Toyota calls for Le Mans rules redress

[Bolognese]

Interesting article here: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/107259

Apparently the Audi currently have a 70-80hp advantage of over Toyota.

Do Toyota have any hope at Le Mans? Its not looking good..

[DMN]

That article ties in with Mulsanne Mikes findings that Audi are blowing their rear-diffuser, ie burning through more chip fat than last year.
http://www.mulsannescorner.com/newsmay13.html

I think Audi got blown away by Toyotas pace over a given lap and eaked out a little extra this year.

[hyper jay]

personaly i got to agree with toyota the diesels still has the advantage .and if its a one horse race with three audis the aco should adjust the balance.
i love lm but audi domination i dont. its boring even harming the 24 hrs perhaps .toyota saved the aco,s bacon last year or audi would be racing alone.

Edited by hyper jay on Wednesday 8th May 15:57

[vincegail]

DMN said:

I think Audi got blown away by Toyotas pace over a given lap and eaked out a little extra this year.

I think that too. Toyota's pace last year forced Audi in making big strides in their cardevelopment. Audi has a much much bigger budget than Toyota and has made a better car.
Toyota looking like a whining kid now.
Balance of Performance sucks big time imho, and I really hope the ACO tells Toyota to man up and stop complaining.

[artherdaily]

so Audi has it right, spent years developing the diesel doing the job and winning races
surly toyota should rather than moan about audi, find a way to catch up with audi with better design, reliability, technology and advancement
if toyota didnt think originally that they could beat audi with a petrol engine why didnt they go diesel aswell

or shall we make man city play with 9 men as they keep winning

[hyper jay]

the Aco and the fans want a race that rages till the end not a one car wins series..(
suprised by audi they state they want competetion..

[JamesBryan88]

Toyota needs boost ideally.

Or go down the diesel route, bit late for this year though...

[Vocal Minority]

artherdaily said:

if toyota didnt think originally that they could beat audi with a petrol engine why didnt they go diesel aswell

Presumably to impress the likes of folk on here who moaned about deisel engines.

[Red Firecracker]

hyper jay said:

the Aco and the fans want a race that rages till the end not a one car wins series..(
suprised by audi they state they want competetion..

How is this Audi's problem or indeed fault? It always amuses me that Audi get a lot of grief for going racing to a set of rules and being successful at it. They can only race what is entered along side them and it has to be said, they do it with good grace and humility.

The facts are thus;

Toyota have raced their 2013 car for less than 4 hours. Testing is no substitute for racing.
Audi have raced their 2013 car for quite a bit more.
Audi reacted to Toyota's (race winning) pace at the end of last year by developing their car, trading economy for power, hence the rise in fuel useage.
Toyota think their 2013 car is slower than the 2013 Audi (specifically the 'longtail' LM spec car).
It takes exactly the same time, as evidenced at Spa, to fuel both cars. The fuel rig diameters/restrictors etc are spot on.
Toyota are now perceived to moan after airing concerns.

If you read Vasselon's words;

"We consider that an evolution of the BoP is needed," he said. "The process [to change it] exists, it is underway and we will have to see what it delivers.

"We do not underestimate how difficult it is for the FIA and the ACO to do it right, but we believe that they want to do it right."

he acknowledges how hard it is, he acknowledges that a process is in place and he additionally acknowledges that it is being looked at. Both teams are building cars to the same set of rules, it's just that one team has a touch more experience of this evolution of rules than the other. One suspects this is just posturing.

Combine this with the fact that 2013 was always going got be a tricky year, as everything is changing for 2014. New cars, new regs, new factory competitors. Speaking of new competitors, all the this is doing Porsche no end of favours for this year as it takes the attention away from the absolutely ridiculous situation of the GTE regulations, where BOP and individual wavers are all over the place. Porsche, one suspects, likes this as their car is reportedly some 20% more efficient than anything else in the GTE field and they'd like to keep it that way. Keep quiet until June may be their motto.

[E36GUY]

artherdaily said:

so Audi has it right, spent years developing the diesel doing the job and winning races
surly toyota should rather than moan about audi, find a way to catch up with audi with better design, reliability, technology and advancement
if toyota didnt think originally that they could beat audi with a petrol engine why didnt they go diesel aswell

or shall we make man city play with 9 men as they keep winning

Quite.

[RobGT81]

Toyota have just been caught out by how impressive Audi can be at endurance racing. Audi have quite a few more experience at this, Toyota didn't seem to mind when they were beating Audi last year. Rather than moaning, Audi worked their arses off over the winter and have put Toyota on the back foot.

[SimonBeeeeer]

E36GUY said:

artherdaily said:

so Audi has it right, spent years developing the diesel doing the job and winning races
surly toyota should rather than moan about audi, find a way to catch up with audi with better design, reliability, technology and advancement
if toyota didnt think originally that they could beat audi with a petrol engine why didnt they go diesel aswell

or shall we make man city play with 9 men as they keep winning

Quite.

Why shouldn't they moan if regulations suit one fuel technology over another? that's what the BOP is for, to equalise.

If diesel technology was so brilliant and the ACO weren't leant on by Audi, why are the regulations limiting turbo petrol engines to 3.4ltr compared to the diesels 3.7ltrs? That's just over a 10% difference in capacity. If toyota have 520bhp as claimed, 10% would equal to a 50bhp boost (although I'm aware restrictors etc limit an increase too).

Audi have a brilliant car and brilliant team, no doubt, but this diesel/petrol inequality needs to end.

[Red Firecracker]

It is so much more involved than a simple disparity in engine capacity. You also have to take into account fuel tank size (different for both), fuel filler diameter (different for both) as well as other things, as you mention, such as restrictors. There is no single thing that balances (or equalises in ACO parlance) the performance.

A couple of others things to note. Audi did not moan about Toyota's interpretation of the rear wheelarch/wing area last year, they, as well as others, spent money and developed. They also did not moan about the speed of the Toyota's towards the end of last year, when they won races, on merit and speed. They got on with things and developed their car and compromised their own approach to the races to gain performance.

I find it very hard to accept an argument from a competitor that comes in, finds they are (potentially) slower than their rival and then is reported as wanting to get things changed (I think we have to be careful here as we only have the media's interpretation of it, one suspects the truth is somewhat less dramatic and Toyota will raise their concerns in the frequent ACO team meetings in a normal, measured manner) when the regulations were clear when they decided to design the car. Peugeot did the same, remember, and they were using the same technology as Audi. As well as that to get a realistic equivalence, you need a broad spectrum of data and the way that it is calculated, by looking at the regs, is compromised by the fact that there is a small source of available data as there are basically only two factory teams to take that data from. From my reading, the second tear of LMP1 teams are not involved in the equivalency calculations as their chassis/tech is not relevant enough.

Paul Truswell's analysis of Spa will be very interesting.

To restrict the regulations down further would be starting to get towards F1, pushing towards an almost spec series. Nasty.

I still think ACO reg GTE is a bigger cock up than the LMP1 issues.

[RobGT81]

SimonBeeeeer said:

Why shouldn't they moan if regulations suit one fuel technology over another? that's what the BOP is for, to equalise.

That doesn't really much make sense when you consider the petrol car was quicker than the diesel last year.

We could of course do something crazy and look at the facts before jumping on the "OMG diesels are so overpowered" band wagon..

2012
LM24 - Toyota mixed it up with Audi, led the race on speed and strategy before unreliability finished them off. Not too unexpected, a rushed program to get two cars into the race hampered by losing a chassis in testing. Diesel and Petrol seem equal.

WEC - Toyota didn't run well at Silverstone and had reliability/serviceability issues in Bahrain. Toyota won in Brazil, Japan and China. 50% win rate for races entered, not too shabby. They were in with a chance of winning at Le Mans and Bahrain. Petrol vs diesel seem equal, petrol maybe slightly quicker. Toyota have approx an extra 100bhp from their hybrid system over Audi.

2013
Silverstone - Audi R18 2013 thrashes TS030 2012. Not a massive surprise, Audi reacted well to the pace of Toyota in late 2012. Toyota seem to have similar issues to the 2012 race at Silverstone.

Spa - TS030 2013 leads 38 of the 99 laps it was running for, eventually retiring from the lead of the race due to reliability issues. TS030 2012 looks off the pace of the 2013 cars, not really a surprise.

So, with the exception of Silverstone, whenever the TS030 has been running it has been at least at the same pace of the Audi R18s. Audi are beating Toyota through reliability, serviceability and strategy. The exact same reasons they used to beat the quicker Peugeots at Le Mans.

Explain to me why we need BOP changes again?

Edited by RobGT81 on Saturday 11th May 10:44

[Red Firecracker]

Paul Truswell's race analysis on Dailysportscar paints a slightly different picture than Pascal Vasselon would like one to believe.

[hyper jay]

did toyota compliain when audi converted there r18 to quattro hybrid mid wec season ?

[Red Firecracker]

The 2012 R18 Hybrid has always delivered its hybrid energy to the front wheels, it would be mad for them not to from a pure marketing point of view. The Toyota 2012 chassis was a compromise as it was capable of delivering to either front or rear as it was essentially a test mule. The 2013 chassis is purely designed from a rearward delivery perspective. By the by, the Toyota hybrid system is seen as far far better than the Audi system.

Why would have Toyota complained? The regulations allowed entry of a plain vanilla LMP1 or a Hybrid, so I'm not sure on what grounds anybody could have cause for complaint if Audi decided to enter three Hybrids instead of 1 Hybrid and 2 Ultras (as they did early in the 2012 WEC).

[FredericRobinson]

The only problem here is that Toyota have complained publicly, Audi won't have been shy over the years of letting the ACO know their views on the rules & regs

[Parsnip]

SimonBeeeeer said:

Why shouldn't they moan if regulations suit one fuel technology over another? that's what the BOP is for, to equalise.
...
Audi have a brilliant car and brilliant team, no doubt, but this diesel/petrol inequality needs to end.

The problem is, what are you basing this on?

If Audi developed a petrol car, who is to say it wouldn't beat the Toyota? What if Toyota developed a diesel - do you think it would be anywhere near the Audi?

For years Audi and Pug were arguably on a level playing field, as they were both running the same regs and same fuel - were they faster than the rest of P1 because of the fuel type, or the fact they both have huge budgets and manpower? Even then, Audi were winning lots more than the French car at Le Mans because they are very, very good at endurance racing.

I can't say (I don't think anyone can really) if the performance is fairly balanced, but the ACO managed to get it pretty close to right last year and I hope that with a bit more reliability and less chucking it at the scenery from Toyota, it will be a battle to the flag this year. I guess we will find out in June

[//j17]

Parsnip said:

...I hope that with a bit more reliability and less chucking it at the scenery from Toyota...

Yep - it's "To finish first, first you must finish", not "To finish first, first you must dive down the inside of a GTE car you could have overtaken easily before the first kink in the run to Arnage and crash." or "To finish first, first you must pull out to overtake at the restart without looking and taking someone out.".