Pikes Peak

[Hoofty]

There certainly seemed to be more build up to this than subsequent fanfare, but Raphaël Astier did fairly well at Pikes Peak yesterday. 9:17.412 put him 3rd overall behind two considerably pottier creations, and differing class regs notwithstanding, a chunk quicker than the likes of Pastrama's Radford and Zwart's 935.

Quite a spread of times you could argue, but it was great to see - even if the charmingly low-rent coverage was a bit light on actual track action. Thought the car looked mega with the Super-Pursuit-Mode aero kit, and I loved the wheel covers.



Felt a bit proud despite it being nothing to do with me.

[Hoofty]

Oh I'm with you, fear not! Apols for all the qualifying statements, this is just, y'know, the internet, so in before any joy policing...

Found the onboard from the run



Starts around 40s in. Great view at 7:50 ish, and a squeaky bit at 9:45. Mega.

Nick

[Hoofty]

LGC-Adams said:

Did anyone else hear the Pundit on the original live feed say...."it's looks so small", when the car was on the start line. Think he WAS being complimentary.
........just what we all know and love about it .

Ha, I did hear that - then not much later I noticed how much of the track width Astier was using/able to use, and wondered how much time he'd get from that alone.

You can, after all, keep making a car wider to make more grip, but then within a fixed road width, you need to generate more grip because your wider car has to describe tighter corner radii than a narrower one, reducing that advantage...

a110au said:

ooh a scandal:

That true, the class change? I'm not up on the class regs but now you say it, it was certainly the closest thing to its road car origins at the top of the time sheets (I love that E36, but there's very little E36 left in it ) - so yes, does seem a bit more time attack than open. I'll read up on the regs. Think this only makes the Alpine time even more impressive!

[Hoofty]

neil-g8km6 said:

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/alpine...

Aha! Dated 2nd May, specifically mentions design for Time Attack 1 class, thanks...

Peter.R said:

wow... 3rd is a great result. i just looked at the 2 cars in front and they are anything but standard. A single seater F1 style car and a 1000+bhp electric 'van'
I would be interested to know why the Alpine was thrown out of the 'Time attack' class and put in with the 'unlimited' boys? Does anyone know much about the technical make up of the Alpine, how much of it is actually what you and me drive around in?

There's a bit in this article on the makeup of the car, which chimes with what the Signatech guy said when interviewed on the live stream. Basically an A110 GT4* with R-GT bits, new (big!) aero and a lot of mapping on the engine to deliver power at altitude:

https://www.motortrend.com/features/alpine-pikes-p...

All sounds very Time Attack compliant to (non-expert) me. A110au's post above suggests it was pulled up on aero - I've not found any more on that yet. At any rate, Alpine seem happy enough with the result given there's been no appeal of any kind.

'* According to this old Top Gear article that's road car body/chassis/engine with race cage/brakes/dampers/aero and gearbox: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/geneva-motor-show...