Sportscar/GT (and Le Mans) Rumours and Repetition

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Maelochs

Small issue wioth success ballast: a car does well because a track suits it (say a BMW Z4 at a twisty track with short straights) and then it has to carry ballast at the next track, which might not suit it at all so it has a double handicap.

GT300 class in Super GT works fine with it. They have near every gt3 as a good example. A strong car will be strong. The weak car just gets somewhat closer. Dont see f1 adopting that though.

[Articus]

Just because it works in one place doesn't mean it will work in another...

Tracks are different. Cars are different.

[Juntos]

Isn't Vitaphone knocking at TMG's door lately? Just like the mob.

[Rodger Davies]

?

[carbon_titanium]

I guess that F1 is evaluating the success weight ballast because is a cheap way to prevent a mercedes dominancy also in 2015. Private tests ban and frozen engines rules will remain to save costs, but with success ballast a team like mercedes should not be able again to win 5-7 races in a row.

[Deleted]

Attempt nr2...
http://www.maxiendurance.com/wp-cont...ierdrivers.pdf

Move to Portimao is improvement over Navarra...

2009 or older GT2s permitted but not newer, which is... interesting. Sounds exactly the same as what Ratel suggested for FIA GT1 2012 originally (2011 GT1 / 2009 circa GT2 / GT3) so is there some sort of hold-up somewhere?

There's a line "A compensating handicap system so that everyone has the opportunity to win making the race exciting to the very end" with 'everyone' bolded... does that refer to normal bop or some kind of joker lap thing again

Dagys says on S365 that "The event, supervised by the Spanish and Portuguese Automobile Federations, will go into the Guinness Book of World Records of being the longest continuous circuit race." but it's obviously not even close of actually being world's longest motor race, that being the legendary 86 Hours of Marathon de la Route, so the only reason this gets to Guinnes is because it wasn't there to ratify the previous races

[gsmith2424]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Attempt nr2...
http://www.maxiendurance.com/wp-cont...ierdrivers.pdf

Move to Portimao is improvement over Navarra...

2009 or older GT2s permitted but not newer, which is... interesting. Sounds exactly the same as what Ratel suggested for FIA GT1 2012 originally (2011 GT1 / 2009 circa GT2 / GT3) so is there some sort of hold-up somewhere?

There's a line "A compensating handicap system so that everyone has the opportunity to win making the race exciting to the very end" with 'everyone' bolded... does that refer to normal bop or some kind of joker lap thing again

Dagys says on S365 that "The event, supervised by the Spanish and Portuguese Automobile Federations, will go into the Guinness Book of World Records of being the longest continuous circuit race." but it's obviously not even close of actually being world's longest motor race, that being the legendary 86 Hours of Marathon de la Route, so the only reason this gets to Guinnes is because it wasn't there to ratify the previous races

Actually it won't the longest current race as there was a 36 Hour race at Spokane, WA and then this year a 37 hour race at Eagles Canyon in TX. Both races are ChumpCar races.

[Deleted]

Ultima Batteries ChumpCar World Series?

Actually those do look rather interesting. And great venues

[gsmith2424]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Ultima Batteries ChumpCar World Series?

Actually those do look rather interesting. And great venues

That it is. I was part of the team that won the Daytona 14 hr earlier this year. Our car is the silver one.

[Coach Ep]

nm

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Articus

Just because it works in one place doesn't mean it will work in another...

Tracks are different. Cars are different.

Im sorry, but what cars are you talking about? I thought the discussion was giving gt3's success ballast. In which case, theyre not different. If youre talking about lmp's, well the gt500's are as close as you'll get.

[Maelochs]

"I guess that F1 is evaluating the success weight ballast because is a cheap way to prevent a mercedes dominancy also in 2015."

Well, that makes sense. Why should the best car get to win?

[carbon_titanium]

Originally Posted by Maelochs

"I guess that F1 is evaluating the success weight ballast because is a cheap way to prevent a mercedes dominancy also in 2015."

Well, that makes sense. Why should the best car get to win?

because F1 became more a TV than motorsport... to see hamilton or rosberg win all the race means empty circuits and poor payTV ratings

[Speed-King]

New Renault RS 01 to be unveiled at the 27th of August:

http://turbomagazine.be/NL16030-rena...uwe-rs-01.html

Article says it's gonna be a 1-make-series-racer, but the old Megane Trophy cars have found their way into endurance racing, so this maybe could too?

Also, didn't Endurance Info talk about information on a new GT3 coming public this week? With EI being French, they might have an inside line on Renault Sport's plans... Would open a giant can of worms, as there's no street model that I'd know of, but I could see a national homologation for France or something along those lines, seeing how GT Tour is France's national no1 series and all.

Edit: There's also a teaser video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXRsuZBHS0c

[TheDude]

Originally Posted by Speed-King

New Renault RS 01 to be unveiled at the 27th of August:

http://turbomagazine.be/NL16030-rena...uwe-rs-01.html

Article says it's gonna be a 1-make-series-racer, but the old Megane Trophy cars have found their way into endurance racing, so this maybe could too?

Also, didn't Endurance Info talk about information on a new GT3 coming public this week? With EI being French, they might have an inside line on Renault Sport's plans... Would open a giant can of worms, as there's no street model that I'd know of, but I could see a national homologation for France or something along those lines, seeing how GT Tour is France's national no1 series and all.

Edit: There's also a teaser video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXRsuZBHS0c

that car is gonna be a stuner

[BullMan]

Originally Posted by Speed-King

New Renault RS 01 to be unveiled at the 27th of August:

http://turbomagazine.be/NL16030-rena...uwe-rs-01.html

Article says it's gonna be a 1-make-series-racer, but the old Megane Trophy cars have found their way into endurance racing, so this maybe could too?

Also, didn't Endurance Info talk about information on a new GT3 coming public this week? With EI being French, they might have an inside line on Renault Sport's plans... Would open a giant can of worms, as there's no street model that I'd know of, but I could see a national homologation for France or something along those lines, seeing how GT Tour is France's national no1 series and all.

Edit: There's also a teaser video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXRsuZBHS0c

The new GT3 was confirmed to be the Lexus, which isn't new in terms of knowing that it exists.

[Speed-King]

Originally Posted by BullMan

The new GT3 was confirmed to be the Lexus, which isn't new in terms of knowing that it exists.

I am not quite sure, EI's story was part of GG's list...

Un nouveau projet GT3 présenté la semaine prochaine…

On en saura plus dans quelques jours mais une nouvelle marque se montre très intéressée par la catégorie GT3 mais aussi GTE. Le design de l’auto ne laissera pas indifférent comme on a pu le constater. Réponse dans quelques jours…

Unless Lexus has some kind of presentation scheduled for the next couple of days, the two don't really fit together...

[TF110]

Speaking of that Lexus...

[TF110]

Subaru to Le Mans? Hybrid is in their future and lmp1-h looks appealing to them. Thatd be a site!

[Deleted]

Interesting. Must say that I cannot think of many other (major) brands that would be as exotic as Subaru in LMP1!

Don't understand the line "The lack of a strong link between Audi's Le Mans dominance and its road car business is one of the prominent obstacles currently neutering Subaru's ambitions" there though

[Thaw Daggerslash]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Don't understand the line "The lack of a strong link between Audi's Le Mans dominance and its road car business is one of the prominent obstacles currently neutering Subaru's ambitions" there though

Me neither. Only the other day I was pleasantly surprised to turn the TV on and see an Audi commercial which featured their current R18. Porsche seems to have promoted it quite a bit as well.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Interesting. Must say that I cannot think of many other (major) brands that would be as exotic as Subaru in LMP1!

Don't understand the line "The lack of a strong link between Audi's Le Mans dominance and its road car business is one of the prominent obstacles currently neutering Subaru's ambitions" there though

It is interesting if Subaru thinks that about Audi, because I think Audi thinks exactly the opposite about their Le Mans program.

[MagVanisher]

I don't think Subaru would stay in Le Mans. They'll just get curb-stomped by the current 3 manufacturers, plus Nissan.

[Deleted]

Well it's not like Toyota is putting much of their resources in LM either despite being the largest car manufacturer in the world so you cannot judge ones motorsport department and/or on track capabilities by volume of the brand. Subaru might be smaller than Audi and gang but that doesn't necessarily mean much. And it's not as if we're talking of something realky obscure like Panoz here, Subaru is big...

Though operating with actual shoestring budget and expecting BoP to take care of everything a la AMR isn't the route to take either, you do need some effort put into it. LMP1 ain't GTE or GT3

[TF110]

Let me throw this out there, Subaru's parent company- Fuji Heavy is partly owned by Toyota. They have about a 16.5% stake in Subaru. So theyre not lacking in funds. In fact, Subaru's sales are on fire, up double digit percentage points in the latest monthly sales, 27% in America month over month. According to the story they want to race hybrids. Theres only two places you can currently do that on an international scale and F1 is way too much. Maybe wrc opens up to hybrids, theyd probably choose that if so.