Tuesday 24th February 2009

Aston LMP1 Testing At Paul Ricard

8th March sees the first test for new Aston racer

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Le Mans series fans have a unique early opportunity to see their favourite cars and star drivers in action in France next month – including the first ever-outing for Aston Martin’s latest LMP1.

March 8^th marks the first official test for the Le Mans series at the Paul Ricard circuit, and for the first time in the series history the circuit will be open to the public for the event.

Aston Martin have confirmed to PH that one of its new factory racers will be present at the test, as well as the five Aston works drivers whose participation has so-far been announced.

“We are putting our first chassis together now, and the car will be revealed at Paul Ricard for the first time on the morning of Sunday 8^th,” Sarah Durose, comms manager for Aston’s motorsport arm tells PH.

“It should be a great opportunity for fans to see the new car in action, and a pit-walk and driver signings are also scheduled on the day.

The new Aston, which will race in highly evocative blue and orange Gulf livery, is based on a Lola chassis with the same production-based V12 engine that helped secure last year’s GT1 victory at Le Mans.

So far we’ve only been teased with these computer renderings, so if you get down to Ricard you’ll be among the first to see the car in the flesh.

Of course many PHers will be saving themselves for the annual blast down to Sarthe and the Le Mans 24hrs itself. If you are planning on making the trip, be sure to take a look a the campsite offer we’ve cooked up for you with 1st Tickets. See here for more information.

[H22K]

I just hope they have the reliability (which should be learned from GT1 success) and more importantly the pace to make up for the fuel efficiency deficit when compared to the HDi / TDi offerings. Would be amazing to see LMP1 and GT1 win for gulf liveried AM's on their anniversary.

[jazzdevil]

AFAIK there is no chance of an Aston GT1 win as they are not running in that class after pitching all the resource/money/effort at LMP1.

[190E Matt]

Dave Richards is at the helm of this isn't he?

[infradig]

Is it just me or does the 'highly evocative Gulf livery' bring to mind Ford and Porsche not the 12 month long Aston Martin connection.
The only thing to connect Aston Martin and Gulf in my mind was the great John Wyer and I'm pretty sure he's been dead for 10 years or so.

[//j17]

H22K said:

I just hope they have the reliability (which should be learned from GT1 success)...

Umm, in what way is reliability something you can learn?

You can learn how to handle the pressure when something goes wrong and how to set up camp in the pits so everyone knows where everything is. You can also engineer-in reliability, but always at the expense of weight/performance. You can't learn it though.

infradig said:

Is it just me or does the 'highly evocative Gulf livery' bring to mind Ford and Porsche not the 12 month long Aston Martin connection.
The only thing to connect Aston Martin and Gulf in my mind was the great John Wyer and I'm pretty sure he's been dead for 10 years or so.

The first Gulf/Aston link that comes to my mind is people that live in the Gulf buy lots of Astons.

[mark3man]

infradig said:

Is it just me or does the 'highly evocative Gulf livery' bring to mind Ford and Porsche not the 12 month long Aston Martin connection.
The only thing to connect Aston Martin and Gulf in my mind was the great John Wyer and I'm pretty sure he's been dead for 10 years or so.

Sadly, true. Gulf's Grady Davies was introduced to JW by Carroll Shelby and said they wanted to go racing. That was as Wyer was leaving AML.
The 'Gulf' incidentally is Gulf of Mexico, not the other one.

[Yeloperil]

Reliability, in particular at Le Mans comes as a direct result of the team building year on year experience, methodical preparation, team work and some lady luck. I am fortunate enough to have been on the team of a twice winning Le Mans LMP2 car and which were just incredible experiences. However the reverse is true if the car fails to go the distance, just the pits - excuse the pun! All the adrenalin which has kept you going for 40+ hours disappears in an instant but on reflection the stress was worth every nano second.

[forza whites]

infradig said:

Is it just me or does the 'highly evocative Gulf livery' bring to mind Ford and Porsche not the 12 month long Aston Martin connection.
The only thing to connect Aston Martin and Gulf in my mind was the great John Wyer and I'm pretty sure he's been dead for 10 years or so.

Exactly!
the Gulf colours just dont look 'right' on anything other than a Porsche!!

[RainerM]

or a GT40 ;-)

Rainer-CH

but I love their sporty approach (Aston's)
All the best to them!

[GrahamG]

jazzdevil said:

AFAIK there is no chance of an Aston GT1 win as they are not running in that class after pitching all the resource/money/effort at LMP1.

Some quick privateer Astons are likely to be on the entry

[Talksteer]

//j17 said:

H22K said:

I just hope they have the reliability (which should be learned from GT1 success)...

Umm, in what way is reliability something you can learn?

You can learn how to handle the pressure when something goes wrong and how to set up camp in the pits so everyone knows where everything is. You can also engineer-in reliability, but always at the expense of weight/performance. You can't learn it though.

infradig said:

Is it just me or does the 'highly evocative Gulf livery' bring to mind Ford and Porsche not the 12 month long Aston Martin connection.
The only thing to connect Aston Martin and Gulf in my mind was the great John Wyer and I'm pretty sure he's been dead for 10 years or so.

The first Gulf/Aston link that comes to my mind is people that live in the Gulf buy lots of Astons.

I work in aerospace, you can learn reliability, that's what any development program is leaning what things go wrong and putting them right, learning where you can afford the save weight or increase performance.

In the case of Aston they already have the experience of running their engine through numerous endurance races in the DB9s and they ran a similar car last year under the banner of a private team so they will have a decent idea of the areas of improvement for that car. That said I would be sceptical that the rule are truly "fair" between diesels and petrol driven cars yet and even the R8 didn't win on its first attempt.

[H22K]

I was going to reply to the point, but thanks for saving me from needing to!

reliability IS a learning process.

[//j17]

Talksteer said:

I work in aerospace, you can learn reliability, that's what any development program is leaning what things go wrong and putting them right, learning where you can afford the save weight or increase performance.

In the case of Aston they already have the experience of running their engine through numerous endurance races in the DB9s and they ran a similar car last year under the banner of a private team so they will have a decent idea of the areas of improvement for that car. That said I would be sceptical that the rule are truly "fair" between diesels and petrol driven cars yet and even the R8 didn't win on its first attempt.

I'd agree with your sentiment about reliability but would argue that's developing reliability rather than learning it. You can run a series of load tests on an aluminium component and work out it's fateague life in a specific application and from this define it's working life in usage cycles. You can do this on one component on one vehicle (be it car or aircraft) and apply it to another vehicle - the same component will be exposed to different stresses in each application.

While they will have a reasonably solid engine, what changes have been required to the castings to mount it in to the different chassis? Will this result in an over-riser somewhere else in the casting? etc.

And while they have raced GT1 cars at Le Mans and may have raced one LMP car at Le Mans this is a completely new car so more or less all bets are off.

Peugeot have raced top-class cars at Le Mans in the past and won and manufacture hundreds of thousands of generally reliable cars every year. This didn't help them learn anything about reliability when it came to non-overheating rear hub bearings in the first 908 outings.

[Andy Zarse]

forza whites said:

infradig said:

Is it just me or does the 'highly evocative Gulf livery' bring to mind Ford and Porsche not the 12 month long Aston Martin connection.
The only thing to connect Aston Martin and Gulf in my mind was the great John Wyer and I'm pretty sure he's been dead for 10 years or so.

Exactly!
the Gulf colours just dont look 'right' on anything other than a Porsche!!

Rubbish. Ignorring the GT40 and the Maclaren F1, what about the Gulf Mirage, a complete Gulf classic.

[RainerM]

Hi
I forgot about that car, as I forgot who designed them.Anyway it was great effort :-)
Thank you for reminding us of that little gem.
Rainer-CH

[Mark-C]

This is from Maison Blanche in 2001 when Stefan Johannson took a Gulf sponsored R8 to Le Mans .... there have been some French P2 cars (Belmondo?) as well as Aston since then. Although the 917s were iconic because of the film the livery has more often been worn by others.

YEAR NO. CHASSIS DRIVERS RESULT

1967 14 MIRAGE M1 PIPER/THOMPSON 5 HRS (ENGINE)
15 MIRAGE M1 ICKX/MUIR 4 HRS (ENGINE)

1968 9 FORD GT40 RODRIGUEZ/BIANCHI 1ST OVERALL
10 FORD GT40 HAWKINS/HOBBS 10 HRS (ENGINE)
11 FORD GT40 OLIVER/MUIR 5 HRS (CLUTCH)

1969 6 FORD GT40 ICKX/OLIVER 1ST OVERALL
7 FORD GT40 HOBBS/HAILWOOD 3RD OVERALL

1970 20 PORSCHE 917 SIFFERT/REDMAN 12 HRS (ENGINE)
21 PORSCHE 917 RODRIGUEZ/KINNUNEN 12 HRS (TURBINE)
22 PORSCHE 917 HOBBS/HAILWOOD 5 HRS (ACCIDENT)

1971 17 PORSCHE 917 SIFFERT/BELL 18 HRS (OIL LEAK)
18 PORSCHE 917 RODRIGUEZ/OLIVER 14 HRS (OIL LEAK)
19 PORSCHE 917 MULLER/ATTWOOD 2ND OVERALL

1973 8 MIRAGE M6 BELL/GANLEY 18 HRS (OIL PUMP)
9 MIRAGE M6 HAILWOOD/SCHUPPAN/WATSON 10 HRS (ACCIDENT)

1974 11 MIRAGE GR7 BELL/HAILWOOD 4TH OVERALL
12 MIRAGE GR7 SCHUPPAN/WISELL 5 HRS (ENGINE)

1975 10 MIRAGE GR8 SCHUPPAN/JAUSSAUD 3RD OVERALL
11 MIRAGE GR8 BELL/ICKX 1ST OVERALL

1994 5 KREMER K8 BELL/DONOVAN/LAESSIG 6TH OVERALL

1995 24 McLAREN F1 GTR SALA/BELLM/BLUNDELL 4TH OVERALL
25 McLAREN F1 GTR ALLIOT/OWEN-JONES/RAPHANEL 7 HRS (ACCIDENT)

1996 33 McLAREN F1 GTR LEHTO/WEAVER/BELLM 4TH OVERALL
34 McLAREN F1 GTR BRABHAM/OWEN-JONES/RAPHANEL 7 HRS (ACCIDENT)

1997 39 McLAREN F1 GTR BELLM/GILBERT-SCOTT/SEKIYA 22 HRS (FIRE)
40 McLAREN F1 GTR NIELSEN/BSCHER/GOODWIN NON-START (FIRE)
41 McLAREN F1 GTR RAPHANEL/GOUNON/OLOFSSON 2ND OVERALL

2001 4 AUDI R8 JOHANSSON/CORONEL/LEMARIE ....