Round 4: Mosport 22-24 July 2011

[Audi Racer]

they arent losing 50hp from only a .4mm change i dont think....i think they should be around 470ish like the rest of the boys.

BMW is an example of a team that has eveything,absoltuely everything, going right at the moment..which is more to why they are dominating.......You, me and the world all know that a fast car means so little in endurance racing.


They have the strongest driving lineup of any team.....Full support($$$) and expertise of BMW Motorsport....And wicked car....when you get that kind of lineup of course your going to dominate.....

Remember the Risi Ferrari F430 of 2009......They were by far the quickest car out there.....And they could not put it together......Constant mistakes and messups....a team is a heck of a lot more than a car and i hope everyone realizes that...You need people who don't screw up fuel numbers(Risi petit lemans),people who dont screw up pit stops, you need engineering expertise, you need a reliable car(ferrari don't have one). Sooo many things can go wrong in a race and that has not happened for BMW. dont think for a second that they don't deserve they're success....they have not put a foot wrong all season compared to Every other team in the paddock.....(Lizards at sebring,Risi every weekend,Corvette's iffy driving lineup, Dyson, every LMPC etc...)

[Jonerz]

Originally Posted by Audi Racer

dont think for a second that they don't deserve they're success....they have not put a foot wrong all season compared to Every other team in the paddock.....(Lizards at sebring,Risi every weekend,Corvette's iffy driving lineup, Dyson, every LMPC etc...)

I certainly agree on the first part, while I can't agree on Corvette's "iffy" lineup comment, I have to say the rest of that is true.

Their car is absolutely splendid too. Perhaps it is the new way to achieve an old-fashioned ideal, petition the sanctioning body for waivers (as everyone does) and whoever does the best job of swaying the opinions of the decision makers builds the best car. It's a new slant on interpreting the rules like they did in the 'good old days.'

Chris

[andy_b]

The ALMS Mosport Spotter Guide is now available to download. Thanks again to Ten-Tenths for their support.

http://www.spotterguides.com

[arakis]

Originally Posted by Audi Racer

they arent losing 50hp from only a .4mm change i dont think....i think they should be around 470ish like the rest of the boys.

BMW is an example of a team that has eveything,absoltuely everything, going right at the moment..which is more to why they are dominating.......You, me and the world all know that a fast car means so little in endurance racing.

ALMS is not endurance racing, 90% of the tracks run at below the 3h mark.
I agree that they have everything right t the moment. but they also have the fastest car..... If we forget the waivers, they still have the fastest car because it is BoPed, and that just isnt right. No car that is BoPed shoud ever be the Fastest in my oppinion. BoP serves to make it competitive not the fastest, because then it comes down to the ACO/IMSA to chose the fastest car and that just isnt right....BTW the only Endurance race they won in ACO sancitioned racing is Sebring.

BTW now they have over 500hp, with the 1.2mm Bop, while porsche at the 28.6mm restrictors have 455hp. those are official figures, who knows what they both have at the track.

[ubrben]

Originally Posted by arakis

Ben the simple fact remains that the car was BoPed to make it competitve in a class that, it is now too competitive, at best they should be fighting for wins not dominating them, and that porsche never stood a chance, the porsche was riding the curbes so hard to catch the beemer while they were just cruising to finish, the porsche was pushing so hard that they blew a tire. as for the top speed, it means almost nothing about the engine addvantige the BMW had over the others, we dont know what setups everyone ran, BMWs could have ran a more drag/downforce setup while the porsche ran less and so on, not to mention top speed doesent reflect acceleration, witch is far more important. come on those bmw have around 50hp more then porsche.

lets see how RLL sets up the BMW with 450hp insted of 500.

You believe official HP figures... Oh dear. Look at Le Mans last year - massive straightline speed from the Corvettes, etc, with BMW maxed out at ~280 - people thought they were sandbagging massively last year and clearly weren't.

As for Porsche's tyre problems being due to "pushing" I'm sceptical. Maybe Michelin genuinely are on the back foot?? Not to say they're not strong, they clearly are. But how much reality is being denied on the basis of previous reputation. The best wet tyre in ALMS is Falken - clear from the wet session at Lime Rock. The best dry tyre might still be Michelin, but the gap is tiny and Dunlop had a more durable tyre at Lime Rock. People interpret the data based on a particular world view, and that view often doesn't change until well after the facts have.

Textbook example; the Ford GT got a smaller restrictor because it was believed it would be too fast on Michelin - they then had to give them the restrictor back when it was clear that switching to Michelin hadn't made them faster at all...

Ben

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by Audi Racer

they have not put a foot wrong all season

Umm have we already forgotten Bill Auberlen's wacky adventures at Long Beach?

And what's wrong with vette's line-up, it's about as good as it gets!!

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by ubrben

Look at Le Mans last year - massive straightline speed from the Corvettes, etc, with BMW maxed out at ~280 - people thought they were sandbagging massively last year and clearly weren't.

Had BMW been more 'careful' with their pace like this year, they could've easily avoided the smaller restrictor ACO issued for Le Mans...

[ubrben]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Had BMW been more 'careful' with their pace like this year, they could've easily avoided the smaller restrictor ACO issued for Le Mans...

Well spotted about Bill at Long Beach - Exception that proves the rule and all that :-p

BTW, If you want to talk about "managing pace" I suggest you look at the Lime Rock speed traps for the Lizard Porsche. Having spent the whole race largely below 238km/h max speed they all of a sudden were turning nearly 240km/h down the front straight at the end of the race. Not to mention exceeding their qualifying lap time on full tanks during the race.

But wait - apparently they were just attacking kerbs to find the speed...

Ben

[Spyderman]

Well, if Porsche are "managing pace", I wish they would stop it, as it doesn't seem to be providing them any race/championship results.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by arakis

ALMS is not endurance racing, 90% of the tracks run at below the 3h mark.

I know what you meant, but the actually percent of races under 3 hours is 55.55% (5/9 races). Just for comparison, the LMS runs 5 6-hour races for a total of 30 hours of racing. In the ALMS' 4 endurance races they run for approximately 31 hours (depending on how long Petit takes).

[FordCosworthPanoz]

Iffy driver lineup for Corvette??????? You could probably put up a 10 minute youtube compilation of all the crashes and incidents Bill Auberlen has been involved in.

[Audi Racer]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Umm have we already forgotten Bill Auberlen's wacky adventures at Long Beach?
And what's wrong with vette's line-up, it's about as good as it gets!!

Caused to spin by getting clipped by a Vette......if you wanna include incidents caused by other cars then you'd also have also included the wipe out in practice caused by the Risi Ferrari...and the dustups the 55 car had with the Jags at Sebring.
I dont think the 4 car quite has the pace...Tommy Milner is still adjusting

Originally Posted by ubrben

Well spotted about Bill at Long Beach - Exception that proves the rule and all that :-p
not his fault.

BTW, If you want to talk about "managing pace" I suggest you look at the Lime Rock speed traps for the Lizard Porsche. Having spent the whole race largely below 238km/h max speed they all of a sudden were turning nearly 240km/h down the front straight at the end of the race. Not to mention exceeding their qualifying lap time on full tanks during the race.

But wait - apparently they were just attacking kerbs to find the speed...

Ben

yep.......fishy stuff.

Originally Posted by FordCosworthPanoz

Iffy driver lineup for Corvette??????? You could probably put up a 10 minute youtube compilation of all the crashes and incidents Bill Auberlen has been involved in.

Corvette has had a pretty strange things happene between their driver.....including the dustups on track and in the pit lane between the cars.caused by the drivers....not to mention tommy milner not being particularly fast.

[Audi Racer]

Originally Posted by arakis

ALMS is not endurance racing, 90% of the tracks run at below the 3h mark.
I agree that they have everything right t the moment. but they also have the fastest car..... If we forget the waivers, they still have the fastest car because it is BoPed, and that just isnt right. No car that is BoPed shoud ever be the Fastest in my oppinion. BoP serves to make it competitive not the fastest, because then it comes down to the ACO/IMSA to chose the fastest car and that just isnt right....BTW the only Endurance race they won in ACO sancitioned racing is Sebring.

BTW now they have over 500hp, with the 1.2mm Bop, while porsche at the 28.6mm restrictors have 455hp. those are official figures, who knows what they both have at the track.

Considering that the gt drivers sit in front engined(heat), constantly looking in their mirrors....the work load of a gt drivers over 2hrs and 45 minutes(1 hr ish drive time) might as well make it an enduro all by itself...i have alwaysnthought it takes alot of brainpower to have to look in your mirrors and drive quickly in a car with less aero than lmps and more heat....Yeah alot. and considering that most teams screw up before the 1 hour mark(and struggle to the finish). you might a s well call it an enduro lol.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by Audi Racer

Caused to spin by getting clipped by a Vette..... if you wanna include incidents caused by other cars --

You're actually blaming Milner for Auberlen's whacko driving? He was the one that got out of shape when Porsche overtook him, it's no wonder there's contact when you have heavy traffic and a car that's slowly moving towards the fountain. I suppose you're also blaming others when Auberlen got stuck and BRILLIANTLY blocked his team mate when he finally got going?

[FordCosworthPanoz]

Originally Posted by Chiana

You're actually blaming Milner for Auberlen's whacko driving? He was the one that got out of shape when Porsche overtook him, it's no wonder there's contact when you have heavy traffic and a car that's slowly moving towards the fountain. I suppose you're also blaming others when Auberlen got stuck and BRILLIANTLY blocked his team mate when he finally got going?

Chiana, just dont bother trying to explain that to him.

[Jonerz]

Originally Posted by andy_b

The ALMS Mosport Spotter Guide is now available to download. Thanks again to Ten-Tenths for their support.

http://www.spotterguides.com

Thanks, Andy!

Chris

[pederb]

I guess the Lambo fell off the list

[AGD]

Originally Posted by pederb

I guess the Lambo fell off the list

The West Racing team said a few weeks back that they were going to miss the next couple of races (I'm not sure which races exactly, although obviously Mosport is one of them) while they are developing a new Lambo. We'll see if they come back and how strong they are.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by AGD

The West Racing team said a few weeks back that they were going to miss the next couple of races (I'm not sure which races exactly, although obviously Mosport is one of them) while they are developing a new Lambo. We'll see if they come back and how strong they are.

Where was that announced?

[AGD]

Originally Posted by joeb

Where was that announced?

Their Facebook page.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by AGD

Their Facebook page.

Thanks. I guess it is a new Gallardo?


Back to Mosport: Did anybody go to the pit stop demo event they had today?

[Audi Racer]

Originally Posted by Chiana

You're actually blaming Milner for Auberlen's whacko driving? He was the one that got out of shape when Porsche overtook him, it's no wonder there's contact when you have heavy traffic and a car that's slowly moving towards the fountain. I suppose you're also blaming others when Auberlen got stuck and BRILLIANTLY blocked his team mate when he finally got going?

what does that have to do with anything??its a simple cause and effect analysis at best....If Milner was not there Auberlen would not have spun regardless of how slow he was going. what's you expect? hes trying to get out of a tight spot and not go a lap down....from an incident cause by Tommy Milner sticking his nose where it did Not belong......

[ubrben]

Originally Posted by Audi Racer

what does that have to do with anything??its a simple cause and effect analysis at best....If Milner was not there Auberlen would not have spun regardless of how slow he was going. what's you expect? hes trying to get out of a tight spot and not go a lap down....from an incident cause by Tommy Milner sticking his nose where it did Not belong......

Much as I'd like to agree with you I tend to come down on the opinion that Bill could have avoided that incident.

As for Milner being slow as someone suggested - it's more inconsistency for me. He's still young and relatively inexperienced at this level. His stint at Sebring in the BMW (around 5pm) was the fastest (in terms of green average lap time) of any BMW driver in the race, but other days he's not quite there. A lot of potential though and a really nice kid - that matter too whether you like it or not.

Ben

[Accident]

In my opinion, if a driver goes off the track/stops/slows/whatever and then attempts to rejoin, it is that driver's responsibility to safely rejoin the race.

Not meaning it as a shot at Auberlen, it was a tough spot for him and there wasn't much room, but Milner was on the racing line and moving at race pace, it was Auberlen's job to make sure he was not banging into the side of someone whilst attempting to re-enter the racing line.

[picchiofan]

Originally Posted by Audi Racer

Considering that the gt drivers sit in front engined(heat), constantly looking in their mirrors....the work load of a gt drivers over 2hrs and 45 minutes(1 hr ish drive time) might as well make it an enduro all by itself...i have alwaysnthought it takes alot of brainpower to have to look in your mirrors and drive quickly in a car with less aero than lmps and more heat....Yeah alot. and considering that most teams screw up before the 1 hour mark(and struggle to the finish). you might a s well call it an enduro lol.

If that's your criteria, then NASCAR sprint cup is the biggest endurance series in the world. Those guys run 800 hp front engined beasts with no real ventilation, poor aero, and 3-4 hour stints at a time.