[WEC] Kolles Prototype

[chernaudi]

Nurburgring is supposed to be their last race this season--they building or at least buying a new car next year (finally).

[tigas]

I hope they can keep using that engine. It's a peach!

[Damian Baldi]

I think it was an error to try to put pressure on the Toyota on the first lap. This year the Kolles was a lot more reliable, if the stars should had been aligned they should had the possibility for a good finish, even a crazy victory with all the P1-H hitting problems, but races are races.

I hope to see this team next year with the Nissan and a better chassis.

[templer]

The official explaination for the retirement was a blown head gasket on the engine. No word about the reason.

Dominik Kraihamer explained different problems on Eurosport Germany. He said the team has had problems with the engine installation causing water leaks. This was the reason why the Team only could run a couple of laps in the training and qualifying seasons and it was also the reason for the total rebuilt of the engine after the warm-up. The Team was not able to solve the problem and they already knew that they would not run very long in the LM race.

Hard to say what was the reason for the LM troubles as the car run trouble-free in Spa with the high compression of the car in Eau Rouge

Maybe Ollis mistake caused only a earlier retirement.

[knighty]

I heard the driver Webb? say on autosport a car in front of them kicked up some debris, it smashed off a crucial part of their front diffuser, which then in turn did not feed enough air to the side pod, then the engine over heated and blew a head gasket, and the damage was done, it appears Kolles were cough out by one of LeMans freak accidents.

I do feel a bit sorry for them as it appears they had just unlocked their package, I think they set fastest ever LMP1 privateer time in qualifying?......so the package is coming together.......but as usual its just taken too long, it appears they are operating on minimal resources and the car is a bit of a shed in the aero department.

I'm hoping they invest in a decent chassis for next year, either a Perrin or a Ginetta would make the Cosworth-Nissan shine I'm sure, perhaps SMP??....

[chernaudi]

Not related to Kolles, but I though that Ginetta had an exclusive deal with Mechachrome? I do believe that Dallara and Perrin might be open to whatever the customer wants, be it Nissan, Mechachrome, Judd or Gibson.

[TzeiTzei]

I hope that Kolles continue to use their own car. They've made a lot of progress.

[Osella]

Originally Posted by TzeiTzei

I hope that Kolles continue to use their own car. They've made a lot of progress.

me too! The epitome of the underdog.

[Jam3s]

Yeah but they're also stubborn. The aero is all CFD with no plans to take it to a tunnel to actually confirm the data and finding aero balance is an ongoing issue. They only just got adjustable rear ARB on the thing this weekend, so progress appears very slow.

They aren't being helped on the tyre front either with the front tyres being designed for the Toyotas which have a different application to the RWD of the Kolles.

The engine is the biggest woe though, hope Nismo figure out this ongoing gasket/seal issue.

[TzeiTzei]

Originally Posted by Jam3s

Yeah but they're also stubborn. The aero is all CFD with no plans to take it to a tunnel to actually confirm the data and finding aero balance is an ongoing issue. They only just got adjustable rear ARB on the thing this weekend, so progress appears very slow.

They aren't being helped on the tyre front either with the front tyres being designed for the Toyotas which have a different application to the RWD of the Kolles.

The engine is the biggest woe though, hope Nismo figure out this ongoing gasket/seal issue.

Thanks for the info. I like their garagiste approach. Others can go and buy a Ginetta.

[tigas]

Originally Posted by Jam3s

Yeah but they're also stubborn. The aero is all CFD with no plans to take it to a tunnel to actually confirm the data and finding aero balance is an ongoing issue. They only just got adjustable rear ARB on the thing this weekend, so progress appears very slow.

They aren't being helped on the tyre front either with the front tyres being designed for the Toyotas which have a different application to the RWD of the Kolles.

The engine is the biggest woe though, hope Nismo figure out this ongoing gasket/seal issue.

Only doing CFD is just being stubborn nowadays (or penny-short pound-foolish). Nick Wirth, who's a priest of that religion, has never developed anything good, and there's lot of racing programs compromised because of this belief in the magic of computers. The Navier-Stokes equations are computationally very hard and can only be numerically approximated in several critical areas of the car's flow.

With 3D printing there's really no point in not doing a model, it's not that expensive and tunnel time can be found in lots of places.

[Damian Baldi]

Isn't the CLM chassis an Adess designed by Stéphane Chosse. I remember a financial fight about the payment for the tubs.

The point is, ByKolles doesn't have his own chassis, it was a purchase. Now the question is, which chassis would they use? A modified current P2? A brand new designs? An updated CLM tub?

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Damian Baldi

Isn't the CLM chassis an Adess designed by Stéphane Chosse. I remember a financial fight about the payment for the tubs.

The point is, ByKolles doesn't have his own chassis, it was a purchase. Now the question is, which chassis would they use? A modified current P2? A brand new designs? An updated CLM tub?

Yeah it's the same chassis. Started off life as the Lotus P1/01 or T129, T128.

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/cars/lotus-t128/

[templer]

Originally Posted by Jam3s

Yeah but they're also stubborn. The aero is all CFD with no plans to take it to a tunnel to actually confirm the data and finding aero balance is an ongoing issue. They only just got adjustable rear ARB on the thing this weekend, so progress appears very slow.

They aren't being helped on the tyre front either with the front tyres being designed for the Toyotas which have a different application to the RWD of the Kolles.

The engine is the biggest woe though, hope Nismo figure out this ongoing gasket/seal issue.

True that they only work in CFD, but is not stubborn. It is a question of money. They know that they needed to go to the wind tunnel to get better results and they also want to do it, but the team nearly paid 200.000 € for a four-day test in the Mercedes F1 tunnel in Brackley with the early car. These costs are immense for such a small team.

Nevertheless the team made a large step forward this year. Now they need a new monocoque and a high downforce package.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by tigas

Only doing CFD is just being stubborn nowadays (or penny-short pound-foolish). Nick Wirth, who's a priest of that religion, has never developed anything good, and there's lot of racing programs compromised because of this belief in the magic of computers. The Navier-Stokes equations are computationally very hard and can only be numerically approximated in several critical areas of the car's flow.

With 3D printing there's really no point in not doing a model, it's not that expensive and tunnel time can be found in lots of places.

I've heard numbers as high as 100k (sorry can't for the life of me remember US or Euro based reporting to know, dollars, pounds or Euros) a DAY for wind tunnel time, add in employees needed on site and bits to test that's a LOT of money for that team to absorb.

[Koenigsegg]

Pace wise they didn't do that bad for a P1 Privateer. In Qualifying they were more than 2 seconds quicker than Rebellion's fastest laptime last year. And just under 2 seconds slower than Audi's laptime.
They were quite disappointed with their laptime, they said they could have gone quicker if they had a clearer track (their fastest sector times combined would have gotten them a 3:23.290).

Also in the limited race time they had, they set a faster fastest lap than any P2 car over the whole race.

[PascaLM]

Originally Posted by tigas

Is there an official explanation for only running a couple of laps at LeMans, having lots of Japanese technicians around the rear of the car and then closing the door and being the first car to DNF?

The little off at Tertre Rouge in the first lap couldn't have made that much damage...

The CLM hit one or several of these things in rubber which indicates the limit of the trackside. Lapierre received one of them in the headlight protection. (Toyota pit report).

[S griffin]

It seems a shame to come all that way with a decent lineup and not even complete the first lap

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by S griffin

It seems a shame to come all that way with a decent lineup and not even complete the first lap

They completed 7 laps, but apparently the first lap with the broken nose meant less air into the radiators so the engine overheated and died.

[PascaLM]

Originally Posted by PascaLM

The CLM hit one or several of these things in rubber which indicates the limit of the trackside. Lapierre received one of them in the headlight protection. (Toyota pit report).

On Eurosport, Paul-Loup Chatin said what Oliver Webb told him.
According to Oliver Webb, the Toyota lost a piece or something, this piece (aero part ?) went under the CLM as he was entering the Tertre-Rouge (and made some damage apparently) then he turned large, hit a floppy which hit the headlights of Lapierre's Toyota.

Both were very unlucky.

[Juntos]

Now that the car will not race again, will they give back the tub to ADESS? Sometimes it takes what’s broken becoming whole again.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Juntos

Now that the car will not race again, will they give back the tub to ADESS? Sometimes it takes what’s broken becoming whole again.

It will race one more time at Nurburgring.

[Akrapovic]

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f...s-down-920951/

Rumours already about that Colin Kolles will be taking up position at Sauber. Might put this project in a bit of doubt.

[chernaudi]

Not to be a negative nanny, but Sauber would be well advised to stay away from Colin Kolles (he's sunk two teams, and wasn't doing Force India any favors when he was forced to resign). If he gets back into F1 and the LMP1 team goes away, hopefully the Ginetta and Dallara teams will make up the difference.

[Akrapovic]

Is there a video of the debris coming off the Toyota? Looked more like a mistake on cold tyres, and the debris was generated by the ByKolles.