Engine power

[paulzinho]

Ok Ok, it was the roof! I'll admit that I think the current crop of cars look terribly ugly, mind you I won't watch them in anything other than Le Mans, whereas with the Group C cars I love watching the videos of them in anything!

[pirenzo]

I don't think that the current generation of cars are ugly.
Note particularly the Audi (note signature below)
But the bentley and courage are quite pretty in their own respects.

And not all Grp. C cars were that good looking (but they sound great)

I think that one of the least attractive Grp. C cars were some of the Nissans. (and that the 99 TWR car wasn't any nicer)

[paulzinho]

I love the Bentley, but by and large I find the open top prototypes unattractive. Though I do have a soft spot for the MG and the Dallara's, though that was down to livery more than anything....

Still if they produce good racing then I guess thats enough......as long as they've got a roof! (just kidding!)

[pirenzo]

I understand that they don't have such clear lines, like a Group C car would, but these days they're not designed so much just to cut throught the air, they have a more complex aerodynamic function to perform too.

I think they are beautiful in their own way.

But yes, they do look better with a roof!

[manicmechanic]

I personally don't believe in restrictions, I mean I know there has to a way to keep costs down, but not at the expense of being able to build a better mousetrap.

[norman-normal]

It's time to abandon the petrol powerd engine, give a five year notice; we will all be better off. Also, the ones who devise these rules never seem to be, or have been race drivers. Why?

[pirenzo]

Because then there would be no need for governing bodies, which make a lot of money, and they wouldn't want it to go to the drivers. Money talks!

And, the idea of no petrol engines is frankly absurd, and in what ways will we better off? None.

All other forms are either impractical, or unexciting, nothing else makes enough noise, or power.

[xjr5006]

Limit the fuel limit the power, simple as that. A less PC way would be to ban all safety devices such as helmets belts roll loops etc and insist that feet are forward of the crash structure.
Bet this would work after the dumb heros where no longer racing. But I doubt it would be passed and it wouldn't be fair on those who had unfortunate incidents. There also might not be enough good drivers left!
Guess fuel it is then
Don

[H16]

A big problem with simply reducing power is that it gives the engine companies room to look at improving drivability, acceleration, traction, etc. The turbo Hondas were producing upwards of 1000 BHP in qualifying trim in 1987 and 1988 during the finale days of F1's turbo. The atmo cars originally had between 650-700 BHP in 1989, and were producing similar lap times.

Having said that, you can look at the DPs out there and realize that you can go too far in limiting power. When the drivers, media, and fans want the cars to be just a liiiiiitle quicker, and they say they won't do it except to "regulate" competition, yes, this could be one reason that the DP has not gotten the greatest response.

ACO doesn't need more flying episodes and are trying to not be too crazy with just a year of the remaining formula left.

The fact that Cadillac would claim that they couldn't race in 2003 because of "the numerous regulation changes that would make their car too expensive to adhere to" is typical of the fact that GM either addressed that to people who have never watched sports car racing or whoever wrote that had no clue what they were talking about, pretty much like everyone else behind the LMP project being axed. Hey GM, how much does it cost to change the restrictor to cut power?

Group C was destroyed when the FIA tried to run it with F1 style rules. Dereck Daly, former Group C driver for Nissan, Jaguar, etc, once said in the booth that "the class was banned because they spent too much money". It wasn't banned because they spent too much money, it fell apart because few saw any joy in running F1 spec engines in long distance races. No more turbos, no more rotaries, just atmo engines. And guess what? Group C didn't last very long afterwards.

[pirenzo]

H16, it's interesting what you say about the F1 Group C's,

I bet that the regulations were implemented, to stop it becoming too popular.

Bernie Ecclestone probably saw some of his precious TV money from F1 being lessened by viewers turning away from F1 to go see sportscars.

[malcolmstrachan]

I must say that I prefer roofs on prototypes... I think they look so much better, and they are so much safer. With a big open-top prototype (at 900+ kg or 1980+ lbs), if it landed upside down in a gravel trap, the single roll-hoop would either sink, or get ripped away (even double roll-hoops aren't very safe, as sadly proven by what happened at Homestead early last year...).

Looking back at Group C, they were awesome cars. Lots of power, excellent racing, and with today's safety standards applied, they would be incredibly safe. I am not too sure, but I think I heard that spec tunnels would be introduced for 2004 (please correct me if I am wrong). If that is indeed true, then they could limit the downforce by mandating a slightly inefficient design. Then most of the downforce could come from wings, and larger tires could be allowed. With the increased drag, more power could be allowed (750-800 bhp would be reasonable, even though I would love to see something around 900+... *insert evil laugh here*), and top speeds on the mulsanne wouldn't be too high.

As for the alternate fuel idea... I would love to see it incorporated into a smaller prototype class and/or the GT class... Make it so that cars that incorporate fuel-saving measures would have a bit of an advantage. It would be great to see a public arena for energy-saving vehicles to be developed. Seeing compressed natural gas, against hydrogen, electric hybrids, turbo-diesels, perhaps even solar assisted cars (sponsors wouldn't be too happy...), et al, would be really interesting, and would add a lot of flavour to the spirit of endurance racing. It would also bring a lot publicity to Le Mans, and perhaps the ALMS as well.

[pirenzo]

As I was told by someone somewhere on this forum, the spec tunnels are to be implemented, but are aimed at making the cars more stable, not to give them more grip, and in fact there will be a overall decrease in downforce

[NissanGTP]

The wind tunnel model for the Piper sportscar (Piper have been working with the FIA on the new regs) was at the Autosport show. There were definatly sizable tunnels on the car. The tunnels were quite a similar size to those on a Group-C car. They begin as two raised sections ~2mm deep and 30mm wide (on the model) which start at the front of the floor, behind the nose diffuser..

[pirenzo]

So fairly extensive then.

What scale was the model?