Quote:
Originally Posted by Sodemo
I guess that assumes though that all teams could run their car at a new much lower min weight? Would that be difficult for any teams do you think or are these cars built massively underweight?
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I don't know. I just have a bee in my bonnet about purpose built racing cars weighing over a tonne.
However, the Alpine A480 is a Rebellion R13, which used the tub from the Oreca 07, and ran at the 833kg minimum weight in LMP1 and may well have been ballasted up to that:
'Weight distribution is different, and from the LMP2 we had to save a lot of weight, so if you keep everything the same then you don’t hit the target.
We carry quite a lot of ballast in LMP2, but we still had a lot of weight to save for LMP1. The target was not only a matter of hitting the minimum weight, but hitting the weight with ballast.’
Similar story for SMP Racing's BR1 LMP1, based on Dallara's LMP2 tub:
'‘We started from the LMP2 monocoque that was already good, but the name of the game in LMP1 is weight saving, more than anything else,’ says Luca Pignacca, chief designer at Dallara. ‘The car must weigh 100kg less than the LMP2 and that is a lot. Fortunately, we had a good base from which to start, because
the LMP2 car carries a lot of ballast with the Gibson engine'.
I' m pretty sure Jim described the Glickenhaus as 'a 900kg car' or something like that.
And I can't believe Toyota have forgotten everything they learned in LMP1.
The sticking point may be LMDh. These will be based on the next generation of LMP2 chassis. Will they still run at 930kg? Even taking out the ballast, adding an electric motor and a battery pack will push them towards the 1030kg Hypercar minimum.
Here endeth my off topic thoughts for the day.