WEC lap time analysis

[Mike E]

I have done some lap time analysis on the WEC. I did it because of the LMP1-H vs LMP1-P discussions that have been going on and I wanted to quantify the lap time that the privateers are losing to the big boys.

I was also wondering how much of a gap there is between LMP1-P and LMP2, bearing in mind that LMP2 will be getting a power boost up to around 600bhp in 2017. This is probably not far short of what Rebellion and ByKolles are getting out of the AER V6 at the moment. Judd have relaunched their 5.5 litre V10 and are claiming over 480kW, or at least 645bhp (http://www.engdev.com/aim-lmp1-engine/). If this claim is accurate, then AER are getting at least 250bhp/litre out of that little 2.4 litre V6. That sounds like a strain.

Similarly, GTE Pro will be speeding up with the arrival of new cars and the new aero rules being introduced.

I analysed the fastest race laps for each car in each race. I know fastest lap may not be representative of a car's overall pace in a race but it does represent the best the car could do on the day (and calculating average race lap time, excluding FCY/safety car/pit in/pit out/etc sounds like hard work!).

Some points to note:
- There are only 3 cars running in LMP1-P. And Rebellion sat out the first two rounds while they re-worked their car to take the AER engine. So, only ByKolles were present for Silverstone and Spa, and they were pretty hopeless in both races.
- It gets more interesting from Le Mans onwards with the arrival of Rebellion. I have looked at the times for the full season, as well as the season excluding the first two rounds.
- I have calculated the average and median lap times. The median is probably a better measure because it removes the outliers (in LMP1 this is generally ByKolles, except at Le Mans, when the Nissans brought up the rear).

So, looking at the median figures from LM onwards, the gap from LMP1-H to LMP1-P is around 6% per lap (around 6 or 7 seconds on a typical circuit). That's a lot for cars supposedly competing with each other. The spread of fastest to slowest in LMP1-H was generally around 2.5% and that was enough to turn Toyota into spectators.

The gap from LMP1-H to LMP2 is around 10.5%. This is probably too big, considering the LMP2-GTE Pro gap is about 6%. It's not unusual to see LMP2s struggling to get by GTE cars. The LMP2 power boost is intended to sort this out by closing the gap to LMP1-H and increasing the gap to GTE.

More significantly, the LMP1-P to LMP2 gap is only about 4%. And in the races it has seemed a lot closer because of reliability problems in LMP1-P, and possibly inconsistent lap times (speculation). An extra 150bhp for LMP2 could make the current LMP1-Ps look very ordinary. The Rebellions have good top speed, comparable with the LMP1-Hs, and significantly ahead of LMP2. So they are losing out to LMP1-H on acceleration (4 wheel drive, huge torque) and handling/downforce (€€€).
Bear in mind that an ORECA 05 with a 600bhp Gibson V8 in the back is not very different from a Rebellion-AER. So increase the top speed of the ORECA and you have a Rebellion lap time? Maybe.

No doubt Onroak/Strakka/Greaves/whoever have done these sums (a lot better than I have). You can see why they might be reluctant to jump into LMP1.

Anyway, the summarised numbers are shown below, and all the numbers are available here: http://1drv.ms/1NjbjNt

AVERAGE - FULL SEASON
LMP1-H->LMP1-P 6.69%
LMP1-H->LMP2 9.81%
LMP1-H->GTE Pro 16.95%
LMP1-H->GTE Am 17.69%
LMP1-P->LMP2 2.96%
LMP2->GTE Pro 6.52%
GTE Pro->GTE Am 1.15%

AVERAGE - LM ONWARDS
LMP1-H->LMP1-P 5.59%
LMP1-H->LMP2 9.78%
LMP1-H->GTE Pro 16.51%
LMP1-H->GTE Am 17.07%
LMP1-P->LMP2 3.98%
LMP2->GTE Pro 6.14%
GTE Pro->GTE Am 1.17%

MEDIAN - FULL SEASON
LMP1-H->LMP1-P 6.50%
LMP1-H->LMP2 10.35%
LMP1-H->GTE Pro 17.48%
LMP1-H->GTE Am 18.92%
LMP1-P->LMP2 3.37%
LMP2->GTE Pro 6.56%
GTE Pro->GTE Am 1.27%

MEDIAN - LM ONWARDS
LMP1-H->LMP1-P 6.16%
LMP1-H->GTE Pro 17.35%
LMP1-H->GTE Am 18.69%
LMP1-P->LMP2 3.94%
LMP2->GTE Pro 6.27%
GTE Pro->GTE Am 1.27%