[LM24] Le Mans 2014

[Koenigsegg]

I do think this race showed that the ELMS P2 quality is much better than FIA WEC P2 quality.

[tux]

Was an official reason given for the #7 Toyotas retirement?

Ive noticed in some pictures #95 Aston was running with a damaged rear end plate, anyone know how that happened? Nothing was shown on TV.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by tux

Was an official reason given for the #7 Toyotas retirement?

http://tentenths.com/forum/showpost....postcount=2091

[dsg]

Originally Posted by deggis

Oops. But you mean just the 70-lap avg.

Yeah, when looking at the bigger picture Webber was slightly faster. The larger sample size would be more indicative of average pace.

[Aysedasi]

On averages, yes, but he seemed unable to lift his pace when it was really needed......

[Ginaro Zukovsky]

Was looking at the alkamel site and decided to read the noticeboard of Stewards' decisions: http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Res...%20to%2025.pdf

I found it funny they rejected a request (decision No 19) from #50 to change their starting driver, yet #29 only got a reprimand (final decision) for doing so!

[chernaudi]

Random fact. A quadruple stint at Le Mans for Audi this year was 52 laps around a 8.47 mile track. That equals just over 440 miles.

The average NASCAR Sprint Cup points race, once all the math is done (adding race distance and dividing by 36, the number of points paying races a season), is about 365 miles. Meaning that Audi ran more than an average NASCAR race's distance on one set of tires, and they did it almost the whole race until the end with how driver rotations played out and they did full service on the cars when they had their turbocharger issues. But Audi did average more than a NASCAR races' average distance on one set of tires.

[rdjones]

I have just had another thought.

The #99 Aston was withdrawn due to being written off on Wednesday night. However #1, #27, #79 and #81 were also written off but there teams replaced by either getting a new Shell or a new Tub. I am very suprised the Aston Martin didn't have a spare car to call on.

[PascaLM]

Originally Posted by rdjones

I have just had another thought.

The #99 Aston was withdrawn due to being written off on Wednesday night. However #1, #27, #79 and #81 were also written off but there teams replaced by either getting a new Shell or a new Tub. I am very suprised the Aston Martin didn't have a spare car to call on.

Eric told me on Saturday morning that the allocation of budget of AMR is not very high unfortunately. This could explain that the n°99 hasn't been replaced.

[JoestForEver]

Is the # 99 Bamboo Craft prepared car? Probably because AMR not supporting them as much as Young Driver?

[Joe4]

Hello everyone, long time lurker on here but finally decided to post, was at the race (dad supposed to have been racing in the group c support race)

Back to topic, not sure whether this video has been posted, the onboard of the toyota having its race ending problem http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxrvbc33yHU I was gutted

[deggis]

Originally Posted by Joe4

Back to topic, not sure whether this video has been posted, the onboard of the toyota having its race ending problem http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxrvbc33yHU I was gutted

Not seen that. Now it's obvious why the onboard died (during the race I did notice that onboard died, but at that point the cause wasn't clear and other onboard feeds had problems too...)

Has to be one of the most invisible lead DFNs in a recent memory... only footage that was shown during the broadcast was from some passing GT car in high speed. Why this onboard wasn't shown during the broadcast?

[Joe4]

Originally Posted by deggis

Not seen that. Now it's obvious why the onboard died (during the race I did notice that onboard died, but at that point the cause wasn't clear and other onboard feeds had problems too...)

Has to be one of the most invisible lead DFNs in a recent memory... only footage that was shown during the broadcast was from some passing GT car in high speed.

Yeah I was trackside following the car lap by lap & realised before RLM the car hadn't come by, even more irritating that Toyota have said they where bringing the car in that lap as well.

There are some great onboards on YouTube by the way, especially from #35 Nissan when the rain starts to fall

[FstrthnU]

http://gaborvajda.kinja.com/the-race...1593661530/all
Some interesting comments from Nicolas Perrin here

[kurski]

MTV F1 commentator Toni Vilander said that it would be great to see the current F1 drivers active during the Le Mans 24h race, but their agreements prevent it.

[Pilgrimage]

Incidentally, Radio Le mans' description that #47 driver abandoned the car and was "dejectedly trudging back to the pits" was inaccurate.
He actually either didn't know the 10m rule or forgot about it. Mechanics from the pits had been called to come to advise how to get it in gear - it was firing up but wouldn't engage. The car was just behind the barriers at the exit of Corvette curve. Marshalls had also been instructed not to touch the car to avoid outside interference. The Swiss driver (name escapes me now) for some reason went to great a camera man (it looked like he knew him, especially due to the imposing photos he allowed him to take afterwards) and went perhaps 15 - 20 metres from the car and then returned. A real shame and I now wish I had shouted at him to stop as i was about as close as my screen is now... I'll upload my photos shortly.

[Pilgrimage]

[Pilgrimage]

New to flikr. No ideas why its at a funny angle...

[Articus]

Anyone else distracted by Alonso's poor flag waving skills at the race start? Was it just windy? Stick to single-seaters buddy ...

[dbagtbag]

Originally Posted by Articus

Anyone else distracted by Alonso's poor flag waving skills at the race start? Was it just windy? Stick to single-seaters buddy ...

Yeah he looked so awkward... kinda bobbing the flag up and down lol

[Pilgrimage]

Just a thought - Is a day of marshaling REQUIRED as part of getting first racing licence. I am planning to do some as part of my first foray anyway...
If so, Alonso should've had some experience.
The thought made me smirk.

[jimclark]

Tee-hee

[GT-Eins]

After the races were getting less we finally had found some time to add something to the statistics stuff from the race in our race report:

http://www.gt-eins.de/Berichte2014/2...al=Statistiken

[chernaudi]

You should know that the rain at LM was brief but nasty because of how several cars (such as the #2 Audi from the video I saw) could only find reasonable grip on the hard shoulder down the Mulsanne on slicks and could hardly keep up with the pace cars until changing on to wets.

Also, the #2 Audi (according to the video description) was only a couple of hundred yards ahead of the #3 Audi/#8 Toyota/#81 Ferrari fracas. From about 5:00 in the video. Whoever was in the #2 Audi--and everyone else driving at that time--had to think that they were screwed when the hit that solid bank of rain water that hung like a cloud.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LNF...2pkKrzx3XWvclQ

[Simmi]

Thanks for flagging up the video. Really interesting to watch and a real brown-trouser moment.

You do see a lot of flak sometimes from fans sat on sofas, me included sometimes, when races get paused or red flagged due to wet weather. Videos like this give you a sense of what it's really like when it goes bad and how difficult it is to just keep cars going in a straight line.