Asian Le Mans Series

[Fogelhund]

Originally Posted by Purist

I mean, Road America is a couple of hours away from any major cities in its region, but it gets good crowds.

[AndrewF31]

Originally Posted by Japanese Samurai

Tsukuba is very dangerous circuit. No escape zone.
1994 JTCC Tsukuba round movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utvT3vQuYDc

Lol, looked like Richard Petty drove a Honda Civic and hit Steve Soper in his Fina-Warsteiner BMW.
The start of that crash looks like Synchronized swimming, or synchronized aquaplanning.

And that first corner is suicide. I like how the stricken BMW served as a tyre barrier for the rest of the race.

[Purist]

Fogel, you'll have to pardon me, but I can't tell quite what the emoticon is supposed to mean.

GT2-R, with how things look, it seems that the AsLMS is going to be concentrated in Eastern/Southeastern Asia and Oceania. As such, I focused on venues in that region (albeit quite a large region).

Perhaps I will compile a list of more Western Asian and Middle Eastern venues so we can see what that landscape looks like if this ever became a truly continental series. Of course, it's a long distance to travel from Japan and Australia, but also, a number of those Middle Eastern venues are F1 circuits, which gets you into the same high rent problems we see at Shanghai.

[Purist]

Here goes on the more Western Asian and Middle Eastern circuits for AsLMS:
Bahrain
1. Sakhir
Georgia
1. Rustavi Ring (needs surrounding facilities to be rebuilt)
India
1. Jaypee Group Circuit* (not sure if this has gone beyond the proposal stage yet)
Kazakhstan
1. Kazakhstan Motor City
Malaysia
1. Johor
2. Sepang
Qatar
1. Losail
Saudi Arabia
1. Reem Int'l Circuit
Sri Lanka
1. Ceylon Autodrome* (proposal)
Turkey
1. Istanbul Park
UAE
1. Dubai Autodrome
2. Yas Marina Circuit

BTW, does anyone here know anything about the Beirut Hariri street circuit that was used in 1997?

[rich07]

Originally Posted by Purist

BTW, does anyone here know anything about the Beirut Hariri street circuit that was used in 1997?

Sorry no, but you've got my curiousity, anyone know of which cars raced on it? Intrigued.. Could've been the same street track that a group of hopeful locals were hoping to host FIA GT on.

[Jimmy Magnusson]

Originally Posted by AndrewF31

Lol, looked like Richard Petty drove a Honda Civic and hit Steve Soper in his Fina-Warsteiner BMW.
The start of that crash looks like Synchronized swimming, or synchronized aquaplanning.

And that first corner is suicide. I like how the stricken BMW served as a tyre barrier for the rest of the race.

You would have thought someone would have reacted the third or fourth time it was hit by other cars.

[pablocomics]

The asian series will have a tiny callendar next years and there are one strong reason, at this moment there are not solid resistance team structures in asia. Japan is more interested on the japanesse GT championship and out of japan and at this moment there are no serious team on resistence.

The only one solution (maybe) is merge the lms series with the all japan GT some races but probably the japan gt teams won´t be interested on that because they doesn´t need it.

Posibilities for new circuits...., that´s heavy. The mid-asian circuits are too far from japan, they have money but no teams, and japan has teams with low budget (bad combination for long travels).

Malaysia is more near to japan but without a Lotus teams there won´t be any races there. Korea is close to japan, that´s a likely but there are no tradition and there are no Korean teams.

...and China is just there for the works teams (AUDI).

Believe me, the asian series won´t have more than 2 or 3 races for the next 5 years and i´m not sure if the asian series will survive all this time.

[NaBUru38]

As pablocomics says, the Asian Le Mans races are made for LMP1 teams. They could have any backfield, as long as they aren't gliding chicanes - Japanese Super GTs would be awesome, but I'm not sure whether they would accept being second-rank.

[Purist]

Aren't you getting the AsLMS and the LMIC confused now?

i simply produced lists of potential venues for the sake of seeing what is out there, without real concern for how the series is actually going to develop in the near term. Neither was it a list of all the places I necessarily want to be on the schedule.

[NaBUru38]

Actually no, Purist: Since the Asian LMS seems to be having a 1-3 race calendar for the next seasons, the only purposes of the series are to market manufacturers competing in LMP1 in Asia, and to allow major LMP1 privateers race against them. GTs don't matter: they could come from the Japanese Super GTs, the Asian GT championships, the Euro LMS, a mixture of them or just any fast-enough field. LMP2 could work as an off-(European) season just like GP2 Asia and the European GP2. So I keep what I said: "the Asian Le Mans races are made for LMP1 teams".

Were it me, my Asian picks for the LMIC or whatever it gets called by 2011 are Suzuka (if the F1 GP conflict is resolved) and Shanghai. After them, I would easily accept Fuji, Motegi and Sepang as Asian LMS venues. The remaining circuits in that region seem to me too tight for LMPs. Any of the four Middle Eastern circuits or Phillip Island would be fine too, but they may get too expensive to travel for Japanese teams, who should be a major target for the series.

[HORNDAWG]

Originally Posted by NaBUru38

Actually no, Purist: Since the Asian LMS seems to be having a 1-3 race calendar for the next seasons, the only purposes of the series are to market manufacturers competing in LMP1 in Asia, and to allow major LMP1 privateers race against them. GTs don't matter: they could come from the Japanese Super GTs, the Asian GT championships, the Euro LMS, a mixture of them or just any fast-enough field. LMP2 could work as an off-(European) season just like GP2 Asia and the European GP2. So I keep what I said: "the Asian Le Mans races are made for LMP1 teams".

Were it me, my Asian picks for the LMIC or whatever it gets called by 2011 are Suzuka (if the F1 GP conflict is resolved) and Shanghai. After them, I would easily accept Fuji, Motegi and Sepang as Asian LMS venues. The remaining circuits in that region seem to me too tight for LMPs. Any of the four Middle Eastern circuits or Phillip Island would be fine too, but they may get too expensive to travel for Japanese teams, who should be a major target for the series.

Sorry, as to what is what here, I am with Purist. As to where they will/could run .
The AsLMS is a full LM affiliate series on its own (or so they are trying).
The LMIC is a P-1 Multi-Continent Championship which is being run in all 3 LM affiliate series.
This is also a way to get the top P-1 teams to run in each series while cross promoting all of them! How well that will work, or possibly the opposite, is yet to be seen.






L.P.

[Mal]

There is an article on DSC with a strong rumour that Nissan, Toyota and Honda are considering fielding GT entries in the 2011 Asian Le Mans series - if true this is a major development!

[TF110]

With their GT500 SuperGT cars. That's a bit weird and kind of iffy. It would be cool though.

[NaBUru38]

If they want to field a nice number, I'd let them in.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Mal

There is an article on DSC with a strong rumour that Nissan, Toyota and Honda are considering fielding GT entries in the 2011 Asian Le Mans series - if true this is a major development!

If they weren't going to field gt500 cars, nissan may be able to make a gt1 gtr into gt2 spec, and toyota may have something they can do with the LFA, don't know what honda would do though.