[WEC] 2015 WEC Discussion

[Spyderman]

Originally Posted by Victor_RO

http://www.endurance-info.com/fr/bah...chez-af-corse/

Waaaait... isn't Matteo Cressoni the guy Webber crashed into at Interlagos last year?

According to Webber, it was the other way round.

[bentley speed 8]

Yes, pretty sure it was Webber who crashed into Cressoni

[Victor_RO]

Semantics. The point is, as a Webber admirer I'm getting bad flashbacks already.

[Spyderman]

Originally Posted by bentley speed 8

Yes, pretty sure it was Webber who crashed into Cressoni

I don't know. I didn't see the crash (at least that part of it) I'm only saying what Webber has said.

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by Spyderman

I don't know. I didn't see the crash (at least that part of it) I'm only saying what Webber has said.

Not exactly, it's still unclear to him too, he says clearly in his book that he still doesn't understand what happened and can only partially judge what happened from the impact point. He lost 30 minutes of his memory due to that accident.

[Spyderman]

Originally Posted by Victor_RO

Not exactly, it's still unclear to him too, he says clearly in his book that he still doesn't understand what happened and can only partially judge what happened from the impact point. He lost 30 minutes of his memory due to that accident.

I'll try and find where I read his words which were something along the lines of : " we were hit..."

[Akrapovic]

Looked to me like a 2011 McNish style accident. Where *technically* the GT car did hit the prototype, but the prototype was going into a gap that was potentially about to close. That was just my view on what happened, not that it matters lol.

2014 was a great year. Audi won Le Mans. Toyota won the title. Porsche won a race in the first year back. It was brilliantly balanced.

[chernaudi]

I have the feeling that as crazy and intense as this season was up front, next year will take things to a new level. Porsche will be there, Audi are riding some momentum and will have a newer, more powerful car, and Toyota are eager with new machinery to take the fight back to the VAG teams. And that's just LMP1.

And let's not forget the new deck of cards that the other classes will also have.

[chernaudi]

Any coverage of the Young Driver test tomorrow?

[Artur]

Maybe it's my "negative nature" but my gut feeling is that next year will be a massive let down. Firstly, I'm afraid we won't be able to judge how the absolute development went, ie, how much more they will improve due to R&D and the advanced tech. Then, comparatively, we'll know how each improved but it's not a given that they will be all closely matched(VAG cars and Toyota, that is. Imho, Nissan will be a complete non-entity/laughing stock once again, despite their interesting concept)

ACO/FIA are surely making all their efforts to cripple the magnificence of the current LMP1-H

[Adam43]

I just wouldn't bother if I were you.

The speed of those cars are limited by the rules this year. Next year will be the same, like these posts. They'll just be battling to get closest to the limit, even if it is a slightly different limit. In some ways it is artificial, as it always has been.

[Spyderman]

Originally Posted by bentley speed 8

Yes, pretty sure it was Webber who crashed into Cressoni

As promised - I found the Webber quote:
“Porsche won the final round in Brazil, but I wasn’t part of that because I had a big accident. We had a good 20-sec lead, and then after four hours we had a problem with the recovery system and started to lose power. When that was sorted we began to climb back through the field. I’d got it up to sixth when a GT Ferrari I was lapping touched my right rear and tipped me straight into the barriers." - Mark Webber

http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/ar...ch-mark-webber

[Deleted]

Who came up with this end-of-the-year prize giving location? Gravel/sand for floor, no seating, flaming barrels, and surroundings look like someones barren backyard. Oh well. I guess there's the FIA gala too.

[cokata]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2583mCqksrU

This is a video from the #17 Porsche in Fuji during qually. This is the only pole lap we get to see this season i think. Webber's lap was not perfect he made a big mistake in turn 1, and had traffic on the last corner. Things to note are that the high DF Porsche is definitely cornering faster than the current F1 cars (100R is flatout), and also the amount of speed it carries when it boost at the start of the lap.

[Artur]

that's a deggis capture

Something that WEC should have already done is, as FOM has been doing for some years now, show the full pole lap onboard with the telemetry graphics. Pretty amateurish for a world championship not to have that in the current days.

[bentley speed 8]

Originally Posted by Spyderman

As promised - I found the Webber quote:
“I’d got it up to sixth when a GT Ferrari I was lapping touched my right rear and tipped me straight into the barriers." - Mark Webber

Whoops... looks like I was wrong. Didn't read much about the accident after the race.

[Deleted]

I referenced to this earlier already, but if there was something the champ did better this year, was incorporating more support races to try to standout events bit more (well, most of the places, Spa especially is still uber hollow of what it used to be support wise).

Silverstone
ELMS
F3 Europe

Spa
Porsche Cup Benelux
Porsche Cup GB

Le Mans
49-68 LM Legends
Aston Martin Festival

Ring
Nurburgring Legends
Porsche Cup SS

COTA
USCC
CTSCC
Lamborghini ST
Porsche Cup IMSA

Fuji
ASLMS
Audi R8 Cup

Shanghai
Audi R8 Cup
Porsche Cup Asia
FASC SGT

Bahrain
GP2
GP3
MRF
Porsche Cup Ch

And though next year there are some questionable moves in place again (lLM Legends axed, ASLMS all solo again etc) the ELMS has gotten makeover too with the Renaults and MGT3CUP, instead of all alone.

[TF110]

This site talks about the rookie test and goes into detail about the lap times set. Looks like Mitch evans was able to lap faster in his race sim than Montoya.

[Razzzor]

Can't read that site, but yeah I mentioned that on Mitch's facebook and he said Montoya did a quali run whereas he didn't. Kind of puts things into more perspective as I was quite surprised to see lap times showing Juan 2s faster than Mitch. In the same car, I don't think Juan would be quicker.

If you do a search there's a full rundown of every lap for every driver, and Mitch was better over the race simulation. Especially the last 1/3, Montoya had a bit more dropoff than Mitch, and ultimately his best lap was a couple tenths down on Mitch's. He then pitted and got in that 1 fast lap time. Mitch pitted near the end too, but came back out still doing race sim lap times, so must have not being in quali spec.

Stanaway did a good job, I think 0.6s off the full time drivers? It would interesting to see him in an Audi in 2016!

[Graham Goodwin]

JPM was very clear on Sunday that there was no deal in place for further testing, let alone racing with Porsche. "We haven't even spoken about Le Mans"

It was great to see him there and to talk but the reality is that this has been a highly effective bit of PR to this point, including the late equally sim, low tanks and new rubber - It did what it was meant to do - give Porsche all of the headlines on the day - nothing wrong whatsoever with that but its a long way short of seeing Montoya in a race in the 919.

[TzeiTzei]

Some calculations... about relative improvements from last year. Lap times are the fastest lap of the weekend from each car.

			Audi		Porsche		Toyota		Rebellion	Kolles

Silverstone	2014	1.42,447	1.42,593	1.42,509	1.43,725(Lola)	
		2015	1.40,180	1.39,534	1.40,361			1.49,697
			-2,2%		-3,0%		-2,1%

Spa		2014	2.00,738	1.59,887	2.00,638	2.08,928(R-One)	
		2015	1.55,114	1.54,755	1.57,397			2.06,405
			-4,7%		-4,3%		-2,7%

Le Mans		2014	3.22,567	3.22,146	3.21,789	3.28,466
		2015	3.17,475	3.16,887	3.20,896	3.26,594	3.33,560
			-2,5%		-2,6%		-0,4%		-0,9%

COTA		2014	1.49,480	1.49,567	1.48,993	1.53,269	1.59,547
		2015	1.47,007	1.46,018	1.48,465	1.53,115	1.54,669
			-2,3%		-3,2%		-0,5%		-0,1%		-4,1%

Fuji		2014	1.27,605	1.26,762	1.26,473	1.30,403	1.33,780
		2015	1.22,909	1.22,639	1.24,760	1.28,111	1.29,916
			-5,4%		-4,8%		-2,0%		-2,5%		-4,1%

Shanghai	2014	1.48,620	1.47,036	1.47,847	1.50,797	1.56,079
		2015	1.43,776	1.42,621	1.45,410	1.49,156	1.51,707
			-4,5%		-4,1%		-2,3%		-1,5%		-3,8%

Bahrain		2014	1.44,792	1.41,897	1.42,500	1.46,186	1.50,143
		2015	1.40,648	1.39,670	1.42,021	1.45,932	1.47,863
			-4,0%		-2,2%		-0,5%		-0,2%		-2,1%

		Average	-3,7%		-3,5%		-1,5%		-1,0%		-3,5%

[Graham Goodwin]

Interesting stuff but the fairer comparison would be to compare fastest race laps only rather than bundling Qually laps in. Either way the pace of development has been astounding

[TzeiTzei]

Originally Posted by Graham Goodwin

Interesting stuff but the fairer comparison would be to compare fastest race laps only rather than bundling Qually laps in. Either way the pace of development has been astounding

Challenge accepted.

FASTEST RACE LAP

			Audi		Porsche		Toyota		Rebellion	Kolles	

Silverstone	2014	1.44,217	1.45,245	1.44,326	1.47,120(Lola)		
		2015	1.40,836	1.42,012	1.42,209			1.53,195
			-3,2%		-3,1%		-2,0%					

Spa		2014	2.02,600	2.01,898	2.01,327	2.08,928(R-One)		
		2015	1.57,996	1.57,972	1.59,528			2.09,137
			-3,8%		-3,2%		-1,5%					

Le Mans		2014	3.22,567	3.24,899	3.23,112	3.28,466		
		2015	3.17,475	3.18,186	3.20,896	3.26,594	3.33,560
			-2,5%		-3,3%		-1,1%		-0,9%			

COTA		2014	1.50,782	1.51,376	1.50,390	1.53,733	1.59,547
		2015	1.47,540	1.47,412	1.49,455	1.54,036	1.55,560
			-2,9%		-3,6%		-0,8%		+0,3%		-3,3%	

Fuji		2014	1.28,609	1.27,759	1.27,815	1.31,658	1.33,780
		2015	1.25,621	1.26,022	1.27,512	1.31,985	1.33,033
			-3,4%		-2,0%		-0,3%		+0,4%		-0,8%	

Shanghai	2014	1.49,602	1.49,356	1.48,694	1.52,698	1.56,137
		2015	1.46,685	1.47,369	1.48,685	1.54,213	1.56,892
			-2,7%		-1,8%		-0,0%		+1,3%		+0,7%	

Bahrain		2014	1.46,126	1.46,157	1.45,989	1.49,164		
		2015	1.42,440	1.41,893	1.44,314	1.48,365	1.49,710
			-3,5%		-4,0%		-1,6%		-0,7%			

		Average	-3,1%		-3,0%		-1,0%		+0,1%		-1,1%

I looked at LMP2 for reference and it didn't seem like the weather affected the fastest laps that much. They were within a second or so. Rebellions lack of progress looks disappointing.

[Deleted]

Yes the data is interesting.

Now here, same old in-COTA-we-trust-and-everything-else-is-impossible speech we've heard million times before and is given on regular intervals, but the bit about losing public from Sebring/PLM times yet counter argumenting that by saying that the facilities are now great and drivers love the circuit (guess they didn't those other two...?) is funny
http://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/w...ancial-crisis/

[wolfhound]

Motorsport.com have released their top ten LMP1 drivers.

http://www.motorsport.com/wec/news/t...ivers-of-2015/

No Toyota or Nissan drivers let alone Rebellion or By Kolles drivers included. Although how could you rate the Nissan drivers. So something to argue over in the off season.