Quote:
Originally Posted by Akrapovic
“I am a huge advocate of separating car work and fueling,” Fehan said. “So the emphasis comes on to the crew. I want to see the same thing in America.
“I like it when the pit stop plays a role in how effectively you compete in the race. Where it’s more than just a driver in the car, it’s the whole team that has a role.
“The unintended consequence of that is that it encourages less tire usage. Because now you really have to ask yourself, ‘Should I keep the set of tires on, or should I take the time to put a new set on?’… I like that.”
Corvette gets it. Doug Fehan is absolutely spot on.
http://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/f...dained-racing/
It's basically everything we've said in this forum. If you BoP everything, then make sure everyone runs an identical strategy, then nobody can do anything. I also stopped short before of saying that I believe these strategy calls is how Corvette manages to be fighting at the end despite never being the ultimately fastest car, but I suspect one reason Doug has said this is that's probably the case.
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I do understand what you are saying, and I agree on it. That would make for the far more interesting races.
However, BOP in a cost conscious category is supposed to hide the technical deficiencies of the various platforms that come to race. GTE is not an open development class and it should stay that way otherwise cost goes out of control
If you say that everyone has an 80 Liter fuel tank, and no balancing of stint length, then the Ford and Ferrari win Le Mans every year.
If you say that tires and refueling cannot happen at the same time, then cars with tire wear advantage due to the platform (Ferrari) can win. See Nürburgring race last year.
When the intent of the category is to use the BOP to hide technical deficiencies and allow all of these different platforms to be competitive (front engine, mid engine, rear engine, small front area, big frontal area), then no one should have an efficiency advantage.
Now I do think GTE has unfortunately been boxed into a corner in the name of cost. What can you really do? This is what happens when cost matters.
If GTE was open development, we wouldn't be having this discussion. But the class would kill itself once cost got out of hand.