Audi LMP1 Discussion

[Dunlop Corner]

Yes the Audi was mega on the tires! It was very interesting how this wear advantage to some extend neutralized Peugeots better milleage. I wonder how the R18 can do 3 hours on a set while the R15 struggled to do 1½ hour. Surely the compounds were not much harder this year?

However i do think Audi made a tactical mistake in not changing the tires with 1 or even 1½ hour to go. Now they race 3 hours on one set and ½ hour on another. They should rather have done around 2 hours on each set. It nearly cost them since Lotterer picked up a slow puncture on the old set, but it was close enough to fuel the car to the finish.

[chernaudi]

They probably gave Andre softer tires to give him more grip that last stint, because he pulled away from Pag almost at will by the tune of 1-3 seconds a lap before he settled down to maintaining a gap.

The Audi had better tires at the end, as they were softer and fresher, while Simon had to fight with 3.5 stint old tires.

And the R18 doing 5 stints on tires (and the R18's stints were only on average 1 lap less than last year) seems to confirm that the Pugs have a narrow set up window, especially in LM trim, as they seemed to be fairly wild cars to drive on worn tires and in traffic, and hence Audi's speed advantage--it wasn't so much that the Pug was slower over a clean lap on equal tires, as the times typically were competitive though out much of the race--but the Audi was more consistant and it may be the fact that the R18 ran a bit more downforce than the Pugs that helped their handling and to get the most out of their tires.

I wonder how this will play out in the remaining ILMC events, as the R18 has often been faster at the shorter tracks, too, and the Peugeot's slight straight line speed advantage doesn't mean as much as it did at LM.

[Victor_RO]

http://a.yfrog.com/img736/2875/wopv.jpg

Picture of the #1 car after its crash... that car is officially history.

[henk4]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

I wonder how this will play out in the remaining ILMC events, as the R18 has often been faster at the shorter tracks, too, and the Peugeot's slight straight line speed advantage doesn't mean as much as it did at LM.

Just for my information, which shorter tracks are you referring to? (The R18 so far has raced at Spa and Le Mans)

[Audi Racer]

Originally Posted by Victor_RO

http://a.yfrog.com/img736/2875/wopv.jpg

Picture of the #1 car after its crash... that car is officially history.

i can imagine that Audi was slightly annoyed as well that there car was sitting, rear end completely exposed, for photographers and peugeot people. But of course they were most worried about the driver.

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by Audi Racer

i can imagine that Audi was slightly annoyed as well that there car was sitting, rear end completely exposed, for photographers and peugeot people. But of course they were most worried about the driver.

Uh... what rear end? Everything except the tub is pretty much mangled beyond recognition.

[henk4]

Originally Posted by Victor_RO

Uh... what rear end? Everything except the tub is pretty much mangled beyond recognition.

and yet I would not be surprised if this tub can still be used. These things are so strong, and the breaking off of all the attached parts only helped to absorb the energy of the crash. If they will use it again, Audi will surely tell everybody, to prove the point of its strength.

[gwyllion]

The RCE article on the Audi R18 is available on http://www.racecar-engineering.com/a...-le-mans-2011/

One of the reasons why Audi chose the V6 layout is that they expect the ACO to restrict the performance of diesel engines during the lifetime of the R18. That was also one of the reasons why they went from V12 to V10 with the R15.

[Audi Racer]

Originally Posted by Victor_RO

Uh... what rear end? Everything except the tub is pretty much mangled beyond recognition.

The Allan Mcnish crash is pretty telling. The engine bay area is still intact and you can see everything thats going on. Theres one really good picture of the allan mcnish crash. ill post it when i find it

[gwyllion]

The complete rear end of the R18 has already been exposed in http://www.mulsannescorner.com/RCELeMans2011.html

[höller]

Audi has won twice at LM 2011 imo, the race and the competition for the safest car. There have never been such dreadful accidents without serious consequences and I cannot tell how relieved I was as both drivers walked away!! Afterwards, there was a discussion on Eurosport about the car concept and they were agreeing that the coupe concept has contributed very much to drivers safety: Allans R 18 was bouncing on the top of the barrier headlong, before it took a header. So the roof was protecting him very much from the impact and the debris flying all over the place and it was similar at Mikes accident. Also the fact that an integral chassis with bodywork and roof (which was manufactured as a unity) has much more rigidity to offer may have contributed to that. So the comparison between open and closed concept was all about aerodynamics and strategy up to now but I think there is also a big safety issue to ponder about.

[henk4]

Originally Posted by höller

Audi has won twice at LM 2011 imo, the race and the competition for the safest car.

Agreed on the first win, but the second is a win is a bit hollow as not all cars entered in that competition

[höller]

For gods sake they didn´t but the Audi R 18 seems bullet proof to me. It´s a tank!

[gwyllion]

From the Audi Sport twitter:

Update on Mike Rockenfeller: He is back home after his huge accident at Le Mans. Audi will give him all the time he needs to recover

There will be no decision before Thursday if Mike Rockenfeller will race in DTM at Lausitzring. Audi wants to give him time to recover

The DTM race is next weekend. That could be a bit early after such a big crash.

[GTRMagic]

Originally Posted by henk4

Agreed on the first win, but the second is a win is a bit hollow as not all cars entered in that competition

A couple gave it a good go though! Mr Magnussen in the Corvette springs to mind

[henk4]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

A couple gave it a good go though! Mr Magnussen in the Corvette springs to mind

testing the safety of a Porsche?

[chernaudi]

Originally Posted by henk4

and yet I would not be surprised if this tub can still be used. These things are so strong, and the breaking off of all the attached parts only helped to absorb the energy of the crash. If they will use it again, Audi will surely tell everybody, to prove the point of its strength.

One of the guys from Speed said that they saw the tub, and it was pretty much intact aside from a very small nick in the front where the nose box attaches to the car. I don't know if Audi would want to use the tub again in a race, but at worse, if what has been said about it (and the #3) are true, they'll certainly end up like one of the Pescarolo C60s that got it's tub damaged at Le Mans, and end up being a race-ready show car.

And from the photos and reports I've seen and heard, the tubs were pretty much untouched in those accidents as far as major damage.

And as for the smaller tracks, places like Imola, Silverstone, Road Atlanta and Zhuhai place a larger emphasis on handling, grip, and braking. Audi had those advantages over the Pug at Le Mans, as sector times namely in the Porsche Curves will show (R18s also had the fastest first sector times as well).

The Pug only had the advantage in sector 2, which is where all the straights are, and Peugeot's speed advantage there certainly isn't the nearly 10mph that they had over Audi in past years; it's now more like 3-4 mph, and down a straight as long as the Mulsanne sections are, that won't equate to much at most other tracks.

It seems that when the cars are in identical aero trim, the Audi has a bit more lap time in it. Not to mention that Audi did a couple of 5 stint tire runs and seemed to be usually more consistant in their lap times during the whole of the race.

[manthey]

from this article

http://www.quattroruote.it/notizie/s...citori-e-vinti

tréluyer Finally, spend a word of thanks 'for Marco Bonanomi', the young Italian driver joined the team of Audi, underlining 'he gave a great help'

from what I read, he made 10 laps at le mans test, do you know he was more involved in the r18's development?

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

It seems that when the cars are in identical aero trim, the Audi has a bit more lap time in it. Not to mention that Audi did a couple of 5 stint tire runs and seemed to be usually more consistant in their lap times during the whole of the race.

As you can read on http://www.mulsannescorner.com/RCELeMans2011.html Audi ran with more downforce than Peugeot.

This had a number of consequences:
+ faster in Porsche curves
+ better in traffic when driving of the racing line
+ less tyre wear
- lower top speed
- higher fuel consumption

[henk4]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

And as for the smaller tracks, places like Imola, Silverstone, Road Atlanta and Zhuhai place a larger emphasis on handling, grip, and braking. Audi had those advantages over the Pug at Le Mans, as sector times namely in the Porsche Curves will show (R18s also had the fastest first sector times as well).

The Pug only had the advantage in sector 2, which is where all the straights are, and Peugeot's speed advantage there certainly isn't the nearly 10mph that they had over Audi in past years; it's now more like 3-4 mph, and down a straight as long as the Mulsanne sections are, that won't equate to much at most other tracks.

It seems that when the cars are in identical aero trim, the Audi has a bit more lap time in it. Not to mention that Audi did a couple of 5 stint tire runs and seemed to be usually more consistant in their lap times during the whole of the race.

So it is not that the R18s have already raced on those tracks, but once more it is your interpretation/speculation. What if Peugeot adds some more downforce, which according to some, they did at Spa, and with great success? Even Peugeot may have learned one or two things this weekend.

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by manthey

tréluyer Finally, spend a word of thanks 'for Marco Bonanomi', the young Italian driver joined the team of Audi, underlining 'he gave a great help'

from what I read, he made 10 laps at le mans test, do you know he was more involved in the r18's development?

Yes, he helped with the development. He was for instance present in the Sebring test and the Monza test.

Kristensen mentioned on the Radio Le Mans that he was the chauffeur on the #3 car. He compared him a lot with Capello: Italian, distracted while driving them to the track, he puts the radio as loud as Dindo, ...

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

Kristensen mentioned on the Radio Le Mans that he was the chauffeur on the #3 car. He compared him a lot with Capello: Italian, distracted while driving them to the track, he puts the radio as loud as Dindo, ...

As I said some time ago, if Dindo retires, they still need to keep a certain quota of general Italian-ness in the team.

[chernaudi]

Originally Posted by henk4

So it is not that the R18s have already raced on those tracks, but once more it is your interpretation/speculation. What if Peugeot adds some more downforce, which according to some, they did at Spa, and with great success? Even Peugeot may have learned one or two things this weekend.

For the last time, Audi had their LM stuff at Spa, while Peugeot had to run more downforce at Spa to fix their handing problems.

Audi ran more downforce at LM, and when the cars are in the same spec (LM bodywork), the R18 has more downforce for similar drag numbers, as the R18's weren't that much slower down the straights than the 908s--Fassler drafted Davidson and got right up on his tail when Fassler forced Ant into that mistake at the first Chicane.

Straightline speed, oddly, doesn't seem to mean as much under the new regs as it did up through last year. There were three things that Audi had this year that they didn't last year: The R18 is a closed car, they don't seem to have the horsepower gap to Peugeot that they had the last several years, and the R18 was designed like the R8, to be a car that can be raced anywhere with fairly minor changes and isn't the compormised car that the R15 was in both of it's major versions.

And all of Peugeot's attempts to reduce drag--including basically mounting their second wing element upside down on their cars--didn't gain them much, only about 3-4 mph down the straights, but it cost them big with tire wear and handling, as they lost a lot of time in traffic and even if they could go 12 laps vs 11, the speed differential was too great.

In fact, things could've been worse for Peugeot, as Audi revealed that the #2 Audi had a fuel pick up issue that kept them from using a full tank, which probably--if true--goes some way to explaining the 1 lap gap on stints. After all, on one of his stint on the damp track, Lotterer ran 12 laps, and the Pugs, with the reduced pace, could only muster and equal 12 laps. So Audi probably wasn't that far off from doing 12 lap stints, but they'd have to have slowed down to Peugeot pace to do them.

It perplexes me that with the reduced power that everyone would be taking drag off their cars (which is logical), but it seems that the gains by doing so, even at Le Mans, were of minimal effect, and may've done more harm than good in the end.

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

Audi ran more downforce at LM, and when the cars are in the same spec (LM bodywork), the R18 has more downforce for similar drag numbers, as the R18's weren't that much slower down the straights than the 908s--Fassler drafted Davidson and got right up on his tail when Fassler forced Ant into that mistake at the first Chicane.

Mike calculated that the difference in drag was about 60 lb. That is 7%, if you assume the Peugeot had around 870 lb drag. See http://www.mulsannescorner.com/RCELeMans2011.html

You seem to believe that the fact that Peugeot could only quadrupple stint the soft compound is solely caused by less downforce. There are probably a lot of contributing factors: aero, balance, suspension set up, ... Remember that Peugeot and Audi had slightly different tyres (construction, compound). So Peugeot maybe did no have the best tyre for the track condition.

Originally Posted by chernaudi

In fact, things could've been worse for Peugeot, as Audi revealed that the #2 Audi had a fuel pick up issue that kept them from using a full tank, which probably--if true--goes some way to explaining the 1 lap gap on stints.

Where did you read that the #2 Audi had a fuel pick up issue? The Audi press article states "the full 65-liter capacity could not be used." That just means that they could do 11.x laps on a full tank, but not 12. Consequently they could not run the tank completely empty.

Also note that the other 2 Audis could not do 12 lap stints either.

[chernaudi]

The other two also DNF'd long before the wet weather came late.

And in '03, Bentley couldn't use their full 90 liters either, and that was ID'd as a fuel pickup issue.

Also why could Audi only be assured of running 11 laps at LM, while Peugeot and Audi had similar stint times at Spa? Different setups, or is it mainly down to percentages of time at full throttle between LM and other tracks?