Discussion
Hi guys,
As promised, we wanted to update the Ultima fraternity with our progress/plans.
We have a busy second half of the year lined up, starting in ten days time on August 17th and 18th at Silverstone where we will be competing in the GT Cup Championship with the Ultima GTR, which has been freshly rebuilt and redeveloped for 2013. The lure of the Silverstone GP Arena circuit is attracting the UK’s top GT Teams to rounds 8 and 9 of the GT Cup Championship, which consists of one 45 minute pit stop race on the Saturday and 2 x 25 minute sprint races on the Sunday.
We then intend to take part in the following events:
• 7th/8th September: GT Cup Championship at Snetterton
• 21st/22nd September: MSA British Endurance Championship 1000km Race at Silverstone
• 28th September: GT Cup Championship at Donington
• 2nd November: MSA British Endurance Championship “Race into the Night” at Donington
As always, you can follow our progress on our Website, Facebook Page or Twitter Page. If you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.
You can also get a copy of our latest press release here, for those that have not seen it:
http://www.macgracing.co.uk/Press%20Release%2029-7...
Jonny
As promised, we wanted to update the Ultima fraternity with our progress/plans.
We have a busy second half of the year lined up, starting in ten days time on August 17th and 18th at Silverstone where we will be competing in the GT Cup Championship with the Ultima GTR, which has been freshly rebuilt and redeveloped for 2013. The lure of the Silverstone GP Arena circuit is attracting the UK’s top GT Teams to rounds 8 and 9 of the GT Cup Championship, which consists of one 45 minute pit stop race on the Saturday and 2 x 25 minute sprint races on the Sunday.
We then intend to take part in the following events:
• 7th/8th September: GT Cup Championship at Snetterton
• 21st/22nd September: MSA British Endurance Championship 1000km Race at Silverstone
• 28th September: GT Cup Championship at Donington
• 2nd November: MSA British Endurance Championship “Race into the Night” at Donington
As always, you can follow our progress on our Website, Facebook Page or Twitter Page. If you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.
You can also get a copy of our latest press release here, for those that have not seen it:
http://www.macgracing.co.uk/Press%20Release%2029-7...
Jonny
Im coming in sept to watch you at Donnington...
I hope however do feel we are all behind you and really want you to do well.
I ll have camera ready and attempt to get press tickets if possible to help with your sponsors..
Ive emailed Donnington and the Gt series organisers and asked for press accreditation for taking photos for you and hopefully fingers crossed will get some great shots for you .
Dom..
I hope however do feel we are all behind you and really want you to do well.
I ll have camera ready and attempt to get press tickets if possible to help with your sponsors..
Ive emailed Donnington and the Gt series organisers and asked for press accreditation for taking photos for you and hopefully fingers crossed will get some great shots for you .
Dom..
Edited by V8Dom on Wednesday 7th August 20:39
V8Dom said:
Im coming in sept to watch you at Donnington...
I hope however do feel we are all behind you and really want you to do well.
I ll have camera ready and attempt to get press tickets if possible to help with your sponsors..
Ive emailed Donnington and the Gt series organisers and asked for press accreditation for taking photos for you and hopefully fingers crossed will get some great shots for you .
Dom..
Hi Dom,I hope however do feel we are all behind you and really want you to do well.
I ll have camera ready and attempt to get press tickets if possible to help with your sponsors..
Ive emailed Donnington and the Gt series organisers and asked for press accreditation for taking photos for you and hopefully fingers crossed will get some great shots for you .
Dom..
Edited by V8Dom on Wednesday 7th August 20:39
That would be great, thanks very much - always good to see fellow members of the Ultima fraternity at our events!
Jonny
Hi Jonny
I would love to get to both Silverstone and Snetterton but I have been out quite a bit recently so may not make Silverstone.
I may have to get some brownie points before the 17th so I can come along. Snetterton should be easier.......
Off to the Henry Moore Foundation tomorrow inc. lunch so that may help!!!
Good luck and make us proud.
Paul
I would love to get to both Silverstone and Snetterton but I have been out quite a bit recently so may not make Silverstone.
I may have to get some brownie points before the 17th so I can come along. Snetterton should be easier.......
Off to the Henry Moore Foundation tomorrow inc. lunch so that may help!!!
Good luck and make us proud.
Paul
good postif if it would be only qualifying...........
A bog standard GT3 came into the 10th position last year at nürburgring 24h and I agree all these racing parts do not essentially
mean a faster car. The bigger problem with the factory parts and standard gear box were endurance issues if I remember johnnys trouble last year
with the material not up to the stress of such events.
A bog standard GT3 came into the 10th position last year at nürburgring 24h and I agree all these racing parts do not essentially
mean a faster car. The bigger problem with the factory parts and standard gear box were endurance issues if I remember johnnys trouble last year
with the material not up to the stress of such events.
Ultima factory said:
Well done for the 7th and 8th place this weekend.
However we have to ask the question- why is the car not on the leading pace nowadays?
If you go back in history to your first ever race in the Ultima at Silverstone in March 2011 you achieved a 2min9secs in qualifying (4th on the grid) which would have placed you 3rd on the grid this weekend and resulted in podium finishes in every race instead of 12th on the grid at a 2min12secs in both qualifying sessions this weekend. Also your race pace is now significantly slower, with a best lap time of 2min14secs this weekend in a sprint race as opposed to a 2min10secs in March 2011 during an endurance race.
In March 2011 the car was standard with standard brakes, standard dampers, non-sequential gearbox, standard air intake, standard aero, standard chassis etc. What has happened to the pace of the car do you feel? Surely just fitting the sequential box alone should have brought you into the 2min7secs to 2min8secs range?
Hope you understand the purely good intentions behind the question!
Regards
Hi Factory,However we have to ask the question- why is the car not on the leading pace nowadays?
If you go back in history to your first ever race in the Ultima at Silverstone in March 2011 you achieved a 2min9secs in qualifying (4th on the grid) which would have placed you 3rd on the grid this weekend and resulted in podium finishes in every race instead of 12th on the grid at a 2min12secs in both qualifying sessions this weekend. Also your race pace is now significantly slower, with a best lap time of 2min14secs this weekend in a sprint race as opposed to a 2min10secs in March 2011 during an endurance race.
In March 2011 the car was standard with standard brakes, standard dampers, non-sequential gearbox, standard air intake, standard aero, standard chassis etc. What has happened to the pace of the car do you feel? Surely just fitting the sequential box alone should have brought you into the 2min7secs to 2min8secs range?
Hope you understand the purely good intentions behind the question!
Regards
Fair question, with a simple answer.
In that very first race, unknowing to us we were miles over the power:weight limit - we were circa 680 bhp and we should have been around the 520 mark given the weight at the time. We are now running much less power and more weight to bring us down to the regulated levels (mainly driven by reducing the throttle body size down by 10mm). We chose to reduce power considerably rather than upping the weight due to the driveline reliability issues we have had plague us, however these are about resolved now with our Albins transmission, Xtreme triple plate clutch and Albins driveshafts, as our new uprights have arrived, which were designed in house and are the final piece in the puzzle.
Our quickest time over this last weekend was actually 2:10.1 in Saturday morning’s warmup. As an indication of the above, this weekend our top speed was nearly 20mph down from that very first race (we hit 176mph in the first race and hit 158 this weekend down the Hangar straight despite much later braking).
Now that we have a more stable and reliable platform, we can start working on car setup which will give us huge gains – the changes we have made over the winter have transformed the car, and we need to get the setup right in order to capitalise on the developments we have made. Other than corner weighting the car, we have done no setup on the car whatsoever with the 2013 spec.
macgtech said:
We have some great on board footage from the race coming along - you can see how we are the same pace down the straights as the 458 GT3 cars, but lacking a lot of pace compared to the Riley MKXXIII Daytona Prototype, which takes about 40m out of us down the straights!
Great pics - looking forward to the video.
The team have discussed the comments made by the factory above, and in response, the Team Principal has commented as follows:
"The questions raised by the Ultima Factor regarding the performance of our GTR can be readily answered by the following.
The car at Silverstone lapped within about a second of the lap time achieved with the car two years ago as has been noted. It has also been pointed out that we had to restrict the power output to meet the power to weight limits, which we were exceeding at our first race. This has been done partly by fitting a smaller throttle body. More significantly we have had to meet much stricter, and more rigorously enforced, sound level limits. At our first race we were emitting around 108db. Our level at the sound test at Silverstone this year was 101db. It will be appreciated what a massive restriction this is. Finally we suffered severe engine bay and front brake overheating problems in the early stages of the car’s development. The heat build up in the engine bay was so high that the yellow rear clam changed colour to orange and the fuel was boiling in the system. The front brakes suffered severe fade on the fast straights at Snetterton. The solution has been to introduce much more air flow through the engine bay and to the front discs, severely affecting the drag on the car as a whole.
If evidence is needed of the effectiveness of the developments we have made on the car consider this. The maximum speed achieved this year on the Hanger Straight at Silverstone was 20mph lower than the car reached in 2011. This is due to the restrictions noted above. Given the lap time dropped by only one second, the evidence is that the handling and braking of the car has been dramatically improved to compensate.
It is easy to underestimate the challenge of taking a road car based design and develop it to an endurance racer. We have a very strong Team of Engineers working on the development of the car and have learnt a great deal in the process; we still have more developments on the way."
"The questions raised by the Ultima Factor regarding the performance of our GTR can be readily answered by the following.
The car at Silverstone lapped within about a second of the lap time achieved with the car two years ago as has been noted. It has also been pointed out that we had to restrict the power output to meet the power to weight limits, which we were exceeding at our first race. This has been done partly by fitting a smaller throttle body. More significantly we have had to meet much stricter, and more rigorously enforced, sound level limits. At our first race we were emitting around 108db. Our level at the sound test at Silverstone this year was 101db. It will be appreciated what a massive restriction this is. Finally we suffered severe engine bay and front brake overheating problems in the early stages of the car’s development. The heat build up in the engine bay was so high that the yellow rear clam changed colour to orange and the fuel was boiling in the system. The front brakes suffered severe fade on the fast straights at Snetterton. The solution has been to introduce much more air flow through the engine bay and to the front discs, severely affecting the drag on the car as a whole.
If evidence is needed of the effectiveness of the developments we have made on the car consider this. The maximum speed achieved this year on the Hanger Straight at Silverstone was 20mph lower than the car reached in 2011. This is due to the restrictions noted above. Given the lap time dropped by only one second, the evidence is that the handling and braking of the car has been dramatically improved to compensate.
It is easy to underestimate the challenge of taking a road car based design and develop it to an endurance racer. We have a very strong Team of Engineers working on the development of the car and have learnt a great deal in the process; we still have more developments on the way."
With respect factory, that's simply not true.
An Ultima will be some way off the pace of a modern GT3 car. I think an Ultima will be some way off one of the last Moslers in overall lap times, and Moslers are no longer competitive against GT3 cars. And these are the class of cars which are the competition.
Much as I love Ultimas, they are not in the same class in terms of overal lap pace.
For your info, GT3 class cars were running sub 2.03 at Silverstone this year.
I think MacGs answer explained things perfectly clearly. The mods made are for reliability not performance as some standard parts were not up to the job of racing, as would be expected of road car components, and they're running 160 hp less. Simple
Prove us wrong if you're so adamant they should be competitive
An Ultima will be some way off the pace of a modern GT3 car. I think an Ultima will be some way off one of the last Moslers in overall lap times, and Moslers are no longer competitive against GT3 cars. And these are the class of cars which are the competition.
Much as I love Ultimas, they are not in the same class in terms of overal lap pace.
For your info, GT3 class cars were running sub 2.03 at Silverstone this year.
I think MacGs answer explained things perfectly clearly. The mods made are for reliability not performance as some standard parts were not up to the job of racing, as would be expected of road car components, and they're running 160 hp less. Simple
Prove us wrong if you're so adamant they should be competitive
Edited by deadscoob on Tuesday 27th August 15:39
Ultima factory said:
With respect you have still not answered the question-
During your race on this circuit in 2011 when the Ultima was running with all standard components the official lap timing showed a best race lap time of 2min10secs (during an endurance race).
During your last two races on the same circuit and with all your upgrades the official lap timing showed a best lap time of 2min14sec (during a short sprint race).
Why do you think that your car is now 4 seconds per lap slower in 2013, during the race when it matters the most? Four seconds per lap is a considerable margin.
With respect there is simply no way on earth that an Ultima GTR should run this far off the leading race pace.
Regards
Factory,During your race on this circuit in 2011 when the Ultima was running with all standard components the official lap timing showed a best race lap time of 2min10secs (during an endurance race).
During your last two races on the same circuit and with all your upgrades the official lap timing showed a best lap time of 2min14sec (during a short sprint race).
Why do you think that your car is now 4 seconds per lap slower in 2013, during the race when it matters the most? Four seconds per lap is a considerable margin.
With respect there is simply no way on earth that an Ultima GTR should run this far off the leading race pace.
Regards
We are answering the question - the laptime set in 2011 was with far greater power:weight ratio. Also, don’t underestimate the effect of a clear track, and medium compound tyres all round – after 2 hours running and 1 heat cycle these were down to the canvas.
The laptime set this last weekend was with a far reduced power:weight ratio, in a race where we were cutting through the field, with hard compound tyres. These went through 5 heat cycles by the time the last race came round (again circa 2 hrs running), and had a fair amount of rubber left – the difference in the tyres alone are night and day.
You are not comparing apples with apples.
If we are not making headway with the development of our car as you are clearly suggesting, how are we achieving 20mph less on the straights and achieving the same laptime?
Deadscoob is also correct. At a push we can just about keep up with the Moslers in standard trim, despite these having far superior aero capabilities – look at the underfloor of the Mosler and the size of the car – it is huge. The Moslers we race against have much higher power outputs than standard, and are still left for dead by the current crop of GT3 cars.
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