LeMans racing thread

[moffspeed]

Missed being there for only the second time since 1978 but watched most of it on Eurosport.

GTE Pro was just stunning, whatever your view of BoP it certainly works. LMP2 cars were seriously quick this year. Chan Racing and Rebellion will be celebrating their success - but, a further thought, if Rebellion had stuck with a conventional and reliable LMP 1 car surely they would have won outright this year ?

As an aside the Eurosport coverage was excellent apart from the dreadful ads - I swear that I will never allow myself to sit in a Renault Kadjar, shop at Asda or buy any Kenwood ICE system...

[confucuis]

moffspeed said:

Missed being there for only the second time since 1978 but watched most of it on Eurosport.

GTE Pro was just stunning, whatever your view of BoP it certainly works. LMP2 cars were seriously quick this year. Chan Racing and Rebellion will be celebrating their success - but, a further thought, if Rebellion had stuck with a conventional and reliable LMP 1 car surely they would have won outright this year ?

As an aside the Eurosport coverage was excellent apart from the dreadful ads - I swear that I will never allow myself to sit in a Renault Kadjar, shop at Asda or buy any Kenwood ICE system...

Don't forget having a "cheeky little dabble" or whatever the hell that gambling ad said...

[eastlmark]

moffspeed said:

Missed being there for only the second time since 1978 but watched most of it on Eurosport.

As an aside the Eurosport coverage was excellent apart from the dreadful ads - I swear that I will never allow myself to sit in a Renault Kadjar, shop at Asda or buy any Kenwood ICE system...

Think Eurosport need to shake up the long termers in the commentary team who seem to regard their job as a bit of a jolly. Glad they still cover it though and hope it never goes to PPV. Given the lack of coverage on BBC news even its pretty much the only exposure the race gets in this county.

As for the ads..... at least we were saved the charity ones which I assume they air for free as fillers. Some years back there was a public service info one about level crossing safety and by Sunday morning I was plotting out where the nearest one was so I could put an end to it.

[ukaskew]

eastlmark said:

Glad they still cover it though and hope it never goes to PPV.

It's not exactly free to air as it is. The amount of people looking around for streams proves that much.

I wonder if the likes of Netflix or Amazon would consider something like this in future, get a bunch of sign ups and bank on a decent percentage sticking around for a while. I wouldn't be against a one-off payment for a month if it meant I got other stuff with it anyway.

Amazon we're pushing pretty hard with advertising as it is with their Le Mans series.

[Maldini35]

egomeister said:

Lynchie999 said:

thats bonkers... must to more to this story.. or just Russians being Russians ??

Seems it was Frenchies being French - Algarve Pro driver Vincent Capillaire not a G-Drive

Yep, it was a gag gone wrong - Capillaire was jokingly 'thumbing a lift' from the Toyota.

Unfortunately the Toyota driver saw the thumbs ups and thought he was being released.

Oh dear

[acer12]

He doesn't seem too remourseful judging by his Facebook / twitter pages!

[DavidCBevan]

DavidCBevan said:

My first time at Le Mans, absolutely loved it and was lucky enough to get in the Jackie Chan DC Racing garage before the race.[u

Edited by DavidCBevan on Monday 19th June 15:45

[geezerbutler]

So, Rebellion are disqualified for a bodywork infringement (making a hole to allow access to the starter motor). So Jackie Chan DC no.37 car is promoted to 3rd overall and 2nd in class.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/130250...

And of course the no.8 Toyota is promoted to 8th overall.

Edited by geezerbutler on Monday 19th June 20:18

[Altrezia]

Mental ruling. If they'd crashed and had a damage hole it'd be fine, but making a clever decision which helped get the car to the finish line is a bad thing?

[Crafty_]

Seems to be quite a clear violation of the rules, whats worse they tried to hide it in Parc Ferme, which is probably the final straw.

Rusinov gets a 3 minute penalty next race.

[37chevy]

Altrezia said:

Mental ruling. If they'd crashed and had a damage hole it'd be fine, but making a clever decision which helped get the car to the finish line is a bad thing?

Cut a hole into a homoligated part to save 30 seconds every pit stop so they didn't have to take the rear bodywork off to access the starter motor. If they hadn't broken the homologation they wouldn't have finished third.

Harsh decision but I can understand why it had to be made. If it were me I'd have given a time penalty roughly equal to the time saved not removing the bodywork though

[anonymous-user]

What's the betting they homologate a hatch in that section of bodywork from now on.

[37chevy]

jsf said:

What's the betting they homologate a hatch in that section of bodywork from now on.

Probably zero. One car with that issue out of 25 cars with the same starter

[anonymous-user]

starters fail relatively regularly on racing cars, they are a pain in the arse.

[Altrezia]

37chevy said:

Cut a hole into a homoligated part to save 30 seconds every pit stop so they didn't have to take the rear bodywork off to access the starter motor. If they hadn't broken the homologation they wouldn't have finished third.

Harsh decision but I can understand why it had to be made. If it were me I'd have given a time penalty roughly equal to the time saved not removing the bodywork though

They had a huge time penalty the first time they "fixed" the starter, and made a clever fix for it. Isn't that what endurance racing is about? If they'd punted it into the tyres and cracked that area, the car would have been allowed to finish, but not because of a manually cut hole? bks imho!

[RL17]

Got back late yesterday - racing was great.

Aston splash and dash pitstop when Corvette came in brilliant and set up great last 45 mins.

Lots of drama. Can't see how LMP1 cars can complain about stopping and starting when LMP2's had to come in every 30 mins for fuel (far too often) and LMP1's could go 45-50 mins

GTE Pro very close for entire race and 5 manufacturers always involved until right near end - BoP pretty good job.

[37chevy]

Altrezia said:

They had a huge time penalty the first time they "fixed" the starter, and made a clever fix for it. Isn't that what endurance racing is about? If they'd punted it into the tyres and cracked that area, the car would have been allowed to finish, but not because of a manually cut hole? bks imho!

Don't get me wrong I think the penalty is VERY harsh. Problem is I can see where the ACO is coming from. If they didn't do anything about someone deliberately tampering with a homologated part to gain a competitive advantage then where would that leave the stewards in the future..people would do all sorts of things and have a president set to argue against. VERY harsh call, but the correct one.

Accident damage is different to deliberately cutting a hole in the body.

[egomeister]

37chevy said:

Altrezia said:

They had a huge time penalty the first time they "fixed" the starter, and made a clever fix for it. Isn't that what endurance racing is about? If they'd punted it into the tyres and cracked that area, the car would have been allowed to finish, but not because of a manually cut hole? bks imho!

Don't get me wrong I think the penalty is VERY harsh. Problem is I can see where the ACO is coming from. If they didn't do anything about someone deliberately tampering with a homologated part to gain a competitive advantage then where would that leave the stewards in the future..people would do all sorts of things and have a president set to argue against. VERY harsh call, but the correct one.

Accident damage is different to deliberately cutting a hole in the body.

Agreed that it's harsh but necessary, otherwise where would the line be for permitted modification to a homologated part?

Does anyone know if the bodyworks were homologated on the LMP2 regs up to 2016? It would be unfortunate if this only became a rules violation on the 2017 / 4 manufacturer LMP2 regs...

[RL17]

How long were the LMP2 fuel stops taking? GTE Pro were normally stopped for just over a minute - plus you have a long run in to pit limiter and a very long pit straight (was it 80kmph in pit lane?)

Was sat in Raccordement most of race and had a clear view of pit lane entry - LMP2 cars coming in for fuel every 25-30 mins compared to 45 mins for LMP1.

Just on stopped time of a minute a go for extra fuel that's 16 extra stops (47 v 31 stops necessary) or 16 minutes plus which is over 4 whole laps - if add slow down time must be closer to 6 or 7 laps different. Porsche won by 1 and a bit laps.

No wonder top of Porsche Experiene corp grandstand not packed on Sunday pm for the finish.

Not right for LMP2 to have so many stops!!!

[Alex Langheck]

The LMP2 cars would do about 10 laps before refuelling, whereas the LMP1 cars were 13/14 laps. Personally, I'd have the regs so the LMP2 cars can stay out longer than the LMP1 cars....