Sportscar/GT (and Le Mans) Rumours and Repetition

[Japanese Samurai]

Shinji Nakano announced 2012 LM24 participation plan.
Team: BOUTSEN GINION RACING
Chassis: ORECA03
Engine: Nissan
Tire: Dunlop
http://www.c-shinji.com/information/1328

[Simmi]

Originally Posted by Japanese Samurai

Shinji Nakano announced 2012 LM24 participation plan.
Team: BOUTSEN GINION RACING
Chassis: ORECA03
Engine: Nissan
Tire: Dunlop
http://www.c-shinji.com/information/1328

Very interesting.

I wonder who has been booted out of that entry then. Briere, Clarke or Petersen?

[Simmi]

In lighter news did anyone see Sebastian Loeb won the Porsche Supercup race at Pau yesterday!?

Another step closer to circuit racing. Will be interesting to see if he re-enters sportscars in his teams' prototype or GT car? I'm sure he will catch the LMP bug again at test day.

[The Badger]

Manufacturers should be forced to supply at least 1 privater team , if not 2 . Its not healthy for the championship when 1 car does all the winning .

Like when Joest beat the works team at Le Mans 1n 1983 ..... brilliant result , and gave the privateer something to aim for .

[alexkiller8]

Originally Posted by The Badger

Manufacturers should be forced to supply at least 1 privater team , if not 2 . Its not healthy for the championship when 1 car does all the winning .

Like when Joest beat the works team at Le Mans 1n 1983 ..... brilliant result , and gave the privateer something to aim for .

manufacters like toyota have already difficulties to grid 2 official cars, a private program will be a suicide. A good way to do this is to set a rule that private teams can buy a "previous year" chassis from manufacters, but realisticly does exist a single private team that have the budget to do this? (oreca used a 908HDi in 2010 and 2011 because was supported by peugeot; as seen in 2011 they withdrawn from imola, silverstone and zhuhai race because too much expensive without peugeot support).
A solution for this maybe is a "budget" version of the cars used by manufacters, a sort of R18- built with less performant specs (no carbon gearbox, basic bodywork etc....)

[DS"]

Originally Posted by The Badger

Manufacturers should be forced to supply at least 1 privater team , if not 2 . Its not healthy for the championship when 1 car does all the winning .

Like when Joest beat the works team at Le Mans 1n 1983 ..... brilliant result , and gave the privateer something to aim for .

Not really. If we got satellite teams in WEC, we may get an ugly mix of DTM and Pescarolo ANNO 2009. Teams who aren't allowed to win against the works teams, yet still have to fund expensive sportscars.

[FIRE]

I have sympathy for Badgers opinion but I am afraid it would not work for reasons of finance and politics. However in GTE this rule should be exist.

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by alexkiller8

manufacters like toyota have already difficulties to grid 2 official cars, a private program will be a suicide

If Corvette sold as many race cars as Porsche & Ferrari do , they would never have been in jepordy as their race programme would have been making money . They nearly got canned a few years back . Much easier to justify a race programme , when its a golden goose .

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by alexkiller8

A solution for this maybe is a "budget" version of the cars used by manufacters, a sort of R18- built with less performant specs (no carbon gearbox, basic bodywork etc....)

What , and no chance in the world to beat the works team ..... I dont think so .

[alexkiller8]

Originally Posted by The Badger

If Corvette sold as many race cars as Porsche & Ferrari do , they would never have been in jepordy as their race programme would have been making money . They nearly got canned a few years back . Much easier to justify a race programme , when its a golden goose .

ok but you can't compare corvette with porsche and ferrari. Porsche and Ferrari main aim in the competition is to sell cars (also win is a goal, but their primary objective is to sell their GT2/3 cars to the teams), corvette main aim in the competition is to win against other manufacters.
Only recently corvette started to support a private team (larbre), in the past they just sold old and used cars c6r gt1 to european teams without any kind of collaboration/support (i don't speak about Z06 GT3 because isn't a car produced by GM/corvette).
In my opinion the corvette brand in motorsport won't never risk to disappear, because GM needs a performant corvette race car to promote the street one. Until now corvette has been produced in 6 generations, and all six had a racing version. For the seventh generation corvette will be the same.

[alexkiller8]

Originally Posted by The Badger

What , and no chance in the world to beat the works team ..... I dont think so .

i think that in the history has never existed an automotive manufacter that produced a better racecar reserved for customers and a worse one reserved for the work team. Then think that the difference isn't done only by the car, but by the people that work on it! think 2010, oreca had a full 2010 updated car (basicly was the forth factory car of peugeot) but was never able to be more performant than the 908HDi used by the work team.
My proposal was about to find a way to let the manufacter have a private program not too much expensive and for private team to have a cheaper manufacter car.

[MagVanisher]

Originally Posted by alexkiller8

Until now corvette has been produced in 6 generations, and all six had a racing version. For the seventh generation corvette will be the same.

Um, I believe that the first generation and the second generation (which almost competed in Le Mans if it wasn't for GM) didn't have a race car back then.

And I agree with a private program, alexkiller. That way, they will have profit but they will have a chance of winning at the same time!

[alexkiller8]

will be however impossible to happen... a private team without a powerfull sponsor fight each season to survive (take a look to the LM 2006 entrylist at example, in 5-6 years almost all private teams don't exist anymore now) for sure doesn't think to buy a car that can't maintain (a solution could be annual leasing contracts, GT500 style).
BTW for the first generation of corvette in 1957 was released a "race package" for the car, and for the second generation have been built 5 grand sport race cars (125 were planned) that however ran in some race.

[Articus]

Originally Posted by The Badger

If Corvette sold as many race cars as Porsche & Ferrari do , they would never have been in jepordy as their race programme would have been making money . They nearly got canned a few years back . Much easier to justify a race programme , when its a golden goose .

But generally speaking the profits just get shuffled back into the next gen race car development right? For Corvette they aren't running to make money for GM. GM already is very wealthy despite the economy and bailout. hen Corvette wins it just means that GM gets to make those cheesy commercials.

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by alexkiller8

i think that in the history has never existed an automotive manufacter that produced a better racecar reserved for customers and a worse one reserved for the work team.

Whoever suggested that idea ?

There are some very good privateers out there . Joest beat the works Porsche team several times with the same machinery , as did RLR and quite a few others over the years . The works team has to supply as good as they have , otherwise you end up with a Penske/Dyson Porsche effort , which cheesed off Dyson .

[alexkiller8]

well is true, joest team before to become the official team of porsche won 2 le mans races, but rothmans team (if we want take this team as work team of porsche) won more le mans races and more world championship races too. About penske/dyson question, well the 2 teams had the same car, but penske had the official support of the factory and was able to run also for the overall win... is easy to understand why was stronger than dyson team

[gregtummer]

Originally Posted by alexkiller8

i think that in the history has never existed an automotive manufacter that produced a better racecar reserved for customers and a worse one reserved for the work team. Then think that the difference isn't done only by the car, but by the people that work on it! think 2010, oreca had a full 2010 updated car (basicly was the forth factory car of peugeot) but was never able to be more performant than the 908HDi used by the work team.
My proposal was about to find a way to let the manufacter have a private program not too much expensive and for private team to have a cheaper manufacter car.

The Oreca Peugeot set the fastest race lap at Le Mans in 2010 at a 3:19 flat.

[alexkiller8]

sure, but when duval marked that lap the oreca 908HDi was behind the official cars, that were dominating the race.

[gregtummer]

Peugeot #1 was running flat out for over 12+ hours that race.

[alexkiller8]

mmm i don't remember well but when duval marked the fastest lap, the #1 was in the boxes because of electronics problems. However this doesn't change that even if the oreca 908HDi marked the fastest lap, had never the pace of the first 2 official 908HDi, but just faster than the three r15+

[chernaudi]

The Oreca Pug ran in the top 2-3 after the #3 Pug lost it's front suspension, and it ran on the podium until it lost a half-shaft. And the Oreca 908 really dropped the hammer to get on the podium after the #1 Pug lost it's engine. And the Oreca Pug ran it's fastest lap within a few laps of when it went out with a con rod failure like 2 of the other 908s.

[kurski]

Originally Posted by Simmi

Looks like Jan Charouz will not be racing for Gulf Middle East anymore.Anyone know more about this? Sponsorship not coming through?

Is there any more information on why Jan Charouz does not drive this year?... he mayde drive this year only Czech TouringCar Championship father team Mercedes-Benz DTM car?

[FstrthnU]

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...-list-growing/
Since there was talk about that Dragonspeed Audi R8 LMS Ultra, here's some news. The team has entered next year's Dubai 24, and there's also rumors of more American teams--including a "recent Rolex 24 winner".

[MagVanisher]

Originally Posted by FstrthnU

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...-list-growing/
Since there was talk about that Dragonspeed Audi R8 LMS Ultra, here's some news. The team has entered next year's Dubai 24, and there's also rumors of more American teams--including a "recent Rolex 24 winner".

Ohhh... Looks like Grand-Am is getting more marques and making it better than ALMS!

Of course, I hope the GT cars for next year can have the same performance and parity of the GT3 class.

BTW, will Grand-Am just drop some of the DP constructors and make Riley as the only chassis supplier? I'm thinking that with Riley created a Corvette DP for this year, having more than just one constructor is a waste IMO.

And also, the DPs need to have the same parity as the current LMP2 cars. Hell, the only thing that is left for the current DPs is a big honking fin for "safety" since NASCAR wants it as a safe racing series.

[Simmi]

So a bit of decent speculation on RLM with Graham Goodwin at the test day.

Our friends at Kodewa (Kolles) should have an announcement during Le Mans week for a new LMP project with 'something we haven't seen before'. GG wasn't sure yet whether it was P1 or P2. Sounds interesting. Hoping for a new 2 car P1 squad please!

Who could it be?