[WEC Race] Bahrain 6 Hours 2012

[gwyllion]

The problems with the lights appear to be a global issue.

[Creep89]

SC but why?

[spectre200]

I heard 'debris on track'.

[airbusA346]

Originally Posted by spectre200

I heard 'debris on track'.

Correct.

[airbusA346]

#7 crashed

[911targa]

Toyota done!

[Creep89]

Right front suspension broken

[gwyllion]

Strange that Lapierre does not try to get the car back to the pits.

[TF110]

I think Strakka may have had something to do with it, unless it just broke.

[Dead-Eye]

edit: disregard

[TF110]

Yup, knew it. Strakka turned into him.

[outnumbered]

Sure about that? Looked like the Toyota might have gone for the inside too late....

[gwyllion]

Indeed. That seemed like an optimistic move from Lapierre on the inside of Kane.

[TF110]

He still got turned into.

[TF110]

Wasn't Kane already a lap down on the #7? Maybe he didn't realize it was a lapping car.

[maximus]

Doesn't matter! Lapierre went for a move that looked to be far too late and it wasn't on, just because the Strakka was a lap down doesn't mean he should jump off the track.

[gwyllion]

The LMP2 leader, Starworks HPD, is not restarting

[maximus]

I think it's going now, what a shame!

[CTD]

10-Tenths Chatroom

Online Right Now!
(Link in the red text and here: http://tiny.cc/tenthschat)

[wewantourdarbyback]

^^ the things you miss out on when you take a break from internet forums for a while.

[Peter Mallett]

Originally Posted by NelisB

A tv director that doesn't agree with the race in bahrain perhaps

Originally Posted by spectre200

Quite possibly. We sometimes forget what's going on there. I was looking for pictures of practice/quali on a certain photo website, searching for pictures tagged Bahrain taken on those dates. Half the pictures were of people throwing Molotov cocktails at the police.

It is a shame that the perception doesn't reflect reality. The region is not known for its sporting prowess so empty stands is not unusual, especially when Sunday is a working day. That said, the circuit doesn't lend itself to viewing, for many reasons, not least the need for shade in the daytime so wandering around is not encouraged.

As to the politics, there was a fire bomb attack on a police vehicle yesterday, so the security forces were very visible. As usual though, I found the people to be very pleasant and courteous. I concur, things are not brilliant, but as someone who lives out here I would ask those who wish to comment to actually come out and take a peek, you'd probably be surprised.

And as we are now discovering, the whole thing is not about democracy.

I had to get back to Doha so missed the race, hopefully some of the many pics I took yesterday, will be suitable for posting.

[TF110]

Lapierre says the Strakka had blue flags waiving for him, I guess he thought they'd slow and heed the position. http://www.toyotahybridracing.com/to...ed-in-bahrain/

[gwyllion]

During the race I was wondering how the race would have evolved if Toyota did not have to fix the illuminated car number. I just had a look at the timing data on http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/ to try to answer this question.

Toyota's third pitstop toke 8 min 38 sec and not 1 min 20 sec, like the first two stops. That means that Toyota lost 7 min 18 sec with the repair of the number panels.

The Toyota crashed 4 hours 40 min into the race, after it had completed 144 laps. At that moment the Toyota was 3 laps and 46 sec behind the #1 Audi. If we assume that one takes 1 min 49 sec, the gap between #1 and #7 would have 6 min 13 sec. So hypothetical the Toyota would have been 1 min 5 sec into the lead at that stage of the race.

We know that Toyota would have had to do a 7th fuel stop to finish the race, whereas the #1 Audi only had to do 6 stops. That additional stop would have cost Toyota around 1 min 20 sec.

Conclusion: Toyota would have needed to gain an additional 15 sec on the track, in order to keep the lead after its last stop. That suggests that it could have been a very close finish.

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by TF110

Lapierre says the Strakka had blue flags waiving for him, I guess he thought they'd slow and heed the position.

Kane explained that he did not know that Lapierre was behind him because the Toyota's transponder was not working:

I had a little coming together with the #7 Toyota. Its transponder wasn’t working, so we didn’t know it was following me, but where it tried to overtake I don’t really think was the right place because they have a massive straight-line speed advantage over us and could have safely overtaken on a straight. At the end of the day it was just a racing incident, but it gave us a puncture, damaged a side pod and upset the balance of the car so it was sliding about a lot. Luckily we were able to continue at a fairly good pace and finish the race.

source: http://www.strakkaracing.com/article...-Bahrain.shtml

[TF110]

They had a top speed of 280kmh, compared to 275kmh for the Strakka. That's not massive! I think their acceleration is what is the biggest difference. Looks like Kane thought he was just another LMP2 or something. I think Lapierre was trying to hurry up and lap the cars, being down 3 laps and all.