2014 Blancpain Endurance Series

[gert]

Originally Posted by J Jay

Do we have a time stamp on when #77 developed this issue? At the very least Luhr, Werner and Paltala have had to drive without the electronics.

No idea but that is hours ago...

I think it happened during Paltalla's stint. Afterwards it was Luhr, Paltalla again and now Werner.
So, 4 -5 hours ago?

[TheDude]

A Good drive by the #77

Who lead the championship now?

[Mitchi_S]

Laurens Vanthoor.

[BudLightJaguar]

Happy to see Palttala's* team taking the second place!

* two T's and one L

[gert]

Originally Posted by BudLightJaguar

Happy to see Palttala's* team taking the second place!

* two T's and one L

Oops. It's spelled wrong on the live timing then, I copied it from there...


I would be happier if they'd won.
I really think Palttala is a bit underrated. He's absolutely on par with the rest of the team.

[JoestForEver]

Originally Posted by TheDude

and people still complain about AMR in wec...

Keep on trolling then. People complain about Aston BoP advantage because they just eat sleep race repeat with that for almost ten years on a grandfather chassis while Ferrari has brought 360, 430 and 458 GT2 to race and 991 from Porsche. They get criticism because they are lazy.
In the case of Audi, if you do check the FIA BoP sheet, you'll see the difference which explains why Audi won everything 2012 and lost them to SLS everywhere in 2013. Non or few of the Audi R8s was in superpole last year.

Earlier this year even, if you check Monza, they were being passed by everyone on every straight. Call all that sandbagging.

Of course they have overcooked the BoP a little because only restrictor break should do. All those weight changes is unnecessary.

On the other hand, FIA GT1 era still created close racing with success ballast difference of 50kg. So 25kg is far from significant. Audi pole is only four hundredth faster even in the hands of Winkelhock, one of the best GT drivers post GT1 and their race pace of #3 and #2 is consistently slower, so I'd give the BoP work 8/10

[Rodger Davies]

I don't want to get sucked into that after we just watched a great race.






But the Vantage road version hasn't changed in that time. Why would the racecar?


Spa was great though, nearly missed my plane because I refused to leave before the Audi was back in the lead. Great race, great cars, great track, many great drivers, great event.

Hoping for good news with regards to Marcus Mahy in the meantime.

[Salamus]

I'm just glad the #3 Audi didn't win.

I wish Marc VDS won, but that team always seems to be snake-bitten on the big stage.

[gert]

Originally Posted by Salamus

I'm just glad the #3 Audi didn't win.

I wish Marc VDS won, but that team always seems to be snake-bitten on the big stage.

Yeah, they really never have the luck required to get the big one...
Neither here nor at the Nurburgring (or the BES championship)

[JoestForEver]

Originally Posted by Salamus

I'm just glad the #3 Audi didn't win.

I wish Marc VDS won, but that team always seems to be snake-bitten on the big stage.

BMW just need to recruit more factory GT drivers to support their customers. Look at Aston, Turner and Mucke everywhere. Look at Audi, basically the whole line up of #1#2#3 is factory drivers except Sandstrom, Vanthoor, and Ortelli(Possibly). For BMW they only have Maxime Martin, Dirk and Jorg. Farfus is just someone from another series called DTM but not the ace needed.

[divxx]

Hats off to MVDS for making a race of it with great driving and strategy, I think they spent something like 7min less in the pits, but it wasn't enough.

Looks like Audi applied their recent Le Mans strategy to this year's Spa: don't worry about fuel and the hell with extending tire life, just hammer it. I wasn't rooting for them, but it was the best car/team/driver combination.

And sorry if this is a dumb question, but does the recent BoP adjustments go into effect for all GT3 championships as well?

[gert]

Originally Posted by JoestForEver

BMW just need to recruit more factory GT drivers to support their customers. Look at Aston, Turner and Mucke everywhere. Look at Audi, basically the whole line up of #1#2#3 is factory drivers except Sandstrom, Vanthoor, and Ortelli(Possibly). For BMW they only have Maxime Martin, Dirk and Jorg. Farfus is just someone from another series called DTM but not the ace needed.

I don't know... They non-factory drivers certainly weren't slower than the factory drivers.
And it was a factory driver who f*****d up in the #66 car.

Jörg is certainly fast, but he makes too many mistakes IMO.

[TheDude]

Originally Posted by JoestForEver

Keep on trolling then. People complain about Aston BoP advantage because they just eat sleep race repeat with that for almost ten years on a grandfather chassis while Ferrari has brought 360, 430 and 458 GT2 to race and 991 from Porsche. They get criticism because they are lazy.
In the case of Audi, if you do check the FIA BoP sheet, you'll see the difference which explains why Audi won everything 2012 and lost them to SLS everywhere in 2013. Non or few of the Audi R8s was in superpole last year.

Earlier this year even, if you check Monza, they were being passed by everyone on every straight. Call all that sandbagging.

Of course they have overcooked the BoP a little because only restrictor break should do. All those weight changes is unnecessary.

On the other hand, FIA GT1 era still created close racing with success ballast difference of 50kg. So 25kg is far from significant. Audi pole is only four hundredth faster even in the hands of Winkelhock, one of the best GT drivers post GT1 and their race pace of #3 and #2 is consistently slower, so I'd give the BoP work 8/10

I'm not trolling or anything like, and I agree, we need back success ballast.

EDIT: Audi made the SECOND fastest lap at Monza, I wouldnt call that slow, and yet they received a bop break.
The R8 is just and average car that needs such helps to succeed

25 KG over 24H can help a lot

Even the pit window rule was made for audi

[gert]

Originally Posted by TheDude

I'm not trolling or anything like, and I agree, we need back success ballast.

EDIT: Audi made the SECOND fastest lap at Monza, I wouldnt call that slow, and yet they received a bop break.
The R8 is just and average car that needs such helps to succeed

25 KG over 24H can help a lot

Even the pit window rule was made for audi

I agree with you on 1 thing: with BoP there's always someone complaining

A fastest lap (or second fast for that matter) doesn't mean anything without the context.
* did they just take on new tires while everyone was on old tires?
* did they get a massive tow down the straights?
* was it a normal racing lap
* did it rain, and was it just a matter of being on the right tire at the right time?

I don't know the circumstance, I'm just saying that a fastest lap means nothing.
Pérez has one in a F1 race, yet it would be exaggerated to call him the fastest man in that race.

[TheDude]

Originally Posted by gert

I agree with you on 1 thing: with BoP there's always someone complaining

A fastest lap (or second fast for that matter) doesn't mean anything without the context.
* did they just take on new tires while everyone was on old tires?
* did they get a massive tow down the straights?
* was it a normal racing lap
* did it rain, and was it just a matter of being on the right tire at the right time?

I don't know the circumstance, I'm just saying that a fastest lap means nothing.
Pérez has one in a F1 race, yet it would be exaggerated to call him the fastest man in that race.

I think we're going off topic here, but was there bop during the FIA GT years ?

I guess every class had base power/weight ratio

[Deleted]

Mmh, I remembered last year's race being the first single-category formula, but I was wrong - this was...

2014 - GT3
2013 - GT3 & GT3 Cup
2012 - GT3 & GT3 Cup
2011 - GT3 & GT3 Cup & GT4
2010 - GT2 & GT3 & GT3 Cup & GT4
2009 - GT1 & GT2 & GT3 & GT3 Cup/NAT
etc

Originally Posted by TheDude

I think we're going off topic here, but was there bop during the FIA GT years ?

I guess every class had base power/weight ratio

There was BoP in GT1 and GT2 (which with SRO was definitely more intense than in ACO trim) but not in GT3 levels. Success ballast was used as more active force

[Creep89]

Originally Posted by TheDude

I'm not trolling or anything like, and I agree, we need back success ballast.

EDIT: Audi made the SECOND fastest lap at Monza, I wouldnt call that slow, and yet they received a bop break.
The R8 is just and average car that needs such helps to succeed

25 KG over 24H can help a lot

Even the pit window rule was made for audi

Why did they made the second best lap? Because there is a track specific BoP this year. Ratel stated that, either on a site like EI, DSC or in the German magazine SportAuto.

Edit: found it: http://tentenths.com/forum/showpost....&postcount=242

[ger80]

For the pro category with "factory interests" you really should have technical regulations like in the good old GT1/GT2 days. A GT3 type BOP class is great for Pro/Am and Am ...

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by ger80

For the pro category with "factory interests" you really should have technical regulations like in the good old GT1/GT2 days. A GT3 type BOP class is great for Pro/Am and Am ...

Yes but then again they have the same problem now with GTE-PRO in the world's biggest motor race...

Anyway what's happened with SRO's eternal hate towards factory teams? I mean surely anyone with their bare eyes can see that the Audis etc here are full blown works efforts, just with camourflage titles. In the old days works entries weren't able to score points, like GT1 Aston Martins and Nissans etc

[Rodger Davies]

Originally Posted by ger80

For the pro category with "factory interests" you really should have technical regulations like in the good old GT1/GT2 days. A GT3 type BOP class is great for Pro/Am and Am ...

GT3 was originally intended that way, as a gentleman driver class. Thing was, factories started to see the market open up because the cars were being accepted to major enduros, so they target those races and also target other series in order to advertise the car to potential (GT racing) customers. 'Victim' of its own success.

Then, to secure customers and service, the factories started offering more support. The German teams in particular had widespread efforts to assign engineers to assist all customer teams and supply them with data and information. A good after-sales addition to the customer's profit.

Now we're moving more and more in direction of the factory teams running drivers directly as customers. Look at the Astons in British GT and at Spa. All bar one were AMR run, with a different name on the door depending on who the customer is. Audi have their 'Race Experience' programme at the N24 and VLN. You think Dusseldorp, Jaafar, Primat etc are picked by Mercedes? They're indirect customers of the team. So HTP is being funded by sponsorship brought by these drivers and is being partially run by AMG personnel.

Personally I like it the way it is now, there's a healthy around mix where we have different classes. Expecting privateer teams to run Pro lineups, whilst there's plenty of historical precedent, isn't as realistic any more, so if a Pro element is wanted, it's more than often going to need some factory support.

[Deleted]

GT4 is basically what GT3 was intended to be (IMO what it should've been). For now...

Btw it's sort of mind boggling that after 3 years of the death GT1 and GT2 being renamed to GTE, GT3 is still called GT3. I'm sure there's some orphan trackside somewhere right now wondering what the **** that 3 means there.

Perhaps Ratel or some FIA committee just wants to keep those old numbers unused and intact 'just in case'

[urdragon]

Originally Posted by TheDude

we need back success ballast.

Welcome back to the world of noone understanding why a car that performs well on fast corners, does it wrong due to wining the last race, welcome to the world of absurd. Or when the Maserati MC12 won cyclically in the same way as their ballast was present or not. Absurd.

[Rodger Davies]

Originally Posted by Chiana

GT4 is basically what GT3 was intended to be (IMO what it should've been). For now...

Btw it's sort of mind boggling that after 3 years of the death GT1 and GT2 being renamed to GTE, GT3 is still called GT3. I'm sure there's some orphan trackside somewhere right now wondering what the **** that 3 means there.

Perhaps Ratel or some FIA committee just wants to keep those old numbers unused and intact 'just in case'

That's nothing particularly new though, we've always had 'Group X' and so on through the years.

I like both GT3 and GT4 as the cars currently are, although maybe the GT4 models could be a little different (Cayman instead of 911, for example). CTSCC in the US has a good set of cars that fit that mould too, although not sure how they compare.

Was really impressed by the GT4 field running in support at Spa. Being mixed in with the Belgian championship was a bit strange, but they were having some great fights through that pack.

The mixing of GT3 and GT4 is the one thing I'd like to see (back) in Blancpain. Otherwise (in fact, despite that), it's all good.

[BullMan]

Originally Posted by Rodger Davies

That's nothing particularly new though, we've always had 'Group X' and so on through the years.

I like both GT3 and GT4 as the cars currently are, although maybe the GT4 models could be a little different (Cayman instead of 911, for example). CTSCC in the US has a good set of cars that fit that mould too, although not sure how they compare.

Was really impressed by the GT4 field running in support at Spa. Being mixed in with the Belgian championship was a bit strange, but they were having some great fights through that pack.

The mixing of GT3 and GT4 is the one thing I'd like to see (back) in Blancpain. Otherwise (in fact, despite that), it's all good.

Conti Challenge GS cars are GT4 equivalent. The Astons are GT4 cars without the rear wing.

[Mike Hedlund]

Originally Posted by Rodger Davies

The mixing of GT3 and GT4 is the one thing I'd like to see (back) in Blancpain. Otherwise (in fact, despite that), it's all good.

I think GT3 cars are too fast to be mixed with GT4. They're essentially the fastest GT cars available. GT4 are street cars..... the gap is huge.

-mike