2023 WEC

At 3hrs. one of the Toyotas hit some sort of trouble and lost 6 laps. The other Toyota is about 50 seconds ahead of a Ferrari, so there's still a chance we could have a race for it.
 
Great finish down to the wire between the Corvette and Richard Mille Ferrari in GTE, pretty good stuff in LMP2 as usual, but Hypercar still leaves a lot to be desired. Mechanical issues hindering four of the cars didn’t help but still no one has pace for Toyota. On the upside, Peugeot did manage to bring both cars home pretty cleanly with the new gearshift actuator.
 
FLRacingFan said:
but Hypercar still leaves a lot to be desired.
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Toyota has three years of development on that car, so they are going to be ahead for awhile. There are also automatic BOP revisions after leMans, so it will get better. We're only two races in, so the others will get it figured out. The battle for the hypercar win is not that good right now, but it took sportscars 50 years to get so screwed up and it's going to take time to right itself. At least the cars are fast and cool and we've got something really good to build on.

Once they get everything adjusted, we could very well end up with IMSA style competition in hypercar. I think the LMDh cars could use a little BOP break and that should set everything right. Things are going the right direction so I'm going to be optimistic.
 
Doc Austin said:
Toyota has three years of development on that car, so they are going to be ahead for awhile. There are also automatic BOP revisions after leMans, so it will get better. We're only two races in, so the others will get it figured out. The battle for the hypercar win is not that good right now, but it took sportscars 50 years to get so screwed up and it's going to take time to right itself. At least the cars are fast and cool and we've got something really good to build on.

Once they get everything adjusted, we could very well end up with IMSA style competition in hypercar. I think the LMDh cars could use a little BOP break and that should set everything right. Things are going the right direction so I'm going to be optimistic.
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It sounds like there’s a platform adjustment (Best LMH vs. best LMDh) coming before Spa. They can do that type of adjustment once every two races.

Toyota certainly has a major development advantage. Ran the original car for two years and then came with a major evo package this year. But they’re probably further ahead than most would’ve hoped at this point. I find it hard to see them losing a race this season.

Still all positive developments for the IMSA/ACO world, of course. This rule set will be around for a while.
 
FLRacingFan said:
It sounds like there’s a platform adjustment (Best LMH vs. best LMDh) coming before Spa. They can do that type of adjustment once every two races.
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Getting the hypercars and GTPs balanced is going to be difficult, though they got it closer than I was expecting.

FLRacingFan said:
Toyota certainly has a major development advantage. Ran the original car for two years and then came with a major evo package this year. But they’re probably further ahead than most would’ve hoped at this point. I find it hard to see them losing a race this season.
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They have always managed to lose a race one way or the other, from being DQed at Silverstone to getting outrun by Rebellion or Alpine.

I don't see the dominance as an insurmountable problem. Ferrari Porsche, and Caddy already have good reliability, so let's see what happens if/when we get a BOP adjustment.
FLRacingFan said:
Still all positive developments for the IMSA/ACO world, of course. This rule set will be around for a while.
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I hope so. generally, the longer regulations are left in place, the better the competition becomes.
 
Peugeot will run a trippy livery at Le Mans. I’ll take it over their standard gray one for sure.

 
The only recent development I don’t like is that COTA is tipped to be in July/August. Way, way too hot. I guess Hell was already booked. Otherwise, a 2025 schedule that looks like;

Losail
Monza
Spa
Le Mans
Silverstone
COTA
Interlagos
Fuji
Bahrain

would be quite good. I think there are probably some security reservations over Interlagos though. It sounds like Toyota and Stellantis are the ones really pushing to race there.
 
FLRacingFan said:
The only recent development I don’t like is that COTA is tipped to be in July/August. Way, way too hot. I guess Hell was already booked. Otherwise, a 2025 schedule that looks like;

Losail
Monza
Spa
Le Mans
Silverstone
COTA
Interlagos
Fuji
Bahrain

would be quite good. I think there are probably some security reservations over Interlagos though. It sounds like Toyota and Stellantis are the ones really pushing to race there.
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The Losail circuit is the most uninspiring and boring track on the planet. It's a nice, safe track, but it's flat and utterly featureless. One corner looks just like all the others. I hate it we had to give up Portamao to get that. Even worse, Sebring got replaced by COTA. The rest of the schedule is really fine, and Silverstone should have never been off the schedule anyway.
 
Doc Austin said:
The Losail circuit is the most uninspiring and boring track on the planet. It's a nice, safe track, but it's flat and utterly featureless. One corner looks just like all the others. I hate it we had to give up Portamao to get that. Even worse, Sebring got replaced by COTA. The rest of the schedule is really fine, and Silverstone should have never been off the schedule anyway.
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Qatar isn’t a replacement for Portimao and, with all of its misgivings in mind, is helping to financially and logistically aid the series in expanding the calendar elsewhere. Considering they have an idea in mind of how many European races they can have I’d call Silverstone the Portimao replacement and COTA the Sebring replacement, with Qatar and Interlagos added. Silverstone is likely more expensive than Portimao so that’s also where Qatar helps.
 
Overall it's a decent schedule, and hopefully they can find their way back to Portamao soon.
 
Haven’t seen any news about adjustments yet but it seems the teams are unsure of if there will be any either. I take it as a no for now.

JOTA debut their 963 this weekend, and Cadillac have a second CGR entry. Action Express applied for a third but not enough garage space at Spa.

The Heart of Racing are taking over the Northwest AMR GTE entry for the rest of the season as one of the sport’s beloved gentlemen drivers, Paul Dalla Lana, retired this week.
 
Signing that convergence was like flipping a light switch. Sportscars went from laughable to outright mega. As a former fierce critic of the series, all I can say is very well done.

I'm anxious to see how well Jota does. If a privateer can run up front in a Porsche all will be right in the world. I love the colors. You don't see many gold racecars.

64382000c01c5.jpg
 
Kiante said:
Affordability makes a difference.
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Imagine how much more affordable it would be if it didn't cost $120,000 to replace a battery, or if the hypercar budgets weren't $35 million a year. Granted, LMDh seems much more affordable than hypercar, and I believe once more of them are available to privateers we're going to have a ton of cool cars.

Now that we have the cars, I think it is time to get them BOPed a little better. Previously, WEC didn't help themselves by allowing Toyota such a huge advantage that they blew every single privateer out of the series. They are on that same road again with the Toyota having a fat 1 second buffer per lap, and there will be no adjustment for lemans. Of course, I wasn't going to complain about it because we're just getting started with the convergence, and I figured they would get it right. They have had 1000 miles of Sebring and six hours of Portamao to collect data, and clearly an adjustment is needed.

I'm not anti-Toyota or anything because they earned their chops beating Porsche and Audi, and they deserve a LeMans win against real competition.
 
I’m curious to know what the run plans were for today because Toyota were about 1.6 seconds ahead of anyone else in FP1 and then Ferrari swept 1-2 in FP2 ahead of the #2 Cadillac, with Toyota 4th and 7th. The lead Ferrari was 1.2 seconds up on the sister car so I think both practices may be skewed by qualifying sims from different teams at different times.
 
Doc Austin said:
Now that we have the cars, I think it is time to get them BOPed a little better. Previously, WEC didn't help themselves by allowing Toyota such a huge advantage that they blew every single privateer out of the series. They are on that same road again with the Toyota having a fat 1 second buffer per lap, and there will be no adjustment for lemans. Of course, I wasn't going to complain about it because we're just getting started with the convergence, and I figured they would get it right. They have had 1000 miles of Sebring and six hours of Portamao to collect data, and clearly an adjustment is needed.

I'm not anti-Toyota or anything because they earned their chops beating Porsche and Audi, and they deserve a LeMans win against real competition.
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I read an article that it’s really more of a balance of potential performance based on hundreds of thousands of simulations more than anything else and that they don’t use qualifying or race lap times. So probably relying heavily on the wind tunnel homologation and dyno data. And then Toyota’s experience probably helps make the gap from there.

I do think there will be a couple of adjustments but probably after Le Mans and before Bahrain. There was an agreement between the OEMs to place limits on how often adjustments can be made to disincentivize sandbagging.
 
FLRacingFan said:
I read an article that it’s really more of a balance of potential performance based on hundreds of thousands of simulations more than anything else and that they don’t use qualifying or race lap times. So probably relying heavily on the wind tunnel homologation and dyno data.
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That's what I read earlier today.
FLRacingFan said:
And then Toyota’s experience probably helps make the gap from there.
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Of the hypercar entrants, only Toyota has extended hybrid experience. Peugeot has only four or five races under their belt, and Glickenhaus seems hopeless. Ferrari and Bykolles only have two races, so in term of track time Toyota is way, way ahead. That and remember that Toyota won the WEC once during the LMP1 hybrid era, so they have a lot of hybrid experience going for them.

However, the LMDH seem to have an additional disadvantage. I don't think 2 seconds is acceptable when besides the hybrid system, those are well developed cars. The Caddy really should not be two seconds back, and when they get to Lemans, with the long circuit that gap will probably be even bigger.

I made up my mind not to complain about the BOP because I figured they would get it right, but now they have two races worth of data and they are doing nothing to address the balance for Lemans. I'm sure thee will be conspiracy theories, but I think the disparity just illustrates how difficult it is to balance such diverse technology.

Now if you look at IMSA, they can balance those cars pretty well. Even the BMW has had a shot at it late in the last two races. The Acura seems to be fastest, but both got knocked out at Long Beach. IMSA has it reasonably right.

It's just a matter if the WEC wants to allow the LMDh to compete, and currently they are doing nothing to help them. It will be interesting to see if the Porsche will have an advantage over the other LMDh cars. They just won Long Beach, so they will be the LMDh benchmark.

I suppose it was easy to get spoiled by the great races we had in IMSA with the DPIs and now the GTPs. A one second gap is an eternity compared to the GTPs running so closely. IMSA has it right. I think WEC could dial the hypercars back a little and we'll have a smokin' series.

FLRacingFan said:
I do think there will be a couple of adjustments but probably after Le Mans and before Bahrain. There was an agreement between the OEMs to place limits on how often adjustments can be made to disincentivize sandbagging.
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IMSA collects so much data that sandbagging is nearly impossible. I'm sure it goes on, but the telemetry doesn't lie. IMSA has it right regardless.

This shows up in the races where we have three different manufacturers winning the first three races.

First footage from Spa now in............

​
 
FLRacingFan said:
I do think there will be a couple of adjustments but probably after Le Mans and before Bahrain. There was an agreement between the OEMs to place limits on how often adjustments can be made to disincentivize sandbagging.
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I read somewhere on RACER today (but can't find it) that there will be no adjustments for LeMans. It's going to be a long race with Toyota having that kind of gap.
 
Hartley just binned the #8 Toyota at Raidillion on the outlap. Not pushing at all. Commentators asking if it’s time for a rethink of the tire warmer ban already…hmm.
 
Doc Austin said:
Do you have a stream or something?
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Just wrapped up, sorry.

Kobayashi split the Ferraris, the top three were covered by .059 and the #2 Cadillac showed their best pace yet at .266 back in 4th. So that’s the top four covered by less than three tenths. Pole for Italian Jesus.

 
Gio had his lap deleted for track limits, Toyota back on pole, Ferrari 2-3. Pretty close at the top nonetheless. Hopefully Ferrari and Cadillac have long run pace and we can have a proper battle with Toyota.
 
Depending on how bad the Ferrari went out of bounds, it's still encouraging they've got the speed. Race pace will be a different matter, but at least they threw a scare into Toyota. I think we can look forward to a good race. It's great to see Ferrari back in endurance racing.

I'm waiting to see a complete rundown of the times before I say too much, but P3 was a mess.
 
Doc Austin said:
us.motorsport.com

WEC Spa: Toyota takes pole after Ferrari gets track limits penalty

us.motorsport.com us.motorsport.com

Cadillac and Porsche are still at least a second off the pace, but we will have to live with that at least until after Lemans before they get any relief. At least Ferrari is truly in the fight. Let's just hope their race pace is good.
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The #2 Caddy finished within a quarter of a second of pole, it’s only the #3 that’s over a second back and that’s still an undeveloped chassis. Bamber actually had a better ideal lap than Kobayashi but Kamui was simply able to put it all together at once. I really think Ferrari looked quickest but Molina and Gio both screwed up their laps (track limits probably hurt more than helped anyways).
 
FLRacingFan said:
The #2 Caddy finished within a quarter of a second of pole, it’s only the #3 that’s over a second back and that’s still an undeveloped chassis. Bamber actually had a better ideal lap than Kobayashi but Kamui was simply able to put it all together at once. I really think Ferrari looked quickest but Molina and Gio both screwed up their laps (track limits probably hurt more than helped anyways).
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I was comparing to the Ferrari time that got disallowed. My bad. 1/4 second is much more acceptable. Let's see how the race pace plays out. If they stay that close it could be a good show.
 
Toyota running away with it again.

Here's a weird fact: After four hours the top 20 cars all within 2 laps of the overall lead. Almost half of those are P2 cars.
 
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