[LM24] Le Mans Test Day - (22/23) 24th April 2011

[GT6]

Originally Posted by Guardian

Hankook 458 breaks 4 mins...

yep first GTE under 4 minutes, the ferrari 458 looks like it is a good deal better than the rest at the moment

[Aysedasi]

I don't believe Peugeot have shown their hand - nor do I believe they have to chase the Audis. For what? The winners of the Test Day? I personally think Peugeot will be perfectly happy going back in June as the underdogs. I also doubt that Audi have pushed to the limit either - again, it begs the question - why would they?

[sssssssss]

in any case, i think this year audi have the faster car.

[Audi Racer]

Originally Posted by GT6

yep first GTE under 4 minutes, the ferrari 458 looks like it is a good deal better than the rest at the moment

I think the advantage is the Ferrari has the stiffest chassis out there at the moment.

[Livininthinair]

Agreed, the teams know where they want to run today and wont push harder than need be, they are testing on a track that is almost impossible to mimic. Sector times may be faster but nobody is looking to set any records today. I am very happy how the Evoras made it through with no drama. All in all about what most of us expected to see...

[GT6]

Not much in it at the end .2 of a second between 1st and 4th the pugs not slower

[sssssssss]

well, sarrazin just did 3:27.876.

[chernaudi]

That may be for today, but the Audis were on the pace faster and lead most of the sessions.

And it's definenly strange that the other Pug really seemed to struggle--the top 5 ended up within .7 of a second, the the Oreca 908 which was over 3 seconds behind, and the factory 908 was over 5 seconds behind the overall leading #3 Audi.

[Simmi]

Have to agree neither of the big boys have shown their full hand.

Also on a side note it's good to see nothing written off today either from any of the teams.

[sssssssss]

yeah, and let's not forget the setup thing, which - as far as the naked eye can tell - is showing audi were not even set for the best speed.

[Aysedasi]

Leading most of the sessions early on is completely meaningless. It's having the fastest time at the end of the 'real' sessions in June that makes all the differencve - even if you do that on the last lap.

[Number7]

This looks promising for a race where Audi and Peugeot actually is chasing each other down the mulsanne straigt. Just wish that those petrol cars could come up with a bit more competition (even thoug they don't have the budget of the factory teams). Had hoped for more from Rebelllion Toyota and indeed from Aston Martin.

[Livininthinair]

Serrazin just letting everyone know the cards are not yet on the table...
Im very much looking forward to June, that is when you show what you have or dont mind showing up.

[sssssssss]

well, it makes a bit of a difference in a political sense: if peugeot knew they have the speed to beat audi, they would have done it, just out of pure pride and for the image of still being fastest. i think they know they're a tad slower than the audis.

[Aysedasi]

I'm not convinced of that at all. I really think that after last year, when the race was their's - all bar the shouting (and banging!), going to the race in a lower-key fashion and then blitzing Audi in qualifying would be what I'd want to do......

[sssssssss]

could be that too, but so far, as long as they've been in sporscar racing, they were very concerned with the speed thing and with proving everyone they're the fastest - both in the early 90s and from 2007 on, every single year. it's about national pride and all that, i suppose.

[Audi Racer]

I still think peugeot are playing games here. I feel like in the first practice session at the 24 hours of Lemans in june all three peugeots will go out and do 3:25 laptimes on the very First lap( or second lap). itll be kinda like a slap in the face to Audi.

[Tom87]

For my 0.02€/$/£, I can't imagine that Audi or Peugeot gives a monkeys about what either each other or the rest of the world thinks - Audi have always been far too professional for that and so have Peugeot in recent years.

They will both have spent most of the day working through their specific race preperation programmes which will be almost impossible to disect from the outside - at this stage we don't even know what tyres were used (& for how many stints?). If previous LM test days are anything to go by, both sides will have a couple of seconds in reserve for qualifying - presuming they actually chose to show their cards pre-race.

...and finally for some perspective, the difference between the first Audi and the first Peugeot was 0.189s, or 75s over a race distance - which coincidentally is the average life expectancy of a 6-cylinder in the back of an AMR-One!

[chernaudi]

Problem is that I don't think that absolute sandbagging is the Peugeot style--even in '07, the Pugs were slightly faster than the R10's on the test day. Come the race though, the 908s couldn't get anywhere near that pace because of reliablity issues.

I don't think that Peugeot like to sandbag, and it definently took a while for the times to come down to competitive levels. Only things I can think of there is that the Pugs were off in the beginning and found some speed late, or the Audi guys were also sandbagging, as it seems from what some posters have said that even though the drivers (in both camps!) were giving all the could under the circumstances, that the R18's weren't 100% optimized for LM.

I don't think that anyone's shown their full hand yet, but Audi have been known for their mind games in the past. And they're certianly seeming to be a lot more competitively at LM than in the past few years.

[Aysedasi]

Well, I know one thing, you guys can dissect the data all you like, and it will all be different come June....... I'm with Audi Racer at post #317....... (At least I hope that's what happens...... )

[JAG]

Originally Posted by Chiana

The usual, LMP2's general suckiness and FLM's influence to other classes. As Graham said, if you can't explain something in 30 seconds, it's way too complicated

The easy explanation is HPD and the ACO need to sort that particular engine, the grandfather and supplementary regs discussion is the uneccessary complication.

Take that one engine out of the equation and P2 performance in relation to P1 and FLM is fine, 15 seconds slower than P1 pole, 14 seconds quicker than FLM pole.

[chernaudi]

One more thing that's also a bit inconclusive is that with no Highcroft HPD out there, all we can judge on as far as LMP1 gas vs diesel is what the Pescarolo was able to do, which is a car that's a hybrid of grandfathered (restricted engine) and new regs (allowed to run with new bodywork).

The Pesca was the fastest car at Paul Ricard in a straightline, was it not, during the LMS race there earlier this month? If so, then Le Mans is it's forte. But it's a car based on a decade old design and is in part a grandfathered machine. It's a testiment to the expertese of the Pescarolo group that the car is still competitive with the newer gasoline LMP1s, but I don't think that it's 100% represenative of what the gasoline cars can do.

Suffice to say though, at LM, the gasoline engined cars very well may be out of luck, especially if the Audi R18 and the Pug 908s have much better strightline speeds and a ton of torque to take them to those speeds. Better luck may be had at the shorter tracks of the ALMS/LMS/ILMC, but at power tracks, the power and torque of the diesels--and their factory money on top of that--milates against them.

[JAG]

Given how developed the Pescarolo is it's credit to Rebellion they matched their time despite running a program to understand the new aero and larger front tyres.

I think a petrol car can get down to 3.31/2, plus post Spa petrols maybe given a performance break or diesels pulled back.

[Gil Abobeleira]

It will be interesting dissecting the sector times, as well as the speedtraps, if the ACO disclose this information.

[Acid09]

Back in the hotel...whew what a day...

Funny to see the usual Audi suspects already celebrating the results, hang on to the test day "win"..you might need it to cheer you up on Sunday afternoon come June

Peugeot hasn't shown their full hand and I think it's smart. Given that the ACO has said they don't want cars to go below 3:30 on a regular basis, it's clever to not show the car's full potential until Thursday the earliest.

Some random observations:

- The new 908 sounds incredibly sweet, raw & powerful, the old "Diesel cars don't have proper sound" talking point has to be dropped. The car can even be heard when it's surrounded by screamers like the 458...very nice! The R18 sounds "meh" though...

- .. it makes up for that with another "feature" though. The car is a nasty smoker, I don't think I´ve ever seen any Diesel put out this much black smoke. We all know that the ACO does not enforce the "no visible immisions" rule but Audi is taking it too far here. Watching from the Esses, it was always easy to see the R18 coming, just look out for the big black cloud under the Dunlop-bridge. No visible smoke on the 908, and that's certainly not my bias talking..

- What a disgrace the Aston Martin show in LMP1 was. As great as the DBR1 sounds, I don't think it did more than 20 laps. Does anybody know why? And the new LMP1 is just a failure so far... laughable reliability and it looked and sounded weak.. I can't believe they didn't bring spare engines, they should be desperate to get as much miles on the car as possible, it's not like they have many more chances to test the car in a competition environment before the 24h...

- It's visible that the LMP2 cars lack power. Great through the corners but there just isn't any punch on the straights... too bad, the Oreca 03s looked awesome... I wish they would give them a little more to work with.

- The test day draws a bigger crowd than 95% of all other sports car races. That dosen't say much but in all honesty, I was surprised with the spectator turnout. Long queue at the ticket booth in the morning, the Ford chicance & Dunlop grand stands were packed all day (and by packed I mean completely full)... looks like the locals dig the test day. Let's hope the ACO dosen't surrender to the ALMS whining and keeps the test day in the schedule for next year... by what I can tell it's a huge success all around.

- The whole "let's simulate a safety car period" thing felt a bit like an excercise in wasting everybody's time... at least the guys in the fire truck got a chance to lap the track lol... If it helps averting chaos during the race I´m all for it, I´ve never seen any series do such a simulation though.. robbed the teams of at least 30 minutes of track time.

- Has the ACO lost the Rolex sponsorship? All green former Rolex walls were blank and the logos were even removed from the start/finish clock.

- What was that prototype lapping with a passenger during the lunch break? Looked like a CN-car type of thing...