[LM24 Race] 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans

[Maelochs]

Originally Posted by airbusA346

Just read that it was Ford who lodged a protest is the final hour about Risi's leader lights. So it wasn't something race control had picked up on themselves.

"When asked about the protests, Chip Ganassi Racing Managing Director Mike Hull told Sportscar365 that he was aware of the protest against Ford but was not aware of the protest Ford lodged against the Risi team during the race." (http://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/m...sh-at-le-mans/)

Let me rephrase: "Paid corporate shill and company liar Mike Hull told Sportscar365 .... " Yeah, Mike. The Racing Managing Director wouldn't have Anything to do with lodging a complaint. He'd for sure be totally out of that loop.

Nothing personal, but really? Trying to win the Scotty A award?

[carbsmith]

BoP works in GT3 because it's a customer class, so there isn't massive secrecy about the cars and you can't organize worldwide sandbagging.

The need for it in GTE is hugely exaggerated. It's there so weak manufacturers like AM and Dodge can compete, people act as if they've never seen Corvettes beat Saleens, DB9s beat Lambos, a Panoz win against Ferraris, years of 911/430 battles, etc. without any per car balancing.

Where things go south is that while all of the above are proper road cars all making proper road car compromises, the Ford GT is a homologation special.


The classification rules have been there a long time, as soon as the #5 had been on the front stretch a while I knew they were in trouble for even being scored.

[TRspitfirefan]

Not much to say that hasn't already been said. Completely gutted for the Toyota team. I love proper endurance racing, but to come so close to winning after persevering for five years.....that hurts.
GTEam was okay I guess. P2 was kind of frustrating, with the large speed advantage that the Orecas enjoyed.
The GTE"pro" class fiasco was simply inexcusable. BOP and sandbagging have been a big part of GTE for awhile now, but never has it been so poorly executed and blatantly biased. The Hollywood script called for a revival of the famous "Ford vs. Ferrari rivalry of the sixties, coinciding nicely with the upcoming movie and the 50th anniversary of Fords overall victory.
The advantage that the ACOs BOP meddling handed to Ford and a lesser extent Ferrari, wasn't just a slight edge, but several seconds every lap!
Even after Fridays unprecedented mid event adjustment, the Fords nearly matched their pole "winning" qualifying time of 3:51.185. The top three Fords fastest race laps were a 3:51.840 from the #68, a 3:51,514 from the #69 and a 3:51.582 for the #66. One wonders if they could have maybe gone even faster if it had been necessary. For the ACO to grant that much of a speed edge, in a class that is supposed to be production based and offer a level playing field for the different types of engines and drivetrain placements, is astounding!

The Lemans 24 hour race has always been special, but after this years GTE results, it has really lost a lot of its shine for me.

[carbsmith]

For what it's worth, the LMP2 winner ran a best lap half a second off of pole as well and the GTE Am winner ran faster, it seems the track conditions during the race were likely better than during qualifying. The Friday BoP adjustment did a whole lot of nothing though. Not changing the boost limit at high revs always seemed kind of strange when the car had massive straight line speed and 10kg is nothing by comparison.

[Maelochs]

Well ... we all know we watched a staged Ferrari-Ford race in GTE-pro this year. Not much else to say about that.


Funniest part? The only people who know the history and care enough to care, are the people most offended by the fakery. On the whole, and massive publicity failure for Ford, FIA, and ACO.

[Salamus]

Originally Posted by Velociraptor

Well, road versions of cars like 488 GTB, 911 GTx(ok, not strictly GT3 since that is handicapped by its NA engine, but GT2 is not), mclaren 650S... are very evenly matched so maybe an idea would be to bring these GT cars much closer to their road-spec...

Basically what GT3 initially tried to be and what GT4 is trying to be. But after 15 years of watching GT1/GT2/GTE, would anyone be okay with watching GT cars that aren't absolute monsters?

Originally Posted by Maelochs

BoP has to be done by an independent test team which has enough laps in each car to know how to make it work. Once done, it is done until one-third or one-half the season is run, then it is fixed again until two-thirds (or quarters or halves, whichever makes sense in each instance.) I believe this is how SRO used to do it (too lazy to google.)

Yes, I remember in the early days of GT3, they would bring all the cars to Paul Ricard and get hired drivers to test them. I don't know how or when the SRO balances the cars now.

Originally Posted by carbsmith

The need for it in GTE is hugely exaggerated. It's there so weak manufacturers like AM and Dodge can compete, people act as if they've never seen Corvettes beat Saleens, DB9s beat Lambos, a Panoz win against Ferraris, years of 911/430 battles, etc. without any per car balancing.

The GT1 Corvettes and AMs were full factory entries. Of course they were going to beat other GT1 cars run by small teams. The Panoz only has a handful of victories, it's not a good example. And while the 911vs360/430 days were good, its a lot easier when there are only two competitive manufacturers as opposed to five/six if you include BMW. Also helps when there is no arms race and a lack of factory influence.

Originally Posted by TRspitfirefan

The Lemans 24 hour race has always been special, but after this years GTE results, it has really lost a lot of its shine for me.

A lot of questionable rulings have occurred at Le Mans over the years and decades. Don't let this year's edition affect you too much. We have to take the good with the bad.

[MaskedRacer]

Looking at the previous races before Le Mans. It turned out that Laguna Seca was the best indicator of how the GTE race was going to turn out. Not the 2 WEC races (spa, silverstone)

[Dyson Mazda]

Originally Posted by Maelochs

Well ... we all know we watched a staged Ferrari-Ford race in GTE-pro this year. Not much else to say about that.


Funniest part? The only people who know the history and care enough to care, are the people most offended by the fakery. On the whole, and massive publicity failure for Ford, FIA, and ACO.

This is not Ford's fault. It is the ACO's fault. At the end of the day the 68 didn't put a single foot wrong and had one of the strongest driver lineups in the race.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Dyson Mazda

This is not Ford's fault. It is the ACO's fault. At the end of the day the 68 didn't put a single foot wrong and had one of the strongest driver lineups in the race.

You can't fault the drivers for this, or the 68 car.

[TheDude]

What happened to Manthey and AF Corse?
both 4 cars early retirements

[TRspitfirefan]

Originally Posted by Dyson Mazda

This is not Ford's fault. It is the ACO's fault. At the end of the day the 68 didn't put a single foot wrong and had one of the strongest driver lineups in the race.

The problem is, even the trouble free run that the #68 enjoyed was likely aided by the fact that the Fords did not need to push that hard. All things being more or less equal, who knows how the Fords may have fared if there had been more pressure. The Risi car, the #95 Aston and the #63 Vette all had pretty clean outings also.

[TRspitfirefan]

Originally Posted by Salamus

A lot of questionable rulings have occurred at Le Mans over the years and decades. Don't let this year's edition affect you too much. We have to take the good with the bad.

True enough.
I'm sure I will feel a lot better about our sport in a few days. Especially since I'll be at Road America, watching some awesome GT3 machines and enjoying the worlds greatest bratwurst!
Racing is so much better live and in person.

[chernaudi]

The comparison between the bickering between the GTE teams vs the class act displays by Audi Sport, Porsche Motorsport, and TMG/TGR is totally night and day.

[OmerRS]

In GTE-Pro, I believe every team plays the same strategy. For example:

Aston Martin: Their race pace is 2 seconds(3.53) faster than the qualifiying and test day!

1183 kg, so 65 kg lighter than Ford.
Fastest top speed by far

Ferrari: Risi team improved their qualifiying lap about 1 second in race even with the limitations.

Running nearly 0.2 bar more than the Fords across the whole rev range with higher displacement V8. They have the power advantage over the grid except Aston.

This year on IMSA races Risi was slower than the Fords, but appeared to be at the same pace with BOP improved Fords during qualy. According to this Risi made even more sandbagging?

Porsche and Corvette: they also made 3.53's and improved about 2-3 seconds from their qualy pace.

Ford: their race and qualy pace are almost same even after the reduction of boost and increased weight. At the begginning of the WEC season Ford GT BOP was extremely restricted, you cant blame them more than the others.

Car 66 and 67 came to pits because of illuminated number plates on one side not working and lost lot of time to repair it, why Risi did not come to pits to repair their leader lights? and they had a 20 sec. penalty only.

In summary, I really wanted to see a Ford win and I think people blaming Ford team too much without telling anything to the other teams which are done similar thnigs.

BUT! these BOP games and silly rules ruined the victory for Ford. At the and of the day; Not satisfied.

[Lagunaseca_4life]

Bop will always be an issue,it comes with the territory of not being spec.but it seems there two issues here,bop and waivers.its sad but it is what it is.it just went over board this year.but I got to ask is this ford controversy any different than what the aco did with audi and the tdi diesel to the lmp1 class,eventually destroying the lmp1 class in alms and Le Mans......

On another note I feel the fia and aco going the route of Imsa with rules,regulations,and treatment of international or non WEC entrants.poor bop and unfavorable rules are ridiculous.i bet if corvette and porsche factory were running full season wec teams they would of gotten better bop.

[Articus]

Originally Posted by TRspitfirefan

The problem is, even the trouble free run that the #68 enjoyed was likely aided by the fact that the Fords did not need to push that hard. All things being more or less equal, who knows how the Fords may have fared if there had been more pressure. The Risi car, the #95 Aston and the #63 Vette all had pretty clean outings also.

I completely disagree with this statement. The 68 Ford pushed 110% the entire race. 3:52-3:52 race pace during the day. They slowed due to cooler conditions at night up to 3:54-3:55 and they kept getting shuffled back due to poor slow zone timing and safety car.
During the day the pace was the same as earlier in the race.

Look at the drivers in the car, Hand, Muller, Bourdais....Those guys don't have a second gear, they are on kill mode the entire race and they were flawless Look at the lap times on the chronological analysis on alkamel.

[carbsmith]

Corvette did that 3:53 sometime around happy hour when the track was faster than any time during the test day or qualifying. For most of the race they only had one lap in the 54s that Garcia did on his first flier. They ran almost the entire race in the 56s, which makes their test day pace pretty representative compared to the Fords that went from 56s to pounding out 53s and 54s all day.

Aston Martins also very rarely went below 55s and 56s, but their BoP was changed so radically after the test day you can hardly compare anyways. They seem to have no downforce, which is why the car is disproportionately fast in a straight line and has to run super light to make it around a corner.

Originally Posted by Salamus

The GT1 Corvettes and AMs were full factory entries. Of course they were going to beat other GT1 cars run by small teams.

Except we're talking about privateer Corvettes and Aston Martins that beat in house RML Saleens and Reiter Lamborghinis. There's also the MC12, waiver restrictions aside.

[Maelochs]

If Corvette did not get bad BoP, why were they so slow? After all, they Won last year, with about the same car. it wasn't driver error, or poor pit stops, or any of that. I don't know--I guess most of us watch the race and also watch T&S, so i could see when cars did what speed.

The Vettes were simply not as fast. Considering that the whole point of BoP is that Everyone is exactly as fast .... <crickets>

[Lagunaseca_4life]

Wasn't it in 2014 also when corvettes were off the pace even slower than gte-Am aston martins at times? All the fan boys were upset and ****y,I remember fehan saying in an interview that it wasn't much bop but having issue figuring out the wec tires,I'm wondering if it was the same thing this year getting wec tires at laguna seca and struggling with them,in which the same race ford and ferrari were the top cars and corvette and porsche struggled.also on the wec stream at one point they were talking about how aston Martin switched to Dunlop because the Michelin tires were being developed for mid engined cars and not suited for front engined cars.......wonder how much truth there is behind that.

[nkoske]

All I'm going to say is that filing a protest on the second place car is a dick move. #notthespiritoflemans

Gutted for Toyota, Happy for Porsche. GTE PRO needs to look at LMP1 to learn how to behave

[schmidder]

Originally Posted by Salamus

In regards to the GTE BoP... it was disgraceful. There have been times in the past where some manufacturers were given a small advantage. But never, has the ACO been this biased. It certainly is going to open up a new can of worms in terms of internal politics between the FIA, ACO, and the GTE manufacturers. What is the ACO going to do if Jaguar comes and says they want to enter GTE at Le Mans to celebrate 30 years since their overall victory? Or Mercedes, or McLaren, or Bentley?

As for the #5 not being classified. That is absolute nonsense. What difference does it make if a car completes a 12 min lap on lap 1 or lap 200 or the final lap. They crossed the finish line and did so on the same lap as the leader. I fully understand the 70% (or whatever percentage it is now) rule. But to place a car as unclassified when it completed the final lap and completed more laps than 58 other cars. Absolute joke.

The race it self was fantastic though. I unfortunately missed the start due to work but I watched around 17 hours this year. Too bad I have no one to watch it with.

In regards to the 5, while it was a tragic end for toyota, it did not complete the final lap, it was in second place when the porsche finished the race and did not cross the line within the 12 minutes, so I am not sure how you are saying it should not be excluded. I personally think the rule can me manipulated, (cadillac a few years ago comes to mind), but I like the fact it insures the winner and podium finishers actually finish/cross the finish line after the winner. Sucks for toyota, but they didn't finish with the 5.

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[schmidder]

Complete in time I guess I should have said.

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[roderick]

Originally Posted by schmidder

In regards to the 5, while it was a tragic end for toyota, it did not complete the final lap, it was in second place when the porsche finished the race and did not cross the line within the 12 minutes, so I am not sure how you are saying it should not be excluded. I personally think the rule can me manipulated, (cadillac a few years ago comes to mind), but I like the fact it insures the winner and podium finishers actually finish/cross the finish line after the winner. Sucks for toyota, but they didn't finish with the 5.

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Correct me if im wrong but from what I've been watching.
No5 stopped after crossing the finish line, then the Porsche passed.
Then it started moving slow...

Porsche finished with a checker flag and towards the end No5 did cross the line but the time No5 has taken on that lap was 11:53.815

The reason why it's classified is not because it didn't complete the last lap but due to No5 taken more than 6min to complete a lap.
also, I hear some people saying that you need to go around another cool down lap as well?

[Alan52]

For the Toyota team in those circumstances 2nd place for car 5 would feel the same as a DNF.

[Stefvh]

Yeah, 2nd or nothing is the same, especially given the circumtances.