[Fab]

Dear fellow ten-tenthers,
Considering the quantity of available informations about the recent Le Mans races, I would like to merge some and go beyond in our analysis of cars chances to get the goal : win the overall, or at least win the category classification.

I exploited mainly the 1999 and 2002 races, through the annual ACO, any things you can check or do yourself at home. Why those two races ? Because they’re obviously the most competitive we had in the last 10 years (we approximately the same rules or so).

I tried to compare the following things :
- times on one lap for each category
- speed in each category
- gap between qualification times and race times

First thing : why 1999 was so impressive ? Because there was no ‘small category’, or so. No LMP 675, and only three GTs. The rest of the grid was made with LMP 900 and GTS cars.

Second thing : an enormous and sharply fall of the performances between 1999 and 2000. We can consider that 2000 and 2001 were ‘weak’ years (way of talking, of course !).

Third thing : regarding the times and speeds, 2002 was really very fast, comparing with 1999. Even if Audi had been absent, Bentley and Oreca could have been in the pace of 99’ BMW and Toyota, to mention the top 99’ cars.

Fourth thing : the real lack in the nowadays races is not performances, but factories, as pointed out some of you those last days. Mercedes, Toyota, BMW, Audi, Nissan and Panoz gave us the feeling that the 99’ race was historical, but the performances were not as historical as we could feel. This make me think that the 2003 will be a real great race, very open, with at least five cars for the overall win (three Audis and two Bentleys), and some serious outsiders (Courage Evo, because they are reliable, RFH Domes, because they are fast and showed last year a real capacity to make the entire race, etc…).

Now the facts :
- 2002’ pole : 3’29”930 ; 1999’ pole : 3’29”905 : regarding the modifications of the track, I cannot see something significant against 2002 performances.
- Comparing each place on the grid from 2nd to 10th : all the 2002’ cars made better than the 1999’ cars (even if the gap is weak).
- GTS cars : 3’56”588 for 1999, 3’54”091 for 2002 ; beyond this, the top seven cars in this category were under 4’ on one lap, we were far from it in 1999.
- Slowest cars : if I put out the cars that are really ‘of the pace’, the slowest car (the Spyker) made 4’19”969 in 2002, the last GTS (Porsche 911 GT2) 4’15”793 in 1999 (it was a GTS, notice that).
- Speeds : during the qualifications, the best 99’ car (Toyota GT1) did 351 kph, the best 02’ car (RFH Dome) did 337 kph. We lost a lot, without being slower on a lap : something changing in the approach of the performance ?
- Speeds : the best 99’ GTS car (a Viper) did 316 kph, the best 02’ car (the Maranello) did 325 kph, still during qualifications
- Speeds during the race : the best Toyota did 339 kph in 99, the Dome made 340 kph. Here we start to point something : the great gap between the qualification settings and the race trims…
- Gaps between qualifications and race : the 99’ winner (BMW) did 3’33”993 at qualifications, 3’36”965 during the race (for the best Toyota, this gap fall to one second between qualifications and race). The 02’ winner (Audi) did 3’30’219 at qualifications, 3’33”483 during the race. Get this : the strength of Audi is in this weak gap between qualifications and race : they’re able to be fast during the race too !
- To confirm : the best Dallara made 3’40’268 during the race, seven seconds slower than the qualifications ; we understand here why there was no battle, even during the first laps… the Bentley did at its best 3’39”484, the Dome 3’40”141… and so on : the best car behind the Joest Audis was… an Audi ! The Goh Audi did 3’38”215, and the whole story is tell here… Oops ! Not quite true : the fastest cars behind the Joest’s cars on one lap during the race were the Mgs : 3’37”221. But they didn’t run 24 hours !
- What’s the weak point of MGs : the speed ! They did between 308 and 319 kph, far behind the LMP 900 (except Panozes and Courage Evo, which seem to have a real lack of speed last year)
- Panozes : they’ve lost one second between 99 and 02 at qualifications, and four seconds during the race, still on one lap. I can’t explain how a team could lose so much performances during four years…
- More generally, there’s a real significant gap between qualification settings and race settings ; the more this gap is important, the more the car is potentially weak. The more this gap is small, the more the car has a chance to see the chequered flag, and in a good position.

We may not pay enough attention to the ‘comfortable’ side of the car : lots of drivers notice how ‘hard’ or ‘easy’ is the car, even at the last Sebring race ; if I can remember, about one of the MGs, one of them said he was in ‘heaven’, considering how easy was the car. If it’s not so important on one lap, you can imagine how it is during 24 hours ! Watching the 94’ race yesterday night, I saw a Japanese driver struggling hard with a sequential gear box : he was literally ‘boxing’ it ! How could he be efficient one entire stint in those conditions ?

Audis were the easiest cars ; I heard only one team leader talking about the ‘easy’ side of his car : Henri Pescarolo. But the others do the same : preparing the car for the race, considering how few important is the place on the grid for a 24 hours race… except for media, of course !

Debate is open !