'09 ALMS Round One Sebring Mar.18-21

[davehenrie]

Originally Posted by Dunlop Corner

Is it possibly to find a chart of the laptimes of each car?
I would love to see just how constantly fast McNish was at the end. It looked like he was in the 44s almost every lap.

There are some result pdfs on the ALMS website. I have to say the amount of information has increased with the new site. But they still don't rival the LMS for individual race data. At the LMS site you can find pdfs that list when each car stopped for pit stops, when they led, what each practice/qual/warmup session was. And ...perhaps even individual lap times.
Back at the ALMS side of things...they are definitely improving but they don't have as deep a set of files as LMS.
try here.
http://www.americanlemans.com/index_....php?r=Paddock

[Holt]

Originally Posted by sssssssss

My guess is that that 1:43.2 lap was a bit of forcing in a desperate attempt to catch the Audi, it was pretty much showing the true pace of this year's cars, which Audi tried to avoid doing.

Towards the end McNish was pushing as hard as he could I'm quite sure to build up a lead on the Peugeot on the last pit stop, and he could only run 44s and 45s. Both cars showed their true pace and with equal tires and drivers they are nearly equal at Sebring. The Audi R15 is a Brand new car. The Peugeot is in it's 3rd year.

Originally Posted by chernaudi

There's 3 months before Le Mans, and that's plenty of time for Audi to sort out the R15-it'll likely triple stint tires at LM like the R8 did.

I doubt the R15 will triple stint the tires at Le Mans. I'll explain why in things I learned from Sebring

Things I learned From Sebring

- Peugeot still has it's top speed advantage though Audi is closer, but still 2-3 mph off. This advantage for the 908 could grow to 4-5mph at Le Mans when speeds go from 180mph to 215mph.

- The Audi's handling advantage over Peugeot seems to be in weight. I have a feeling the R15 is very close to or at 900kgs while the 908 now with AC and all may be 30 or 40kgs heavier. This was very evident in the braking zones. The R15 made up alot of time in the braking zones. Frank Montagny was so fast in the 908 because he was a demon with the brakes, as was Bourdais.

- The Audi R15 is terrible on tire wear. Just absolutley terrible. When the #1 Audi tried to double stint the tires before sunset his lap times dropped into the 49s and 50s and the car dropped way back while the Peugeots could manage 47s on double stinted tires in the middle of the day. I don't buy the excuse that they are worried about it being a new car, they know they have tire wear issues.

- Peugeot treated this race too much like a test. I don't buy the excuse that they changed the AC fan in the 07 during green flag racing because it cooled electronics. I think they changed it during green flag conditions to simulate something similiar happening in Le Mans

- The Peugeot pit stops have improved dramatically. And that may be and understatement. The crews lost no time with the driver changes. At Le Mans last year they were throwing 10s of seconds away every stop by struggling with driver changes after the tires were put on.

- Audi's fuel mileage advantage over Peugeot appears to be gone. To get enough power out of the V10 they are probably using more fuel then before with the V12.

- I expect Peugeot to have a 1 to 1.5 second advantage over the R15 at Le Mans because I was not impressed enough with the R15's pace at a track that should heavily favor it's low weight/balance advantage over the 908.

- Peugeot couldn't run a mistake free race if their life depended on it. I'm still waiting for the day when they can complete a race with all their cars not running into major trouble.

- I can count off the top of my head 4 or 5 major mistakes by Peugeot drivers...and only 1 by Audi drivers...and he had broken ribs.

- I'm putting my money on the all French crewed 908 of Sarrizan/Montagny/Bourdais to win Le Mans now

[dxk1]

Originally Posted by Holt

- I'm putting my money on the all French crewed 908 of Sarrizan/Montagny/Bourdais to win Le Mans now

I was a little disappointed by Montagny and Sarrizan at Sebring this year. Bourdais was the only Peugeot driver to steadily pull away from the Audis and then he gave that away with his unfortunate spin. Other than that spin, Bourdais was magnificent and with a little bit of help at the end by Montagny could have pulled it off for Peugeot. I'm guessing both Sarrizan and Montagny are more familiar and their driving styles favor Le Mans. Hopefully, this will be the case this year. If Peugeot really want to win, they should hire Roger Penske for Le Mans.

DK

[Burnsie]

Originally Posted by Holt

...I have a feeling the R15 is very close to or at 900kgs while the 908 now with AC and all may be 30 or 40kgs heavier...

The R15 was designed and built to be underweight, and requires ballast to meet the 900kg minimum weight rule. This is definitely going to work in Audi's favour, as they will be able to play around with the balance of the car more that Peugeot will.

[Audi Racer]

Originally Posted by Holt

Towards the end McNish was pushing as hard as he could I'm quite sure to build up a lead on the Peugeot on the last pit stop, and he could only run 44s and 45s. Both cars showed their true pace and with equal tires and drivers they are nearly equal at Sebring. The Audi R15 is a Brand new car. The Peugeot is in it's 3rd year.



I doubt the R15 will triple stint the tires at Le Mans. I'll explain why in things I learned from Sebring

Things I learned From Sebring

- Peugeot still has it's top speed advantage though Audi is closer, but still 2-3 mph off. This advantage for the 908 could grow to 4-5mph at Le Mans when speeds go from 180mph to 215mph.

- The Audi's handling advantage over Peugeot seems to be in weight. I have a feeling the R15 is very close to or at 900kgs while the 908 now with AC and all may be 30 or 40kgs heavier. This was very evident in the braking zones. The R15 made up alot of time in the braking zones. Frank Montagny was so fast in the 908 because he was a demon with the brakes, as was Bourdais.

- The Audi R15 is terrible on tire wear. Just absolutley terrible. When the #1 Audi tried to double stint the tires before sunset his lap times dropped into the 49s and 50s and the car dropped way back while the Peugeots could manage 47s on double stinted tires in the middle of the day. I don't buy the excuse that they are worried about it being a new car, they know they have tire wear issues.

- Peugeot treated this race too much like a test. I don't buy the excuse that they changed the AC fan in the 07 during green flag racing because it cooled electronics. I think they changed it during green flag conditions to simulate something similiar happening in Le Mans

- The Peugeot pit stops have improved dramatically. And that may be and understatement. The crews lost no time with the driver changes. At Le Mans last year they were throwing 10s of seconds away every stop by struggling with driver changes after the tires were put on.

- Audi's fuel mileage advantage over Peugeot appears to be gone. To get enough power out of the V10 they are probably using more fuel then before with the V12.

- I expect Peugeot to have a 1 to 1.5 second advantage over the R15 at Le Mans because I was not impressed enough with the R15's pace at a track that should heavily favor it's low weight/balance advantage over the 908.

- Peugeot couldn't run a mistake free race if their life depended on it. I'm still waiting for the day when they can complete a race with all their cars not running into major trouble.

- I can count off the top of my head 4 or 5 major mistakes by Peugeot drivers...and only 1 by Audi drivers...and he had broken ribs.

- I'm putting my money on the all French crewed 908 of Sarrizan/Montagny/Bourdais to win Le Mans now

Huh. Half of this review is flawed. I spent about 25 minutes righting what was wrong with some of them. By the time i was ready to post it the site logged me out. I pressed the back button on the browser and the whole post was gone. Dissapointing. Maybe i'll do it later

To leave it short.
1. Top Speed Wrong. We dont' know. Audi definetely had more downforce.

2.Advantage in weight-not really (not lightness of the car it's weight distribution. The peugeot could have 50/50 weight distribution and ne heavier by 40 kgs. Weight means absolutely nothing. Could the Radical or lola LMP2 compete with the audi even at street circuits. No. The other Porsche and acura could. They were light but also balanced and good handlign

3. Tire Wear. Why would they ever build a car bad on tire wear with the neww LM24 rules. Never had dry running. It's a complex thing thing took Peugeot three years for peugeot to double stint efficiently. the audi r10 did not double stint at sebring in it's first race. Changing tires while they could have double stinted cost the race in 08

4. Fuel Mileage- Just like topspeed we don't know. Firsts race means nothing. They could have played it safe all race even at full power. A car on track with no fuel is no good. Also with the the added downforce you need more power to be fast. when both the cars are trimmed out at lemans the V10 fuel economy will show as it would feed fuel to 2 less cylinders and effortlessly against little downforce make power Acuras P1 and P2 needed more power even with there superhandling design. Zytek also created a super small V8

5. I expect Peugeot to have a 1 to 1.5 second advantage over the R15 at Le Mans because I was not impressed enough with the R15's pace at a track that should heavily favor it's low weight/balance advantage over the 908. It's the first race with a car thats already gone as fast as three years could make it!

[Audi Racer]

Can somebody compare the Acura and Zyek P1 V8's. I'm sure by next year the power and torque especially will be up without having to change the engine. Some different internals should fix that

[fiend540]

Im willing to bet audi will figure out how to double stint tires with the help of michelin.

[Lola T70]

With the R10 in 2008 Audi did not double stint tyres in Sebring and Peugeot tried it.

At Le Mans they both could only double stint, so I see no difference there.

[davehenrie]

Originally Posted by Audi Racer

Can somebody compare the Acura and Zyek P1 V8's. I'm sure by next year the power and torque especially will be up without having to change the engine. Some different internals should fix that

Zytek has moved up to a 4.5L V8. Even that is not enough to compete with the diesels. Judd's 5.5L or the Aston V12 powered cars last year that could follow the Diesels but never catch them.

Several reports have stated the 4.0L Acura P1 V8 is similar to the P2 powerplant. Probably a slightly bigger block to allow for bigger cylinders. High revving V8's, by their very nature, will never be stump pullers. The revs are too high for heavier internals that would help improve the torque. Acura will have to go the way of Judd and Zytek and build a larger lower revving engine if it hopes to compete with the diesels. I suspect they are going to call this year a development year and then hope the ACO holds firm and uses the P2 engine for P1 in 2011.
The greatest strength of the Acura is it's large front tires, but that also is a huge detrement. The tires take longer to get fully heated up. Either the Pug or Audi could put many seconds between themselves and the 02a before the Acura can fully attack. It was a good idea, one that will do well in ALMS(Unless Champion Shows up with a new shiney R15), but I doubt it will ever be on equal footing with the two diesels. I do recall, however, some comments about the Acura being very easy on tires. Perhaps with the ACO 1 man tire change rule, the Acura could press on and exploit a double stint while the Audi would be forced to change more often. (but that still leaves the PUg to deal with...merely 22 seconds slower than the Audi. ) ((faster actually if you can prevent spins))

[Mal]

Seabass's interview on Motors was very honest - he said that they were beaten by McNish - stating that as a driver 'he is on a different planet to the rest of us'

He particularly cited McNish's ability to get through traffic without affecting his lap times.

Big compliments coming from a driver of his standing.

[sssssssss]

Audi didn't seem to really push that hard in my opinion. Again, remember the R15 did a 1:43.4 in Monday practice and that was at the very beginning of its laps at Sebring. And in the race too, the R15 seemed to have more consistency than the 908 - that is, slightly better laps usually. The fastest laps went from Peugeot to Audi and back to Peugeot, but on a regular basis, Audi seemed to be more stable in their pace.
And also, it didn't seem to me like Peugeot treated this Sebring so much like a test that they weren't interested in winning it. To me, they actually seem a bit too desperate to win races against Audi, just like they were last year. From where I stand, Audi do have a bit of advantage over Peugeot this year even as far as the machine is concerned and Peugeot feel that and really try everything they can to keep up. Something tells me the R15 didn't show its full potential yet, although this was eventually enough to win.

Originally Posted by Holt

Towards the end McNish was pushing as hard as he could I'm quite sure to build up a lead on the Peugeot on the last pit stop, and he could only run 44s and 45s. Both cars showed their true pace and with equal tires and drivers they are nearly equal at Sebring. The Audi R15 is a Brand new car. The Peugeot is in it's 3rd year.



I doubt the R15 will triple stint the tires at Le Mans. I'll explain why in things I learned from Sebring

Things I learned From Sebring

- Peugeot still has it's top speed advantage though Audi is closer, but still 2-3 mph off. This advantage for the 908 could grow to 4-5mph at Le Mans when speeds go from 180mph to 215mph.

- The Audi's handling advantage over Peugeot seems to be in weight. I have a feeling the R15 is very close to or at 900kgs while the 908 now with AC and all may be 30 or 40kgs heavier. This was very evident in the braking zones. The R15 made up alot of time in the braking zones. Frank Montagny was so fast in the 908 because he was a demon with the brakes, as was Bourdais.

- The Audi R15 is terrible on tire wear. Just absolutley terrible. When the #1 Audi tried to double stint the tires before sunset his lap times dropped into the 49s and 50s and the car dropped way back while the Peugeots could manage 47s on double stinted tires in the middle of the day. I don't buy the excuse that they are worried about it being a new car, they know they have tire wear issues.

- Peugeot treated this race too much like a test. I don't buy the excuse that they changed the AC fan in the 07 during green flag racing because it cooled electronics. I think they changed it during green flag conditions to simulate something similiar happening in Le Mans

- The Peugeot pit stops have improved dramatically. And that may be and understatement. The crews lost no time with the driver changes. At Le Mans last year they were throwing 10s of seconds away every stop by struggling with driver changes after the tires were put on.

- Audi's fuel mileage advantage over Peugeot appears to be gone. To get enough power out of the V10 they are probably using more fuel then before with the V12.

- I expect Peugeot to have a 1 to 1.5 second advantage over the R15 at Le Mans because I was not impressed enough with the R15's pace at a track that should heavily favor it's low weight/balance advantage over the 908.

- Peugeot couldn't run a mistake free race if their life depended on it. I'm still waiting for the day when they can complete a race with all their cars not running into major trouble.

- I can count off the top of my head 4 or 5 major mistakes by Peugeot drivers...and only 1 by Audi drivers...and he had broken ribs.

- I'm putting my money on the all French crewed 908 of Sarrizan/Montagny/Bourdais to win Le Mans now

[Dunlop Corner]

I am certain McNish and Montagny were going as fast as they could at the end. Unless you beleive it is more important to not show full pace than to win Sebring?
Peugout was faster, and i don't beleive topdrivers laptimes should swing 2 seconds each lap. The reason of the changing laptimes i beleive was traffic. And because of the visibility advantage of Audi and McNish being McNish he was able to go through trafic and lose hardly any time, unlike Montagny. But at the same time, a disappointing final stint from Montagny. Had he been able to make a stint like the one Bourdais did, even McNish would not have had a chance.

[Dani Filth]

first stint from Montagny was good .. slighlty behind what Bourdais did later in the race ..
same with Sarrazin .. was good first time in the car . but not that impressive the 2nd time

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by Holt

- Peugeot treated this race too much like a test. I don't buy the excuse that they changed the AC fan in the 07 during green flag racing because it cooled electronics. I think they changed it during green flag conditions to simulate something similiar happening in Le Mans

I don't buy that for a minute. If you have to replace the AC at Le Mans, you have lost the race. Unless you are very lucky that you can do it during a yellow.

[sssssssss]

Originally Posted by Dunlop Corner

I am certain McNish and Montagny were going as fast as they could at the end. Unless you beleive it is more important to not show full pace than to win Sebring?
Peugout was faster, and i don't beleive topdrivers laptimes should swing 2 seconds each lap. The reason of the changing laptimes i beleive was traffic. And because of the visibility advantage of Audi and McNish being McNish he was able to go through trafic and lose hardly any time, unlike Montagny. But at the same time, a disappointing final stint from Montagny. Had he been able to make a stint like the one Bourdais did, even McNish would not have had a chance.

McNish had a 20 seconds advantage, he really didn't have to push the R15 to the limit as Montagny did with the 908 trying to catch him. And let's not forget that Le Mans is the big race, that's where they really want to show their teeth. Take last year for an example: the 908 was about 1 second faster than the R10 at Sebring and suddenly became 5 seconds faster at Le Mans (obviously, on a longer lap and further developed, but anyway).

[dxk1]

Originally Posted by sssssssss

McNish had a 20 seconds advantage, he really didn't have to push the R15 to the limit as Montagny did with the 908 trying to catch him. And let's not forget that Le Mans is the big race, that's where they really want to show their teeth. Take last year for an example: the 908 was about 1 second faster than the R10 at Sebring and suddenly became 5 seconds faster at Le Mans (obviously, on a longer lap and further developed, but anyway).

While Le Mans certainly is the big one, I can't believe that Peugeot didn't pull out all the stops to win Sebring. What was disappointing was that Montagny couldn't maintain the gap between him and McNish before McNish had to make his final gas-n-go. What was so disappointing about it was that Bourdais was able to set the lap record on his last flying lap before pitting to turn the car over to Montagny and he did it on "old" tires and then Montagny couldn't get anywhere near Bourdais' times on "new" tires. That's where all hope of a victory slipped away. If Montagny had been able to stay anywhere close to McNish's times, it would have been a very interesting final 10 minutes.

DK

[cmk]

The amount of rampant speculation in this thread and armchair analysis, some of which reads as sensible and some of which certainly does not, is rather overwhelming. I think we need some of the professional analysts who've been following this sort of stuff their entire lives to show their faces - Trussers, where are you?! Could you at least do one of your analysis pieces for DSC?

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Mal

Seabass's interview on Motors was very honest - he said that they were beaten by McNish - stating that as a driver 'he is on a different planet to the rest of us'

He particularly cited McNish's ability to get through traffic without affecting his lap times.

Big compliments coming from a driver of his standing.

that sentiment came over the PA at Sebring too. They said the Peugeot was faster than Audi, except for McNish.

[davehenrie]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

I don't buy that for a minute. If you have to replace the AC at Le Mans, you have lost the race. Unless you are very lucky that you can do it during a yellow.

I thought I also heard, in the run-up to the race, a statement that the race officials would be monitoring real-time telemetry and would black flag any car that got too hot and force them to fix it. This was to supposedly prevent the teams with air conditioners from turning them off and getting the benefit of the larger air restrictors granted to teams with A/C. So perhaps, the unit did fail and the IMSA folks forced the Pug in for repairs.

dh

[td2001]

There is no longer any rule "breaks" to allow larger restrictors for running A/C.

[broadrun96]

SPEED claimed IMSA said they would monitor the temps but wouldn't hold teams in the pits to make repairs as the ACO will do in June. I'm guessing that like they were joking about on SPEED, the engineers were worried about something else failing and brought it in to fix the problem. Now why they dont have a quick exchange part for things like that. Seemed like a bit of confusion at first about what they needed to make the repair.

[davehenrie]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

SPEED claimed IMSA said they would monitor the temps but wouldn't hold teams in the pits to make repairs as the ACO will do in June. I'm guessing that like they were joking about on SPEED, the engineers were worried about something else failing and brought it in to fix the problem. Now why they dont have a quick exchange part for things like that. Seemed like a bit of confusion at first about what they needed to make the repair.

Yes, something about some of the onboard electronics needed cooling to survive. I don't know so I'm asking. Was the Pug always air conditioned? Wouldn't it's original design have been for not having AC? If so, why would they have any components that would require AC?

[Dunlop Corner]

Originally Posted by sssssssss

McNish had a 20 seconds advantage, he really didn't have to push the R15 to the limit as Montagny did with the 908 trying to catch him.

Sure AFTER the final splash and dash. McNish had to make up a bunch of time to make it work. Just consider this: after Montagny's final stop, McNish's advantage was around 35 seconds. When he pitted it was 65 seconds and he got out 20 seconds ahead. So McNish had to gain atleast 10 seconds over Montagny on the second stint. Let alone the first stint were he gaine even more.

I beleive that considering pitstop strategy, when Bourdais handed over the car the Peugout had a lead of around 20-30 seconds. McNish gained that and more to make it a 20 second lead. So i really don't beleive any of them sandbagged at that time. Why on earth would you give up on a Sebring win?

[gwyllion]

@cmk: I doubt it is possible to make any predictions about Le Mans based on what we saw this weekend.

The important facts I will remember:

• The R15 is reliable straight out the box (no teething problems at all), while Peugeot had some issues (a broken gearbox after 3 years with same car ).
• Peugeot still has the fastest car, at least in the hands of Bourdais. When I saw the first pictures of the R15, I expected the opposite.
• Peugeot no longer has a pit stop disadvantage. ACO screwed them with the mandatory air conditioning, but in exchange they got the slower tyre changes

The whole tyre wear, fuel economy and trap speed comparison is irrelevant for Le Mans. It is difficult to tell what things will be like with a low drag aero setup. With some extra dry testing Audi will improve their tyre wear.

[cmk]

I agree with those conclusions as broadly stated by yourself. I also agree they may bear little relevance to the state of affairs in June. The R15 package, for example, will see some fairly significant evolution between now and June. The one truly stunning thing I think we can all take away from this weekend is just how impressive the latest Audi Sport creation was on what was essentially its 3rd test.