Audi LMP1 Discussion

[ederss7]

Less than 2 hours into the race and they already have reliability problems with the #8... Apparently hybrid issues .

[MyNameIsNigel]

Quick question:

If the ACO-FIA opted to balance the petrol 8MJ and the diesel 6MJ, why is it that they have not opted to balance the respective stint lengths ?

[ederss7]

It seems the #8 will retire. First retirement for Audi since 2013. WTF was that? Engine, battery, hybrid?

[ederss7]

Confirmed the reason of the retirement. "hybrid malfuction".https://twitter.com/Audi__Sport/stat...420581378?s=09

[MihokS5]

Does anyone know where Audi has relocated all of the dash switches in the new cockpit? It looks like the batteries have taken up the whole left side and I'm wondering where they have placed them...

[sssssssss]

beautiful start of the season for audi, pole and win! the new car seems really quick and consistently quick. i'm still a bit worried about some reliability issues, as seen on the no8.

[MyNameIsNigel]

A stunning performance from Audi Sport and the #7 crew. Except for his spin, Ben's stints were simply impressive. Outstanding performance. This car is brand new and reliabilty is evidently still a worry. It's a shame for the #8 crew which deserves a better start to the season.

And this car still has some potential for generating further performance... Amazing work

[sssssssss]

the car seems really fast. that, taking into account that audi have said silverstone (and spa) don't really fit their car concept this year as much, so they expected porsche to be faster than them here (and at spa), but on average, that really wasn't the case. audi won this on track.

however, i think this race already demonstrated how risky it is to only have two cars. both porsche and audi had just one car left in the first 6h race. i think in the lm 24h, things can get really hairy.

[chernaudi]

#7 Audi may be penalized pending the out come of an investigation/appeal due to excessive front skid wear.

[ederss7]

It looks like Audi's reliability is getting worse and worse every year. It's going doing downhill since 2014. Their last retirement had been in 2013, though.
It seems that the DQ has been confirmed, no appeal by Audi.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report...-audi-excluded

[Articus]

Audi still have a ton to takeway from the event. The DQ is inconsequential compared to what they learned today.

[JoestForEver]

The excessive wear is worring though. It's possible that the team haven't fully understand R18's new FRIC system, got the settings wrong, causing extra wear of the skid.
Their performance is gonna drop at Spa if they choose to play it safe. Otherwise we might see another DSQ.

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[chernaudi]

Race results still provisional as Audi Sport have launched an appeal to the ACO and the FIA WMSC:

https://www.audi-mediacenter.com/en/...-decision-5954

[YorkshireLad]

Is this due to the extra air flowing under the nose? I've read it had worn 5mm past the legal tolerance.. Hitting a few kerbs off line could of caused that surely.


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[MyNameIsNigel]

Originally Posted by YorkshireLad

Is this due to the extra air flowing under the nose? I've read it had worn 5mm past the legal tolerance.. Hitting a few kerbs off line could of caused that surely.


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I have tried to find a copy of "Stewards Decision No. 27" but it's a real mess to identify where such decisions can be located. They are normally published and should be available to the public. Has anybody located the actual decision ?

Now, Article 3.5.6 a.3 indeed specifies that the maximum permitted wear of the skid block is 5mm. By how much the 5mm limit was exceeded is unknown to me, but the excessive wear must be pretty noticeable.

The excessive wear is either due to exceptional circumstances (such as hitting or running over debris or a curb during the race - in which case Audi's appeal has some chances of success) or due to an inadequate car height setting, which could be explained by the limited running in dry conditions prior to the race (in which case Audi's appeal will likely be rejected).

I do trust that if Audi Sport have appealed, they have some good arguments to put forward to defend their case. Time will tell if they can overturn the Stewards Decision to exclude them from the race.

Whatever the outcome of the appeal, Audi can still be proud of the performance that they demonstrated over the week-end.

[Artur]

Well, I must say that, after looking at the results, I was slightly disapointed with Audi's pace. I initially thought they would have a good margin to the rivals, as last year, then, after what Lotterer and DiGrassi said, I got a little more conservative but still expected a clear gap to Porsche.

Looking at the results, it turns out that Audi and Porsche were quite matched and even Toyota was not much behind.

However, something crossed my mind as I looked into the chronological analysis pdf. Toyota and Porsche had a top speed of around 280kmh during their fastest laps, and in general(excluding odd cases of draft), while Audi had only ~270kmh.

There is parc ferme rules for WEC too, right? I mean, the setup used in QLF must be used during the race? If so, I just think Audi might have ran too much rain biased, and hence their QLF gap of 1s to 919, and it handicapped them for the dry race pace.

When I have time, I'll look into onboard footage to see how much faster Audi was, on high speed corners, given this top speed differences.

[Creep89]

Well I think it is worthwhile to notice that even with the top speed disadvantage the Audis were capable of holding the Porsches back on the long straights. Last year they had a lot more trouble to do so.

[Artur]

I will have to check the pdf later but I think that, last year, the top speed gap was bigger. Plus, Audi had even less hybrid power, so it made them sitting ducks versus the 8MJ 919

[bella]

Originally Posted by MihokS5

Does anyone know where Audi has relocated all of the dash switches in the new cockpit? It looks like the batteries have taken up the whole left side and I'm wondering where they have placed them...

they are mounted above the windshield/windscreen, so the driver has to look up instead of down to make changes.

[YorkshireLad]

Originally Posted by bella

they are mounted above the windshield/windscreen, so the driver has to look up instead of down to make changes.

Is this why the windscreen looks extremely small?

[carbon_titanium]

Originally Posted by Artur

I will have to check the pdf later but I think that, last year, the top speed gap was bigger. Plus, Audi had even less hybrid power, so it made them sitting ducks versus the 8MJ 919

in 2014 and more clearly in 2015, audi lacked of combined final power because of lower energetic class. This year the gap is basically recovered, so audi, toyota and porsche are all in the same range of combined power.
Top speed is a deceptive value, last year at silverstone audi was in full high downforce package (bodywork that was dropped after the race) while porsche was in low drag package; low drag + more power made porsche a tiger in straight, high downforce + less power made audi a flash in corners but a turtle in straight.
At spa and le mans, audi and porsche were in low-drag, so more or less had the same top speed; while from nurburgring, porsche introduced the high downforce package while audi remained with the low-drag bodywork and from that race audi had a slightly better top speed, because of that. Infact during fuji race, porsche was able to pass audi in the middle of main straight because of extra power from hybrid boost, but audi was able to catch back porsche at the end of straight.

This year audi had a great top speed at silverstone, comparable with porsche. Considering that porsche used a medium-high downforce set, while audi used a high downforce package, is clear that overall power isn't anymore an audi's weakness. The price to pay for audi is a slightly worse fuel milliage. Anyway, let's wait for spa to make other speculations....
IMHO porsche did a wrong choice using that kind of bodywork yesterday! because it couldn't give them any top speed advantage and neither cornering speed (compared to audi).

[bella]

Originally Posted by YorkshireLad

Is this why the windscreen looks extremely small?

you'd need to ask someone more familiar with the cars themselves to comment on that (i was just lucky enough to be taken into the pit and it's not really familiar territory), but from an untrained eye point of view the entire cockpit did look more compact than the non-manufacturer lmp2 and lmp1 cars. but then checking some parc ferme pictures i grabbed on my phone that's possibly because audi's single seater style high nose design seems to necessetate (sp) the cockpit bulkhead being higher than the porsche as well.

i was actually wondering the same thing as mihoks5 when i looked inside, and thought perhaps they'd just stripped the wiring and switches out for a particular job when i noticed they were above the drivers line of sight not below. i can only assume they've mounted things up there that wouldn't require twiddling with very often, otherwise surely that's going to hinder the drivers visibility.

another incredible thing (to my eye) was that with certain bits of bodywork removed, you can see how much clear air there is tunneled underneath the front of the audi. isolated from the more traditional front end that porsche runs, that thing really does look a lot like a single seater.

[MyNameIsNigel]

Originally Posted by Artur

There is parc ferme rules for WEC too, right? I mean, the setup used in QLF must be used during the race? If so, I just think Audi might have ran too much rain biased, and hence their QLF gap of 1s to 919, and it handicapped them for the dry race pace.

As far as I know there are no "parc fermé" rules as such that would prevent competitors from making car adjustments between qualifying practice and the race, but I may be wrong. Besides, it's not unreasonable to expect that adjustments to the car can be performed if and when qualifying practice and the race are run in very different conditions.

At LM at least, the cars sit in the garage between qualifying practice and the warm-up before the race and are typically completely disassembled and reassembled before the race. Other than the seals on the engine, I don't believe that the rules mandate anything that would prevent competitors from making car adjustments, such as ride height, wing adjustements and the like.

[cokata]

Audi's hybrid system did take a massive step forward, but as i predicted almost all of it's ICE power advantage over the Porsche is gone. Porsche took 7% fuel cut as they can't go to a higher hybrid class, while Audi were hit with ~10% cut as they move up to 6MJ. The Porsche had slightly more DF, and had slightly slower straight line speed. Basically the extra 2MJ was the difference in pace for the most part.

[MyNameIsNigel]

Plus the inherent "performance" advantage that comes with the ability for the 6MJ petrol to stay longer on track on a full tank. This advantage was basically negated yesterday due to the FCY and the safety car period, but it's still very much there. This further remains an advantage from a tactical perspective as Porsche (and Toyota) are able to respond to Audi's strategy during the race. Audi still have to show their cards first before Porsche and Toyota do.