Doc Austin
Back From The Dead
WEC gets more and more bonkers every week.
The A424 was testing at Paul Ricard yesterday, and sounds quite a bit better for a turbo V6 than I expected.
Lamborghini were also there but apparently the SC63 was crashed at one point. Hopefully not a big one because a smaller program like that doesn’t need a big setback.
This looks like a slot car event…this is what WEC Twitter posted todayNovember? WTF? I was ready for Fuji to be next weekend!
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WEC calendar has a lot of important medium- and high-speed corners, so even though the LMH hybrids aren’t activated all the time, they are at places that have a lot of load, and they tend to have better balance and tire wear over stints as a result. For Ferrari and Toyota, that activation number is about 118 MPH (190 KPH), and about 93 MPH (150 KPH) for Peugeot. At Le Mans, those three can all take the Porsche Curves, Dunlop Curve, and Tertre Rouge better than the LMDhs can.Anyone notice how stiffy sprung the Porsche is and how compliant the Ferrari is? They had great views of all the cars in the last chicanes and it was really easy to see the differences.
I finally got to see all of lemans and had a chance to study the car's behavior. The Porsche would launch itself off the curbs, and you could routinely see both inside wheels off the ground. The Ferrari though would hit the curbs and act like they were not even there. The Toyota acted much like the Ferrari, though not as dramatically locked in. The Peugeot looked great on the curbs too.
With this in mind, maybe the BOP is right and the Ferrari and Toyota chassis' are simply more refined. It can't be the 4WD because it's not engaged at that low of a speed, so maybe it's the dampers. You can't get the power down is the wheels are in the air, and this has got to be holding Porsche back. There was a lot of talk about the Multimatic Mazda DPI being so stiffly sprung, so maybe that's just their way of setting the car up. With Penske's damper expertise, they will eventually get to the bottom of it.
Check out the Fuji race poster from post #323. It's got the wrong date!
Now that Mikey has an interest in sportscars, and Acura at that, I wouldn't be surprised if he and Wayne put a WEC team together.Porsche also generally tend to wear their rears more than the other LMDhs seem to. If you asked me, I’d say the Acura is the best overall LMDh so far, but unfortunately Honda don’t seem to be interested in taking it global so far.
If it's going to be a wet or wet/dry race, watch out for Yifei Ye in the Jota 963.Looks like Typhoon Yun-yeung is heading for Japan, would not be surprised if practices got washed out.
No surprise Toyota is fastest at home. It's the margin I'm not happy about. 2,3 tenths was more like I was expecting, but it's blown out to a second. Might be a long race unless someone has some speed they haven't been able to show yet.Toyota went 1-2 in qualifying…surprisingly Penske Porsches 3-4 and Cadillac 5th, Ferrari back in 6-7th, Peugeot something like 11th and 13th. I think some teams had issues getting tire temp and then within the last five minutes it started to rain and pretty much ended things.
All the testing Penske Porsche have done in the States recently seems to have helped, the drivers said the straight line braking and traction last night was as good as it’s been. I think the remainder of the field have been inactive since they don’t have parallel IMSA programs. Also, Toyota and Peugeot were the only ones with Fuji experience, and Peugeot spent much of last year’s race in the garage. The likes of Ferrari can test at Sebring and the European tracks but they had pretty much no data going into this one.Toyota probably had it under control the whole time. They just got roughed up and pushed back on the start, and then had to fight back. The difference between the winning Toyota and the Porsche was around 45 seconds, which doesn't seem like much until you have to make it up. We'll find out if they can make up the difference Nov. 4th.
The fact it took Toyota four hours to catch the Porsche is a good sign the BOP is not that far off. They have the winter to work on it, and I'm sure they will get it better.
With one race to go it's a tiny bit early to sum up the season, but I think we all agree it has surpassed what we were expecting. Sure, Toyota is still ahead, but that is shrinking. Toyota has done a tremendous job with their Hypercar program, but we couldn't see it because they weren't racing anyone, unless you count Alpine, and before that nothing but underfunded privateers. Now they have handily defeated Porsche, Ferrari and Cadillac, so this time it was no open goal. Toyota has supported WEC all along, and they richly deserve their success. I've just had enough of it and am already looking to Bahrain and hoping for an upset.
Sportscars are on such a great trajectory that we don't need to spoil the buzz with Red Bull type of domination.
Looking back on the glory days of the 917s and all, this is not even remotely the same thing. You used to have to baby the car and take care of it, and often the winning car would have to overcome some sort of repair, so you could never even make a remote guess who would win. Now it's so close they are banging each other off the track on the first lap of a six-hour contest. The competition is insane and even a small mistake can put you so far back there's no hope. As the manufacturers figure the cars out better and maybe WEC gets the BOP perfected, next year should be even wilder, and hopefully someone will step up and offer Toyota a more consistent challenge.
One thing that Bahrin won't change is Ferrari winning Lemans will be the story of the year.
The United article was from June, I don’t think they have anything lined up besides ELMS and IMSA LMP2. The Valkyrie would be run by the Heart of Racing, who run a couple of Vantage GT3s in IMSA. There aren’t really any other factory opportunities for United at the moment.Hmmmmmmmmm.......first United Autosports says they want to go hyper car, and the very next day Aston says they are trying to close a deal to race their car. Anyone see a possible connection to those two things?
While we are at it, has anyone heard what happened to Rebellion, the staff and equipment? They just vanished.
YES!
PRAISE GABEN!
Also, should all of this come to fruition and more grid spots opened up, United Autosport are now expected to run the McLaren 720S in LMGT3
He was destined for a Toyota drive before his big break in F1 last year, he always shined in LMP2 beforehand and was the Toyota reserve/sim guy. He’ll be a great fit and replacement for Lopez.Devries in line for possible Toyota hypercar seat: https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ot...p&cvid=6fcf6e54000b4f7cfc8cdaafb22dd7e5&ei=50