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Old 13 Jan 2018, 14:15 (Ref:3792469)   #5365
chernaudi
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chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!chernaudi has a real shot at the championship!
It's easy to forget that the Kolles car is based on a vehicle designed in 2013. It's been updated constantly, especially the last couple of years, but it's still of that vintage as far as the tub.

The newer cars have been developed seeing how the know-how and technology has developed and knowing that customers expect.

As far as minimum weight, the privateers have a better opportunity to reach that than Toyota would since they don't have to lug around a hybrid system. Just the battery pack along for the Toyota weighs I don't know what, but they need a hoist to help them get it in and out of the car under normal conditions.

We also have to remember that LMP1 cars in the ALMS in 2006 were ultimately allowed to weigh 860kg to try and allow them to run lap times similar to what the Audi R10s were capable of. If any of those cars were able to meet 860kg or not, I don't know conclusively, but the ACO are playing a similar game here, hoping that lighter weight will mean better cornering and quicker acceleration and matching what a factory car is capable of.

And if we go back further, the Audi R8 needed nearly 130+lbs of ballast to meet 900kg when it was brand new, which is nearly 60 kg. That's 900kg minus 60, but that'd take the R8 down to 840kg, not too far away from the current 830kg of the private LMP1s. And the R8 didn't have integrated monocoque and bodywork, and several other things have have allowed teams to shave off the kilos. The Audi R10 did, but it took them until just before LM in '06 to meet 925kg with ballast, and until '08 to get well below 900kg without ballast.

I don't think it's far fetched to think that at least in qualifying that the privateers can give Toyota something to think about, but we'll have to wait until the Paul Ricard Prologue before we can make accurate guesses or testing times get leaked.

Also, privateers do have several concessions, such as massively relaxed limits on private testing, engine use, and wind tunnel time, among others, compared to Toyota.
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