Le Mans Series, 8 Hours Of Le Castellet, Sunday

[Red Firecracker]

First chance this weekend to see the Le Mans Series racers in action, including the R15+ and the ACO regged M3. Proper racing returns to Europe instead of those media frenzy, mere qualifying session long events that have been taking place in the Southern Hemisphere.

Eurosport are pulling out all the stops on coverage, oh, hang on....

Sunday April 11th (UK times)

10.15 - 12.00 Live grid and start
13.00 - 13.30 Live
18.00 - 18.30 Finish

Saving grace being Radio Le Mans coverage and of course the Listeners Collective.

[Altrezia]

Is it not on Motorstv? Poop.

[dougc]

1015, 1300 and 1800 on Eurosport on Sunday

[Red Firecracker]

Radio Le Mans coverage;

Friday 9th April

15:00 - Free Practice


Saturday 10th April

08:30 - Free Practice
12:30 - Qualifying


Sunday 11th April

07:15 - Warm-up
09:30 - Pre-Race Show
10:00 - Race

Available at http://www.radiolemans.com/

[webby74]

finally some decent racing returns instead of the f1 circus! come on audi and our man nigel

[skeggysteve]

Don't forget that the last Eurosport update is after the race ends.

[Red Firecracker]

skeggysteve said:

Don't forget that the last Eurosport update is after the race ends.

...and the first bit of coverage is after the start of the race.

However, it does look stunning in HD.

ETA:

Live timing here;

http://www.lemanseries.com/fr/s54_courses/s54p01_c...

Edited by Red Firecracker on Sunday 11th April 10:24

[ellroy]

So the 'new' Audi is still not that quick. Apart from the air jack issues, and assuming all else went to plan, the Peugot would have won by about 6 laps ( maths courtesy of crash.net).

I wonder if they were holding back/still somewhat in test mode/other reason or if it is just not quick enough?

[The Leaper]

I listened on RLM for most of the 8 hours...great commentary as always, good exciting racing particularly towards the end in LMP2 and GT2. I liked the ice cream bit ahead of the start!

I still would not rule out the Peugots yet although the Audi is formidable as always.

R.

[Red Firecracker]

Hmm, the crash.net line doesn't really take into account the race as a whole, in that for that 18 minutes in the pits Oreca got a 'free' pit stop when compared to the Audi. Ally that to the fact that the Audi backed off a lot in the closing hour rain (the gap to the Lola-Aston dropped considerably). Also, that spooky Oreca pit stop to change a seemingly brand new tyre that conveniently moved the Pug up a slot.....

Quite an impressive debut from a new car considering the difficult infancy of its predecessor the R15. Of course, the 908 is a proven package now, near the end of it's life, so is well known.

I'd say June could be most interesting.

Edited by Red Firecracker on Sunday 11th April 22:33

[Hughesie]

That new Audi looks mean/ugly

[Rs2oo]

Unfortunately, the Mansell effort has a lot of work to do in 2 months as does do the Aston Martin Lolas. When the Matmut Peugeot (last years car) came out of the pits after their long pit-stop it breezed past the Aston. The diesels still have a very healthy advantage. Perhaps they should race at Lyddon Hill and give the petrol cars a chance !

[Red Firecracker]

I think the AMR Lola's have more or less maintained their position in the field. The Mansell-Beechdean car was (is?) never going to be a front runner despite the hype, it's a new team effectively. I would also imagine that there were a lot of new people in the Oreca team for that race, maybe people who mainly wear blue and white normally... (well, they displayed the same pit stop characteristics as the factory team).

2011 is going to be the interesting year, 2010 was always going to be something of a holding year until the new regulations come out. The 908 is end of life, Audi have been rather forced into the R15+ due to penny pinching in their race programme for 2009 and also some quite far thinking design that didn't quite work in the real world. AMR have a P1 on the drawing board but aren't giving the go ahead until the ACO finalise the new rules so everything at the moment is pushing towards either a fantastic initial P2 or GT2 field next year. How many privateer teams are going to be willing to invest in P1 if the uncertainty over the complete regulations continues when P2 is more of a known quantity. Don't forget that the ACO is pushing for P2 to the be privateer class with P1 the factory teams class.

Ally that to the fact that WR are developing a customer diesel engine for next year (for P1 but you never know) and 2011 looks like it could be an absolute corker.

[Rs2oo]

Red Firecracker said:

I think the AMR Lola's have more or less maintained their position in the field. The Mansell-Beechdean car was (is?) never going to be a front runner despite the hype, it's a new team effectively. I would also imagine that there were a lot of new people in the Oreca team for that race, maybe people who mainly wear blue and white normally... (well, they displayed the same pit stop characteristics as the factory team).

2011 is going to be the interesting year, 2010 was always going to be something of a holding year until the new regulations come out. The 908 is end of life, Audi have been rather forced into the R15+ due to penny pinching in their race programme for 2009 and also some quite far thinking design that didn't quite work in the real world. AMR have a P1 on the drawing board but aren't giving the go ahead until the ACO finalise the new rules so everything at the moment is pushing towards either a fantastic initial P2 or GT2 field next year. How many privateer teams are going to be willing to invest in P1 if the uncertainty over the complete regulations continues when P2 is more of a known quantity. Don't forget that the ACO is pushing for P2 to the be privateer class with P1 the factory teams class.

Ally that to the fact that WR are developing a customer diesel engine for next year (for P1 but you never know) and 2011 looks like it could be an absolute corker.

Can you sit next to us in the grandstand on June 12th/13th please ?

[Red Firecracker]

If you're paying!

It's all info available on various endurance racing websites.

[chevronb37]

Was the Mansell car off the ultimate pace all weekend or did they have problems? He was actually very quick at Silverstone last year so was expecting better from them; new team or otherwise.

[Red Firecracker]

chevronb37 said:

Was the Mansell car off the ultimate pace all weekend or did they have problems? He was actually very quick at Silverstone last year so was expecting better from them; new team or otherwise.

Mansell Snr was interviewed and admitted that they were slow 'but knew what they had to do'. There have been some enforced, significant, aero changes at the rear of the cars this year so a new team may be hitting hurdles that a team with more knowledge of the chassis may be better prepared to overcome.

They had quite a few issues though with bodywork repairs, oil top ups and changing an alternator.

[chevronb37]

Red Firecracker said:

chevronb37 said:

Was the Mansell car off the ultimate pace all weekend or did they have problems? He was actually very quick at Silverstone last year so was expecting better from them; new team or otherwise.

Mansell Snr was interviewed and admitted that they were slow 'but knew what they had to do'. There have been some enforced, significant, aero changes at the rear of the cars this year so a new team may be hitting hurdles that a team with more knowledge of the chassis may be better prepared to overcome.

They had quite a few issues though with bodywork repairs, oil top ups and changing an alternator.

Many thanks for the heads-up. I expect they will get a decent level of factory support - Lawrence Tomlinson seems very keen on using Mansell to promote Ginetta-Zytek. And with good reason, I suppose. Isn't Mansell listed as Technical Director, or some such? I hope they can move forward with any issues as the car is inherently quite good judging by its ultimate pace. Will look forward to seeing them at Silverstone in September.

[Red Firecracker]

It is in effect a factory team. The car is full 2010 spec and Ginetta didn't apply for a waiver on the rear louvres so it should be quite rapid when they get it all sorted. New team niggles were always going to be a problem.