ALMS Round 9/ILMC Round 6: Petit Le Mans 29 Sep -1 Oct

[kyoung]

Originally Posted by AGD

If IMSA wanted to make sure that nobody had an advantage, they would have given everyone who did not have the new fueling technology a fuel flow advantage. That's not what they did. They just gave it to Corvette. Should we expect any better from the roulette wheel of regulations that IMSA uses? I guess not, but it's messed up whether it is expected or not.

Did anyone else request or need the adjustment, more to the point was anyone refused? This is a tempest in a tea cup and probably will not matter in the future as I’m sure Corvette Racing will address the issue and will not need the “adjustment” in the future.

Originally Posted by AGD

So, no, I don't agree with it. This stuff can't be equalized in any proper sense so it just becomes a matter of politics and such. That's not what racing is supposed to be about. It's supposed to be about building a better car and proving it on race day.

At least we agree on something.

[gregtummer]

Originally Posted by AGD

I don't think the ACO or FIA really cares about what we think. They know there is tremendous fan interest at Petit, but there are other issues at play here. Appeasing the manufacturers interest to race in South America is primary issue for 2012 it seems. There is also the issue of TV rights and how to deal with the issues of the different regulations of each series. There is still some confusion on how the latter point will be dealt with at Sebring.

On an unrelated note, what a bad week for VAG diesels in the US. First the Audi issue at Petit and now I see that VW has ordered dealers to stop selling TDI Jettas and Golfs for a fuel leak issue. There is also a recall for older models. Ouch.

Run Silverstone a couple weeks earlier, then go to Brazil, run Petit Le Mans 3 weeks later, then off to China.

It doesn't make sense to me to go from Silverstone, to Petit Le Mans, then off to China.

Pairing Brazil and Petit Le Mans 3 weeks apart makes sense.

[AGD]

Originally Posted by kyoung

Did anyone else request or need the adjustment, more to the point was anyone refused? This is a tempest in a tea cup and probably will not matter in the future as I’m sure Corvette Racing will address the issue and will not need the “adjustment” in the future.

I don't know. Did they need it? Well, I don't think Corvette needed it any more than any one else unless they were running to different regulations to begin with. I realize that there is something to the thought that one can't receive anything if they don't ask for it, but maybe the other teams thought that the gains made by BMW and whoever else were legitimate gains and not something to cry foul about and so they did not bother asking. Is it fair then to just give a break to the teams that asked for it? An argument could be made for that I guess, but I don't think there is room for that in a legitimate sport. I'm sure teams would want the break if an option for it was made available. Maybe they did ask and were rejected, who knows really.

I'm sure you're right about Corvette being better prepared for this next year and it ultimately did not have a huge impact on the final results, but the bigger issue of roulette wheel regulations (or just flat out biased regulations) still lingers on I think.

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by kyoung

If their car is filling at the same rate, how is that an advantage?

Why have a larger restrictor if there is no advantage is the question . Maybe its got to do with backpressure once the fuel is left the rig .

Possibily the fuel rate from the rig is the same , but once the fuel is outta the rig , there is a pressure sensor to sense back pressure . With a bigger restrictor perhaps the back pressure wouldnt be that same , smaller .

[vyselegend]

Originally Posted by gregtummer

Run Silverstone a couple weeks earlier, then go to Brazil, run Petit Le Mans 3 weeks later, then off to China.

It doesn't make sense to me to go from Silverstone, to Petit Le Mans, then off to China.

Pairing Brazil and Petit Le Mans 3 weeks apart makes sense.

I agree.

Also I've read recently the ACO admited that it makes sense to have two USA races, because it's such a big country. It's cool and I can't think of a better second venue than Road Atlanta. The layout is great (ok maybe the facilities are not), and most of all the event has built up a solid reputation, which will be impossible to emulate anywhere else. (Road America would be the closest IMO, as it's layout is pretty good and it is famous too).

But there's one creepy thing to consider, given we're dealing with the FIA there: The worst thing that can happen to PLM is not being out of the WEC, it's being added in, with the "mandatory modernisation of the track by Hermann Tilke".

Uuuuh, only thinking about it gives me the shivers...

[The Badger]

I agree ..... nothing wrong with the track at all . Why do people have to meddle with **** that works ..... just to justify their jobs .

Perhaps the garage facilities needs a touch up , but Im not sure about that so cant really comment on them .

[ubrben]

The fact is, US safety car rules make a 10 hour race exciting pretty much from start to finish and the best team generally still wins. I'd love to see Sebring and Petit stay on the calendar.

I'd also like to see IMSA safety car rules adopted in LMS and WEC generally - you'd have an exciting product to sell then. The reality of a 6 hour LMS race with 2 safety cars in invariably a bore-fest even for a sports car geek like me. God knows how you sell that to a general fan. Show that general fan the end of Laguna, Sebring, Petit, Road America, etc this year and he's in...

Biggest issue with two USA rounds of WEC is the fact that Peugeot don't sell cars in the US.

In terms of GTE regs I agree that the current situation is difficult. Incidentaly the fastest straightline speeds in Q at Petit were from Ferrari, but they did it on one lap going slower at other points on the track, then only achieved a speed 2km/h slower on their fast laps. Everyone has something in reserve and everyone's playing.

I'd hire a consultancy in the way the FIA have done with FondTech, Piper Design, Wirth, etc to put all GTE candidate road cars in a wind tunnel with a flat bottom running at 55mm ride height. I'd then made Cd x A x restrictor diameter a constant and then run success ballast in races.

BMW firmly believe that tyres, setup, drivers and race operations were the main reason they won 3 straight at the start of the season. Comparing Lizards results vs. Farnbacher Loles in the 2009 season with the same car suggest this is a plausible viewpoint - so if you take restrictors out of the BoP in the way I've suggested you remove the need for people to bull**** eachother.

Ben

[AGD]

More FCYs and success ballast? Oh my!

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by ubrben

I'd also like to see IMSA safety car rules adopted in LMS and WEC generally - you'd have an exciting product to sell then. The reality of a 6 hour LMS race with 2 safety cars in invariably a bore-fest even for a sports car geek like me. God knows how you sell that to a general fan. Show that general fan the end of Laguna, Sebring, Petit, Road America, etc this year and he's in...

Please let´s not do that.

IMSA´s very complicated SC procedure takes way too much time because of all the waves arounds and pass arounds that need to be completed. Clearing the incidents clearly isn´t the problem, this will be done in 2 or 3 laps. The average caution @ Petit was 6 laps, more than double the number of laps required to clear the average incident (Petit had 10 cautions for 64 laps in total, averaging 16,2% of the total race distance of 394 laps. Sebring was even worse).

I don´t want endurance racing turned into some sort of NASCAR look-a-like. It´s bad enough as it is right now. For instance: Imola´s 6 hours ILMC race was run without SC, and it was not like there were no cars stranded off course. If you wanna see last lap shoot-outs you might wanna try touring cars.

[Acid09]

Originally Posted by ubrben

I'd also like to see IMSA safety car rules adopted in LMS and WEC generally - you'd have an exciting product to sell then.

What?? Hell no!

If a race is exciting on its own then great, if not then fine too. This fabricated racing is hard to enjoy, just look at the Rolex 24..they have a close finish every year and it's nothing special anymore because it is fake anyways.

Look at Le Mans this year in comparison. It is special and will be remembered for decades because it was a close race on its own merit, not because of stupid cautions.

I don't agree with the American way of making everything a show. Everything always has to be a "good show", even in sports. This is sports, not entertainment... if a manufacturer builds a car that can finish way ahead of the competition then they deserve to finish that way.

[ubrben]

Originally Posted by Coach Ep

Please let´s not do that.

IMSA´s very complicated SC procedure takes way too much time because of all the waves arounds and pass arounds that need to be completed. Clearing the incidents clearly isn´t the problem, this will be done in 2 or 3 laps. The average caution @ Petit was 6 laps, more than double the number of laps required to clear the average incident (Petit had 10 cautions for 64 laps in total, averaging 16,2% of the total race distance of 394 laps. Sebring was even worse).

I don´t want endurance racing turned into some sort of NASCAR look-a-like. It´s bad enough as it is right now. For instance: Imola´s 6 hours ILMC race was run without SC, and it was not like there were no cars stranded off course. If you wanna see last lap shoot-outs you might wanna try touring cars.

Imola was the dullest race of the year period. For me it's fairly clear that you can have a purity of competition with the ACO or you can have exciting racing - LMS races as a rule are dull.

IMSA's procedure's hardly complicated; Pack-Up, wave-by cars until you get to a class leader, pits open LMP, pits open GT, pack-up, Green - hardly rocket science is it??

Ben

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by ubrben

Imola was the dullest race of the year period. For me it's fairly clear that you can have a purity of competition with the ACO or you can have exciting racing - LMS races as a rule are dull.

IMSA's procedure's hardly complicated; Pack-Up, wave-by cars until you get to a class leader, pits open LMP, pits open GT, pack-up, Green - hardly rocket science is it??

Ben

Yes, it is. It´s a result of throwing too many unnecessary FCY´s causing lower category cars to lose a lap to their respective leaders and fixing this unfair disadvantage after the incident is cleared. Why not save all this hustle and let the racing continue (as much as possible) and deal with the incident under a local yellow (or 2 or 3 providing the desired back-up). If the drivers would respect these yellows (and serve them with servere punishment if they don´t) it could work. It has worked before (long time ago) but I guess it´s like turning back the time - it ain´t gonna happen.

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by ubrben

Imola was the dullest race of the year period. For me it's fairly clear that you can have a purity of competition with the ACO or you can have exciting racing - LMS races as a rule are dull.

IMSA's procedure's hardly complicated; Pack-Up, wave-by cars until you get to a class leader, pits open LMP, pits open GT, pack-up, Green - hardly rocket science is it??

Ben

As I said before: you might wanna try touring cars - or NASCAR for that matter, it probably will fit your likings better than endurance racing.

[ubrben]

Originally Posted by Coach Ep

As I said before: you might wanna try touring cars - or NASCAR for that matter, it probably will fit your likings better than endurance racing.

FCY's ???

Endurance racing has evolved and changed over the years. I don't see safety cars as fundamentally a bad thing. Like I said most races I've worked at in ALMS over the past 3 years have seen the best car generally win, despite safety cars, whilst making the racing a lot more exciting.

Ratel is pushing short GT races because they are more marketable. I would contend that the best compromise is long races with IMSA-style safety cars. you get the endurance element of needing a car to run for a long time, but you also get exciting wheel-to-wheel racing.

Being snobbish about Nascar will look pretty dumb if we kill off proper sportscar racing by being overly concerned about an abstact notion of purity of the racing.

[vyselegend]

Actually I agree with both ubrben and those who disagrees with him.

I mean, it's true that most LMS races are dull, but they are trustfull judges of the state of the competition, and it's good that way. It's more authentic.

But ALMS races are far more exciting, because knowing the gap can (and will) be cancelled anytime pressures the leader a lot, and give lots of motivation to the challengers as well, which maintain everybody under pressure. Wherehas in Europe, if one car hit problems and lose more than a lap, it's out of contention and begins to be used as a (tyre / set up) test bench for the other car.

So for me the solution is simple:

Keep it the way it is, with usual ACO sporting rules in the european and asian rounds, and IMSA ones in the american rounds.

Like coach, the main grief I have with american FCY rules is not their randomness, but the insane time it takes to clear the track. Sometimes you can see from TV that there are no more marshalls on track, and that the truck and other safety vehicles are cleared as well, yet the SC stay on track for several more laps.

I think they should make a choice, either to put FCY every now and then as they do, but deal them quickly and professionaly, or restrain themselves to go FCY when it's not needed if they want to keep it as a (long & slow) field compacter tool to generate artificial great restarts...

[ubrben]

Originally Posted by vyselegend

Actually I agree with both ubrben and those who disagrees with him.

I mean, it's true that most LMS races are dull, but they are trustfull judges of the state of the competition, and it's good that way. It's more authentic.

But ALMS races are far more exciting, because knowing the gap can (and will) be cancelled anytime pressures the leader a lot, and give lots of motivation to the challengers as well, which maintain everybody under pressure. Wherehas in Europe, if one car hit problems and lose more than a lap, it's out of contention and begins to be used as a (tyre / set up) test bench for the other car.

So for me the solution is simple:

Keep it the way it is, with usual ACO sporting rules in the european and asian rounds, and IMSA ones in the american rounds.

Like coach, the main grief I have with american FCY rules is not their randomness, but the insane time it takes to clear the track. Sometimes you can see from TV that there are no more marshalls on track, and that the truck and other safety vehicles are cleared as well, yet the SC stay on track for several more laps.

I think they should make a choice, either to put FCY every now and then as they do, but deal them quickly and professionaly, or restrain themselves to go FCY when it's not needed if they want to keep it as a (long & slow) field compacter tool to generate artificial great restarts...

Full Course Yellow - sorry being bit slow there.

The problem we're dealing with now is the quality of modern racing cars and racing technology in general.

Historically endurance racing was more about preserving the car, so results changed due to fluctuating reliability. With the cars being so reliable the races are bore-fests because the cars rarely breakdown. I think we have to adapt to that to create a marketable product.

Ben

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by vyselegend

Actually I agree with both ubrben and those who disagrees with him.

I mean, it's true that most LMS races are dull, but they are trustfull judges of the state of the competition, and it's good that way. It's more authentic.

But ALMS races are far more exciting, because knowing the gap can (and will) be cancelled anytime pressures the leader a lot, and give lots of motivation to the challengers as well, which maintain everybody under pressure. Wherehas in Europe, if one car hit problems and lose more than a lap, it's out of contention and begins to be used as a (tyre / set up) test bench for the other car.

So for me the solution is simple:

Keep it the way it is, with usual ACO sporting rules in the european and asian rounds, and IMSA ones in the american rounds.

Like coach, the main grief I have with american FCY rules is not their randomness, but the insane time it takes to clear the track. Sometimes you can see from TV that there are no more marshalls on track, and that the truck and other safety vehicles are cleared as well, yet the SC stay on track for several more laps.

I think they should make a choice, either to put FCY every now and then as they do, but deal them quickly and professionaly, or restrain themselves to go FCY when it's not needed if they want to keep it as a (long & slow) field compacter tool to generate artificial great restarts...

Artificial being the key word in this discussion, it has nothing to do with racing. If it´s all about close racing in the end why not make it a 10 lap race then so we could all go to the pub (or doing something more sensible) much earlier?

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by ubrben

Full Course Yellow - sorry being bit slow there.

The problem we're dealing with now is the quality of modern racing cars and racing technology in general.

Historically endurance racing was more about preserving the car, so results changed due to fluctuating reliability. With the cars being so reliable the races are bore-fests because the cars rarely breakdown. I think we have to adapt to that to create a marketable product.

Ben

I surely hope not, cars not breaking down doesn´t influence racing in a bad way by any means, it means more cars at the end of a race (and a higher risk of incidents). The idea behind endurance racing (most of all Le Mans) is making your car go the distance as fast as possible. Let´s not market that into some sort of funpark activity and call it racing...

[Deleted]

I can't understand some of the anti-IMSA arguments here... the multi-SC system used in Europe is exactly as bad as the American version, you always have artificiality when certain cars get stuck at the end of pitlane for half a lap because they need to wait SC to pass by.

And yes, I agree that Imola was probably my least favourite aco-sanctioned race of the year.

When we talk about artificial things in sportscar racing, it's BoP not sc rules we need to moan about...

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by Chiana

I can't understand some of the anti-IMSA arguments here... the multi-SC system used in Europe is exactly as bad as the American version, you always have artificiality when certain cars get stuck at the end of pitlane for half a lap because they need to wait SC to pass by.

And yes, I agree that Imola was probably my least favourite aco-sanctioned race of the year.

When we talk about artificial things in sportscar racing, it's BoP not sc rules we need to moan about...

I´m not saying the european SC system is better, just that IMSA is throwing way too many FCY´s into their races for my likings. A lot of them could have been dealt with under local yellows. O well.

Imola had pretty good GT and LMP2 battles almost all race long IMO. For me Sebring was definitely the low point of this year´s Le Mans style racing: over 25% of the race was run under yellows due to IMSA´s lack of on track experience with their new SC procedure...

[ubrben]

Originally Posted by Chiana

I can't understand some of the anti-IMSA arguments here... the multi-SC system used in Europe is exactly as bad as the American version, you always have artificiality when certain cars get stuck at the end of pitlane for half a lap because they need to wait SC to pass by.

And yes, I agree that Imola was probably my least favourite aco-sanctioned race of the year.

When we talk about artificial things in sportscar racing, it's BoP not sc rules we need to moan about...

I'm going to play Devil's advocate. On paper a Porsche 911 is never going to beat a Ferrari F458 Italia in a GT race. The Ferrari is lower, wider, has less yaw inertia and better suspension geometry.

How would you define the GT regulations to ensure that we had competitive racing?

Ben

[kyoung]

Originally Posted by ubrben

I'm going to play Devil's advocate. On paper a Porsche 911 is never going to beat a Ferrari F458 Italia in a GT race. The Ferrari is lower, wider, has less yaw inertia and better suspension geometry.

How would you define the GT regulations to ensure that we had competitive racing?

Ben

I think Porsche, Ferrari, Corvette, and Jag all believe they build a fine GT car. In other words it’s not up to the sanctioning body to direct car development. If Porsche finds one day that they are constantly getting their ass handed to them it’s on them to do something about it.

[ubrben]

Originally Posted by kyoung

I think Porsche, Ferrari, Corvette, and Jag all believe they build a fine GT car. In other words it’s not up to the sanctioning body to direct car development. If Porsche finds one day that they are constantly getting their ass handed to them it’s on them to do something about it.

Completely wrong. If you take this attitude you get the late 90s unlimited GT1 cars. This wasn't sustainable from a budget point of view - that era specifically is why we have BoP.

A Porsche GT1 was fundamentally the same configuration as a Mercedes CLK GT1 and the Toyota GT1. If you have technical freedom like that you loose the link with the road car.

GT is a marketing platform so it must maintain the diversity of vehicle configurations. The only way to do this is BoP.

Ben

[kyoung]

Originally Posted by ubrben

Completely wrong. If you take this attitude you get the late 90s unlimited GT1 cars. This wasn't sustainable from a budget point of view - that era specifically is why we have BoP.

A Porsche GT1 was fundamentally the same configuration as a Mercedes CLK GT1 and the Toyota GT1. If you have technical freedom like that you loose the link with the road car.

GT is a marketing platform so it must maintain the diversity of vehicle configurations. The only way to do this is BoP.

Ben

Did you read my first line? Porsche has more versions of the 911 than I can keep up with; maybe they could finally make the Cayman be all it can be. The sanctioning body should NOT direct car development but they can make sure manufacturers adhere closely to their road going counterparts.

[Coach Ep]

Set up a general set of rules, price-cap the cars and limit testing, tires and engines. That way costs will be controlled and it´s for the manufacturers to come up with something better than their competitors. Ginetta will do a good job, not sure about Ferrari, Porsche et all!