota get given points at Spa? If so, I wonder why LM is different and if they would charge extra to ELMS teams to score championship points in a one-off round.

Why do SMP have two scores on your list by the way?

[Deleted]

Of course it does as it is literally the pure performances of teams

Such sensible format could also urge some teams to join for partial season as well. For example with European-only campaign you could have good chance in finishing high overall if you have successful Le Mans. But obviously this would conflict with "we don't want more than our 32 full season entries and 1 or 2 local guests at most" luxury ideology they are having now

[Pontlieue]

Originally Posted by Rodger Davies

Just out of interest, did Jota get given points at Spa? If so, I wonder why LM is different and if they would charge extra to ELMS teams to score championship points in a one-off round.

Why do SMP have two scores on your list by the way?

No, only the four full-season entries got points in reality.

SMP appears twice in my list because the two cars were scored seperately, just like ESM.

[Deleted]

Even if we forget the points altogether, ignoring the "guest entries" and declaring the best placed WEC registered entrant as the class winner even if they didn't win is just wrong. If one doesn't look further into the historic results it can give false impression of what actually happened.

So far we've had this declarations

Sebring 2012 - declarations can be excused due to mishmash classifications, but the additional classes are regardless ignored in the results
Spa 2012 P2 - Race won by Jota, WEC win declared to ADR (2nd)
Spa 2012 AM - Race won by IMSA, WEC win declared to Proton (2nd)
LM 2014 P2 - Race won by Jota, WEC win declared to SMP (12th)

Now the list is quite short, but that is mainly to there not being many additional entries, other than at LM, in recent years anymore. Also the additional manufacturer cars do get scored wins even if they're not registered.

[Christian Mogami]

Ganassi Ford GT40 Le Mans?

Rumor is Ford will be showing a Halo Sports Car at Detroit Auto Show next month.

[Mr Pink]

I've been wondering about the points system since the discussions around Sebring in 2012, in my mind it should've been as easy as giving the entrants points according to position in both WEC and ALMS when the classes overlapped. And now with LMP2..

Seems like such an easy fix and should incourage one-offs, but what do I know.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Of course it does as it is literally the pure performances of teams

Such sensible format could also urge some teams to join for partial season as well. For example with European-only campaign you could have good chance in finishing high overall if you have successful Le Mans. But obviously this would conflict with "we don't want more than our 32 full season entries and 1 or 2 local guests at most" luxury ideology they are having now

Repeating it doesnt make it true. The reasons were explained before, but you make up others that are false. The regional teams that are interested could probably be counted on one hand. But the wec should spend more to charter an additional cargo plane for maybe 2 or 3 teams that aren't even sure theyll participate? That makes no sense unless there were more factory teams in GTE or LMP1. Yeah, then itd be worth having no limit in place. Until then, who really wants to bolster the wec's grid to the point they need all these extra spaces? Spaces that mostly wont be used.

[Coach Ep]

air cargo is not needed for part-time entrants, especially not in Europe (where technically you can score 5 out of 9 if allowed to compete at LM), not letting those possible entries score points is restrictive towards potential guest entries.

Another sign of trying to clone the F1 model. Not needed. And not desired!

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by TF110

Repeating it doesnt make it true. The reasons were explained before, but you make up others that are false. The regional teams that are interested could probably be counted on one hand. But the wec should spend more to charter an additional cargo plane for maybe 2 or 3 teams that aren't even sure theyll participate? That makes no sense unless there were more factory teams in GTE or LMP1. Yeah, then itd be worth having no limit in place. Until then, who really wants to bolster the wec's grid to the point they need all these extra spaces? Spaces that mostly wont be used.

Just as you love to repeat how Audi diesel still has efficiency/energy/whatever advantage over petrol even though the facts say otherwise.

But how exactly am I making something up when Neveu said

“When you’re visiting all the different tracks, you have to make sure you have a good pit lane organization and enough space in the garages. You can see how much space the LMP1 programs take up, for example.”

--- There will be no more than 32 full-season entries but it could mean 32, 33, 34 cars in place as we have to keep one or two entries open per race for local teams,” he said.

Good pit lane organization, space up in garages, LMP1 needs extra - yes that does sound like luxury.

As for air freight, just as Coach said, they don't need planes for Europe. Also, if we forget the 32 car grid and talk about the extra local entries alone, why is it just "one or two entries open per race" - local entries don't need planes, they come on their owen if they come.

And for there not being much interest, well even if that was true (has for couple of years now but that's another topic) it's the ideology that matters, not even wanting to expand the grid limit if there were more willing to race.

Remember couple of years ago when on top of the integrated ALMS/ELMS races you had those Zhuhai ILMC races? They allowed LMPC and local GT3 teams to boost up the grid.

[TF110]

I repeat diesel has an efficiency advantage because its actually true, if it isnt then I guess Audi are lying . Sorry, but that has nothing to do with what I said about you making up reasons for the wec limiting entries. Not sure why youre saying anything about local teams? They dont need air freight, and like I said in my post the additional freight would be for theoritical extra teams that have not committed to the series. So how does their limitations look like its for "luxury"? Your argument works against what youre saying. The regional series are run for a reason, and not much interest was shown to run the wec. And you know as much crap as you give the AsLMS, why would they need extra grid spots for them when they have 7 cars running in their series?

And just how many ELMS teams ran Silverstone and Spa? 27 total entries at Silverstone and 28 at Spa. Next year with Nissan running 2 cars would make 29 and 30 respectively. Thats room for up to 3 additional entries for the wec, and a few more from 'local' series. So tell me, whats this outrage about over the so called limitation?

[isynge]

Originally Posted by TF110

I repeat diesel has an efficiency advantage because its actually true, if it isnt then I guess Audi are lying . Sorry, but that has nothing to do with what I said about you making up reasons for the wec limiting entries. Not sure why youre saying anything about local teams? They dont need air freight, and like I said in my post the additional freight would be for theoritical extra teams that have not committed to the series. So how does their limitations look like its for "luxury"? Your argument works against what youre saying. The regional series are run for a reason, and not much interest was shown to run the wec. And you know as much crap as you give the AsLMS, why would they need extra grid spots for them when they have 7 cars running in their series?

And just how many ELMS teams ran Silverstone and Spa? 27 total entries at Silverstone and 28 at Spa. Next year with Nissan running 2 cars would make 29 and 30 respectively. Thats room for up to 3 additional entries for the wec, and a few more from 'local' series. So tell me, whats this outrage about over the so called limitation?

I suspect if the UK round of ELMS wasn't the day before the WEC round we might see some additional runners in April. Switch ELMS from Silverstone in April to Donington in August or September and I imagine you'd see a few more cars appearing.

Given the way a lot of ELMS squads are funded I'd have thought the ability to sell some seat time at a WEC round would be a useful adjunct to their main campaign, so long as the calendar was properly deconflicted.

[TF110]

Maybe they could run in both like Corvette at Austin? Give different drivers a chance to run or something.

[isynge]

Originally Posted by TF110

Maybe they could run in both like Corvette at Austin? Give different drivers a chance to run or something.

Love that as an idea, and as someone who wholly enjoys the big Silverstone weekend I'd be all in favour.

I suspect however that the ESM experience, where to run in both you've got to drop down to one car, might be a little more likely to be the experience with typical ELMS squads.

[bella]

i haven't really been into the actual practical side of sportscars for long enough but even though the cars are made to run for 24 hours and have a decent life on most parts i'd imagine there's a bit of work to be done on the car between races. i guess the silverstone elms/wec schedule allows for that already though, as long as parc ferme can be expedited where necessary.

it'd be quite cool though wouldn't it!

[Speed-King]

Back in the day teams used to do that in the Norisring races, entering the German championship rounds as well as the Geldrennen (money race). That wasn't really endurance racing, though.

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by TF110

Maybe they could run in both like Corvette at Austin? Give different drivers a chance to run or something.

P&M used a third chassis for that, most (if not all) local series entrants don't have an extra car to do something similar.

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by TF110

I repeat diesel has an efficiency advantage because its actually true, if it isnt then I guess Audi are lying . Sorry, but that has nothing to do with what I said about you making up reasons for the wec limiting entries. Not sure why youre saying anything about local teams? They dont need air freight, and like I said in my post the additional freight would be for theoritical extra teams that have not committed to the series. So how does their limitations look like its for "luxury"? Your argument works against what youre saying. The regional series are run for a reason, and not much interest was shown to run the wec. And you know as much crap as you give the AsLMS, why would they need extra grid spots for them when they have 7 cars running in their series?

And just how many ELMS teams ran Silverstone and Spa? 27 total entries at Silverstone and 28 at Spa. Next year with Nissan running 2 cars would make 29 and 30 respectively. Thats room for up to 3 additional entries for the wec, and a few more from 'local' series. So tell me, whats this outrage about over the so called limitation?

Because after limiting the seasonal entries to 32, now it seems additional guest entries are limited to 1 or 2. Why would a series wanna do that if the interest is there (and no, they won't be using the air cargo provided by the series)?

In recent history Le Mans style racing has seen much bigger grids than the 25-30 cars we're seeing now in the WEC. Setting more and more restrictive entry limits is really unnecessary - let the economics do their job and it will regulate itself. Especially when it comes to guest/part-time entries.

[seanyb505]

I believe the luxury, and the logistical cost control elements. I think one thing we may not be thinking about is keeping tabs on demand to create exclusivity among entry spots. Ferrari makes one less car than they want to sell for high end models. The 32 cap also reduces fluctuations in grid sizes, which definitely indicate when teams view one race less important than the others. If wec accepts 50 entries, and completely opens up local entry spots, but only 29 show up for Bahrain...people will know Bahrain is viewed as less desirable. Which, as we all know, is completely untrue.