[LM24] Le Mans 2018 Entry List Speculation

[Mike E]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

But still impossible even for the best limbo dancer, surely.......

That can't be right. The press release clearly states:

"The hugely popular Michelin Aston Martin Racing Festival will return to Le Mans on 16 June, 2018"

[MaskedRacer]

Seriously I hope nobody overlooks how great the GTLM field is. I think this race will have 5-10 cars on the same lap in the last hour. I do think all 6 makes will be in range of each other and don't think anybody will get left behind like in 2016. Even some of the GTE Am cars will be up there initially with pro drivers. Will be great to hear 10 Porsche 911 RSRs running around. GTLM is iot getting enough talk. But LMP1 is talked about to death. Its boring now. Gheesh. It will be an afterthought unless Toyota runs in to problems that delays them for a long enough periods of time.

[Simmi]

It's true that more than half of the platinum drivers in the field (45/81) are in GT Pro. A seriously impressive lineup of drivers, and like someone said before, SIX overall race winners in there.

Following the BoP is also a mini soap opera in of itself. I'm excited to see it once they dump the sand out of the BMWs and Astons.

Does anyone know, is the Ferrari still the baseline car for BoP this year or has that changed?

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Simmi

It's true that more than half of the platinum drivers in the field (45/81) are in GT Pro. A seriously impressive lineup of drivers, and like someone said before, SIX overall race winners in there.

Following the BoP is also a mini soap opera in of itself. I'm excited to see it once they dump the sand out of the BMWs and Astons.

Does anyone know, is the Ferrari still the baseline car for BoP this year or has that changed?

There is no longer a baseline car for the GTE-Pro BoP. The automated BoP system adjusts the Ferrari like any other car now. The Ferrari gained 5kg at Mexico and another 2 at Bahrain for example.

GTE-Am still uses a manual BoP, so I assume that still has the Ferrari as the baseline.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Bentley03

Sadly, the article also (all but) confirms that we won't see a Dragonspeed LMP1 at Le Mans, a switch to LMP2 for that entry most likely, although you do wonder (from the wording of the article) if there could be a surprise in store there.

Maybe the surprise is a last minute deal with Oreca to run a version of their P1?

[Mike E]

Random coincidence department. My mate lives in Philadelphia and he has spent the day at a wedding with Jeff Segal. Drove them back from the golf club, apparently not slowly, in a borrowed BMW. I shall have to root for that JMW Ferrari now.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Bentley03

Sadly, the article also (all but) confirms that we won't see a Dragonspeed LMP1 at Le Mans, a switch to LMP2 for that entry most likely, although you do wonder (from the wording of the article) if there could be a surprise in store there.

Reading that article a couple of times does seem like the author is saying that Dragonspeed is not sure if they will have an lmp1 car (in time) and if that be the case then they will ask for the/a lmp2 entry to be considered since they are entered and entitled to that slot. It's not even certain that the car will be produced and modified in time. So without any questions on it's safety there's that to consider. Looks like tough times.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by joeb

Maybe the surprise is a last minute deal with Oreca to run a version of their P1?

Or a Ginetta...

[Coach Ep]

Or a ByKolles CLM...

[joeb]

More information on the GT entries:

Well, Bop info at least

[Aysedasi]

BOP is not my subject at all, but am I being dense in struggling to see changes?

[Adam43]

The aero kit on the Am Aston?

[Simmi]

Do any of the BoP experts know why they have reduced power and increased the weight on them all? To try and peg them back on laptime vs last year?

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

BOP is not my subject at all, but am I being dense in struggling to see changes?

You're not being dense - the reporting of the BoP is dense - the "prev" column is not what you'd expect.

The normal BoP process is that after a normal race, they adjust it for the next race and the previous BoP is in the prev column and the adjustment and final columns are filled out correctly.

But for Le Mans it's a specific BoP that isn't based on the previous race - it's based on the magic Auto-BoP algorithm (which, if we remember, hasn't done a Le Mans race yet - it was introduced post Le Mans last year). So for Le Mans, it's like the system resets the BoP to fresh numbers rather than adjusts the old ones. So the previous column might as well be blank as it isn't adjusting any numbers, it's generating it all fresh.

It's normally easier to read than this, but the system they have doesn't seem to handle Le Mans very well. I'll have a quick skim later but I couldn't see the Spa specific BoP in an obvious place, but for reference, the BMW ran at 1255kg at Spa and will run 1268kg at Le Mans.

[Aysedasi]

Thanks for that!

[Number7]

Aston ditched last year model because it was old and too slow. They come up with a new model that "out of the box" with a BoP based on last years model is even slower. And now BoP is changed in their favor to make the brand new car more competitive.

I have no idea what's going on, but I surely hope that the ACO get it right, so we'll have the GTLM race of the century (so far).

[Aysedasi]

Well, it was pretty close to that last year and they'll have to go some to replicate that!

[GT6]

Originally Posted by Number7

Aston ditched last year model because it was old and too slow. They come up with a new model that "out of the box" with a BoP based on last years model is even slower. And now BoP is changed in their favor to make the brand new car more competitive.

I have no idea what's going on, but I surely hope that the ACO get it right, so we'll have the GTLM race of the century (so far).

At Spa the new astons were faster than the old one's in the am class but the old ones sounded so much better

[S griffin]

I wonder how well Aston will go at LM, they need a good result

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Number7

Aston ditched last year model because it was old and too slow. They come up with a new model that "out of the box" with a BoP based on last years model is even slower. And now BoP is changed in their favor to make the brand new car more competitive.

I have no idea what's going on, but I surely hope that the ACO get it right, so we'll have the GTLM race of the century (so far).

Well, in relative performance to the others in GTE PRO, they looked slow (as did BMW). But looking at the lap times from qualifying, in 2017 the lead Pro Aston Martin's average was 2:17.1; in 2018 it was 2:15.1. Most everyone made a 2 second jump over 2017 except AF Corse. They jumped only 7 tenths of a second from 2:15.0 (in 2017) to 2:14.3 (this year).

[S griffin]

It's confusing how the system works. I think it could be a close run thing between Aston and Ferrari. AF Corse should be up there. They need a good result too

[kartman24]

The Fords always seem to sand bag to get a good BOP setting, they are usually the quickest in the race...............

[Aysedasi]

Well, they weren't last year......

[PascaLM]

The BoP changes an endurance race into a dynamic and noisy artificial catalogue of GTs. Impossible to determine whether car is the fastest, best designed, most modern, most reliable.

[Aysedasi]

But, artificial or not, if they can get it right, we get a great race - like last year.