2014 IMSA TUSC - Round 1 - Rolex 24 at Daytona

[Lagunaseca_4life]

After switching back and forth for first and second all night, I placed fifth In daronhume(almsfans style) pick ems.its a good start I guess.

[skycafe]

How was the BMW, which was described at various points as being the wrong horse for the course, suddenly emerge as a challenger to the Porsche in GTLM (or LMGT or whatever)? This seemed to be after the performance review period.

[Dyson Mazda]

Originally Posted by skycafe

How was the BMW, which was described at various points as being the wrong horse for the course, suddenly emerge as a challenger to the Porsche in GTLM (or LMGT or whatever)? This seemed to be after the performance review period.

Everyone else broke

[skycafe]

Originally Posted by Dyson Mazda

Everyone else broke

Yes, I know that, but suddenly the BMW was able to gain on the Porsche, whereas for 23.5 hours it was in the lowest rung in class.

[rwintle]

Originally Posted by Lagunaseca_4life

After switching back and forth for first and second all night, I placed fifth In daronhume(almsfans style) pick ems.its a good start I guess.

Somehow I placed third, despite one bonehead pick in GTD (#33 Viper, wrong hunch I guess).

I actually was tops in the Daytona round a couple of years ago, quite by fluke... and then proceeded to sink like a rock for the ALMS season.

[rwintle]

Originally Posted by skycafe

How was the BMW, which was described at various points as being the wrong horse for the course, suddenly emerge as a challenger to the Porsche in GTLM (or LMGT or whatever)? This seemed to be after the performance review period.

Stretching fuel for most of the race, then turning the fuel map up to max for the final sprint? That's just a guess.

[skycafe]

Originally Posted by rwintle

Stretching fuel for most of the race, then turning the fuel map up to max for the final sprint? That's just a guess.

Well, why stretch fuel if you will likely have a yellow to give you a pit stop? If you gain you will lose it anyway the next cycle with a yellow?

[Fogelhund]

https://www.audi-motorsport.info/v2/...single/id/8342

The IMSA revised their original decision to impose a time-penalty on the #555 Ferrari. The #45 Audi R8 LMS of Audi customer team Flying Lizard Motorsports, which had originally been declared as the winner of the race, was moved back to second place. The organisers have pleged all participants to excuse the confusion they have caused.

The Team Flying Lizard Motorsports reserves further action against this decision and would like to comment not before Monday.

Romolo Liebchen, Head of Audi Sport customer racing: “It is unfortunate that the events after the race cast a shadow on a really great race in the Daytona GT class. Probably this race deserves two winners.”

[joeb]

Originally Posted by skycafe

Well, why stretch fuel if you will likely have a yellow to give you a pit stop? If you gain you will lose it anyway the next cycle with a yellow?

Switching fuel maps has been a part of racing for years. Which makes me wonder how enforceable the no sandbagging rule is. Testing has been limited, and with all the red flags and changing conditions during the test, it had to be hard for the series to get a true read on what everyone's performance envelope was. What if a team was testing with a conservative fuel map during the long runs, and only at full wick during short red flag filled periods, can IMSA tease this out and act accordingly? I do remember a few years ago when there were some BMW radio messages at Road America telling the drivers to use the push to pass feature.

side note complaint: why not have spec cars if different cars with individual strengths and weaknesses are just BOP'd to be equal?

[ThatGuy]

It was all pit strategy and the waive-bys as most of the competition had issues. With 1:15 left #911 had to pit and then needed another stop after to make it, while #55 only needed one more stop. The last caution brought Hand back on the lead lap and a handful of cars behind in the queue. If it weren't for the SMP car almost putting Hand into the wall, he might have had it with the run he was building up.

[PointDSM]

BMW's (#55) fastest lap was a 1.45.6. That is right in the middle of GTLM except for the #911's 1.44.9. My opinion is that BMW had to run at 100% to do what it did, while the other GTLM's had to only run at 90-95% to pull off their race time.

At the end of the race, the Porsche hit traffic and Joey Hand did what he could to give it a run. When Hand hit traffic (ruining his attempt), the Porsche was free and pulling away. The #55 just ran a solid pace all race, stayed on the lead lap due to the # of cautions (and free passes), and nearly got there.

Endurance racing isn't always about having the fastest car. How did we forget that part?

[Lagunaseca_4life]

http://www.imsa.com/articles/porsche...-sprint-finish Tudor gt winners article, pilet pretty much says with a two lap lead he thought he could cruise to the end and then the bmw came out of no where. And Joey hand even said who would of thought them being two laps down they would be their racing at the end.

It was exciting seeing it happend and that Ferrari bone head blew any possible chance bmw had.but in the end it kinda made up for that caution allowing them to catch up.the article reads like a grand am article and is quite disappointing.colse win blah blah,by 2 seconds, blah blah ten minute shot out.totally fails to mention Porsches gtlm domination for the majority of the seconds half.disappointing.

But again I loved the race up until the last 20 minutes.that caution and the penalty sucked, and what followed isn't what you want to feel after a race.but I still enjoyed it and was 24 hours well spent.

[MJ_N_09]

After reading the latest posts and the overturned decision, it sounds like the race director is the most to blame for all this. I wouldn't be surprised if he's on thin ice with everyone else in charge or even fired.

[imminentrueage3]

For those like pictures and a little more proof:

[imminentrueage3]

For those who like more proof and just like sports car pictures in general:


...Um

[Breitling24]

Glad they reversed the GTD Ferrari penalty. I'm a long time FLM fan, but this was the correct call.
It was reported that they deliberated for three hours over it... wow. That seems pretty long. Kinda like one of their full course cautions. hahahhaha

[nkoske]

Originally Posted by Breitling24

Glad they reversed the GTD Ferrari penalty. I'm a long time FLM fan, but this was the correct call.

Agree 100%. I'm upset there was a caution because Winkelhock may have still been able to catch the Ferrari on his own. He was like 8 secs back at 30 mins left and taking a second or more a lap.

[kbeech]

Glad they reversed the GTD Ferrari penalty. I'm a long time FLM fan, but this was the correct call.

Oh, good. I missed this. It was a terrible call. Glad to see it was corrected.

[Slowsley]

Originally Posted by gert

OK, it's over ...

* I was glad both series united as this was the only way for either of them to survive.
* I'm happy both Gidley and Malucelli seem to have got out of that crash alive. Kudos to the strength of both cars involved. I hope they (the drivers) both recover and will be just fine.

* I'm somewhat disappointed with the BOP. "Balanced" between DP and P2 means that a well-driven P2 and an equally well-driven DP should end up next to each other - given they both encounter no or minimal trouble.
That was never going to be the case here and now.
Is that because the BOP is wrong?
Is that because the P2 teams are not yet used to their cars?
Is that because the P2 teams are not used to their tires?
Is that just a Daytona-specific thing?
Time will tell, it gets the benefit of the doubt for now, but at this moment I'm not too impressed.

Coverage.
* Last year I had plenty of coverage for both ALMS and Grand-Am via their official website or variopus streams (legal or less legal).
This year it was VERY HARD to get any coverage over here in Europe.
* When available, the coverage was awful. Only DPs, pretty NASCAR-centric, way too much commercials. So many interesting on-track battles and so few of them on camera.
* MRN was awful.
* There was another non-official Timing and Scoring website that was better, cleaner and clearer. Why? How hard is that? Both Grand-Am and ALMS were better than what we have now.

Race control
* The yellows take waaayy too long. Get rid of the reordening stuff. Please.
* Why a Full Course Yellow every time a car gets off track? What's wrong with local yellows?
* The Red Flag was a good call
* Why that last yellow? Why why why?
* Level 5 got robbed (or not, according to the latest news). I don't like Tucker one bit, but still ...

Up to Sebring, I hope a few lessons are learned here and applied there.

How was MRN that bad? Never listened before but def not up to RLM spec. They called IMSA, "ISMA."

[Slowsley]

What I mean is, I agree that they were really bad and I'm surprised.

[Slowsley]

They said the course was 8 turns. Nah. The Bus Stop alone is 4 turns.

[Simmi]

Originally Posted by Fogelhund

Romolo Liebchen, Head of Audi Sport customer racing: “It is unfortunate that the events after the race cast a shadow on a really great race in the Daytona GT class. Probably this race deserves two winners.”

Can't agree with this assessment. Level 5 crossed the line first. That's the biggest thing.

That should be the result, then as race control you take the time to look at it behind closed doors before making a rational decision. Also a decision that takes into account the race situation (last lap/what's at stake). To know you've just thrown a bogus yellow, and to then start messing around with the race result carte blanche - that takes a special kind of something.

Glad it got reversed but all it served to do was drag the farce out further.

Elkins already takes the prize for the stupidest thing said this year in sportscars.

The process worked. If you’re asking could we have done it differently, I don’t think so.

[Mal]

Originally Posted by Simmi

Can't agree with this assessment. Level 5 crossed the line first. That's the biggest thing.

That should be the result, then as race control you take the time to look at it behind closed doors before making a rational decision. Also a decision that takes into account the race situation (last lap/what's at stake). To know you've just thrown a bogus yellow, and to then start messing around with the race result carte blanche - that takes a special kind of something.

Glad it got reversed but all it served to do was drag the farce out further.

Elkins already takes the prize for the stupidest thing said this year in sportscars.

Agreed

[Coopz21 x]

i still cant get over that they gave Fly Lizard the win in the first place.... i thought this year would be better than this kinda stuff..

[canamman]

What a weekend. Cant wait to run through it on the DVR.
We just left the kink stands 30 minutes prior to the
Gidley accident. Kinda glad we did not see it in person from the sound
of the tv announcers on the scanners.

On the cautions, all depends who you are pulling for.
The way I see it , there are only 4 cars on the track who did not want a caution, the class leaders. That final restart was extremely entertaining
to watch from high up in the towers of Daytonas front straight.


Now looking toward Sebring to see how the P2's will do.
Should be their day.