[LM24 Race] 2017 Le Mans 24 Hours Race Thread

[skycafe]

Originally Posted by Maelochs

I agree with you ... thsi was the definition of "old school."

This was the kind of race that drew me to the sport---teams breaking dowen and fighting back, frantically rebuilding their cars in the wee hours, struggling to get back into contention ....

The whole "A series of one-hour sprints" stuff didn't start until Audi arrived. I don't mind it, it is just different. I'd rather cars be able to run fast, than run very slowly all night and then race for an hour the next afternoon .. but a race like this, where people went hard and risked breaking and recovered ... epic.

I agree. I think the 'series of one-hour sprints' was a media creation as much as anything, aimed at simplifying things for the audience, while close-lipped crew chiefs were scheduling things based on weather changes, advantages or disadvantages against the completion, driver variations or any number of other things. The crew chiefs wouldn't give away strategy on the telly, and the media needed to post something...

Rindt and Gregory won LeMans in a car they felt wasn't worth their efforts and time, so they beat it by running it to the max, bashing around so they could collect their paychecks and have an early day. Their car did not break, their competition fell apart around them, and they ended up babying their car to win the 1965 edition of the race. Endurance racing is like that.

This is a far better conversation then what happened on the grassy knoll conversations.

[RWill2073]

Was the driver in front of the Toyota at his pit stall? If he was sort of in an area between his engineers stand and pit stall and was going to debrief or something he could have been signaling to the Toyota out of support or out of trying to tell him he wasn't about to walk across or something. Like a brain fade moment or something. Really weird no after what but I hope it's something simple and not this driver being that shady or stupid.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by RWill2073

Was the driver in front of the Toyota at his pit stall? If he was sort of in an area between his engineers stand and pit stall and was going to debrief or something he could have been signaling to the Toyota out of support or out of trying to tell him he wasn't about to walk across or something. Like a brain fade moment or something. Really weird no after what but I hope it's something simple and not this driver being that shady or stupid.

He was in his pit stall. The #60 garage is the end one, and basically right beside where the Toyota was parked. I think it was a show of support, but sitting in the car that's not going to be clear to Kobayashi and he drove off thinking he'd been given the all clear to go.

But then again, I very much doubt that the signal to go from the marshal is a thumbs up. It'd surely involve a much more animated hand signal, maybe a green flag to override the red light? Don't know, but I'm sure there's a marshal here that would tell us.

Show of support, wrongly interpreted, and exploited a very poorly designed weak point in the car. A perfect storm.

[skycafe]

Against last year, could the heat and the traction of this year been the difference from last year. Much discussion about the heat, but what about traction? Traction means more shock load to the 'system.' Last year, with the rain, there was much less, because the traction was less. Less torque loads or 'shocks' transmitted to the 'system.' Combined with heat loads over long periods, could that account for the failure rates?

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by skycafe

Against last year, could the heat and the traction of this year been the difference from last year. Much discussion about the heat, but what about traction? Traction means more shock load to the 'system.' Last year, with the rain, there was much less, because the traction was less. Less torque loads or 'shocks' transmitted to the 'system.' Combined with heat loads over long periods, could that account for the failure rates?

It's a good thought.

#1 - Engine failure. Retired. Not the first Porsche engine failure of the week that one
#2 - MGU failure. Replaced in around 40 minutes. Possibly heat/load?
#7 - Clutch failure. Retired. Clutch not designed to do standing starts
#8 - MGU failure. Replaced in about 90 minutes. Not designed to be replaced, considered perfectly reliable
#9 - Driver error

Maybe 3 out of the 5 could be load and heat related. I think the 7 and 9 are discounted from that. The 8 might be related, but would've won the race if it was changed as fast as Porsche, as it made up 3 laps on the #2 after the change.

[Armco Bender]

Mean while in New Zealand....

Kiwis Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber win 24 Hours Le Mans race..http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/motorsp...s-le-mans-race..

...

apparently some other guy did a bit of the driving too...

[skycafe]

New Zealand? Where is Old Zealand???

Sorry, I am practicing jerky.

[skycafe]

New Zealand? Where is Old Zealand???

Sorry, I am practicing jerky.

[Scorchess]

Southwestern edge of the Netherlands. No joke!

[Coldasice]

Toyota's comments don't surprise me at all. If they're so frustrated, maybe they should have built a much more easily serviceable car.

That is incredibly arrogant of them to think that since the electric motor never failed before, it would always be like that, and thus not require easy servicing.

Everything reliable continues to be reliable...until it's not. Nothing is ever perfect or absolute in endurance racing.

I'm still shocked most of all that that "fake marshal" driver was not immediately caught nor reprimanded by race officials. Even if the Algarve garage is right near the pit exit there, drivers should not be allowed to just jump out like that in front of a car that's waiting on pit exit.

[TzeiTzei]

Dont they have a traffic light at the end of the pitlane?

[Akrapovic]

They do, but drivers tend to obey the instructions of marshals over lights. I think that flags take priority over lights, for example. That was an issue a few years back when they had green flags but yellow lights on the run down to Indy. The problem was he wasn't a marshal, and it wasn't a signal to go, just a thumbs up. Mistake by Kobayashi, but a very understandable one that most of us probably would've made.

[chernaudi]

Traffic light or not, if Freitas was to the point of cursing out Pla for what he did (which was nothing wrong in my book), then he should be to the point of punching out the Algarve Pro driver. Doesn't excuse Toyota's issue, but if there was malicious intent (such as a display of anger misinterpreted), that's deserving of some penalty.

[Coldasice]

Malicious intent or not, can anyone clarify as to whether there are explicit ACO rules for drivers to stay out of the pit lane itself, and near the pit exit area under safety car periods, or general race periods in general?

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Scorchess

Southwestern edge of the Netherlands. No joke!

Spot on. I do like it when people know their geography.

[FstrthnU]

All in all, a strange race but an exciting one to watch. Luck is certainly part of endurance racing, and the #2 managed to overcome all of the troubles of the other cars.

Toyota and Porsche provided really good battling in LMP1 for the first half of the race, a total shame the Toyotas went out the way they did. That #1 Porsche failure at the end really spiced up the battle for the overall win though. Porsche truly earned this one.

LMP2 was also closely contested, all of the front runners ended up making mistakes and the #38 managed to make the fewest. Stayed fast and stayed out of trouble. Rebellion Racing definitely choked away this one with the errors of the #13 and issue with the #31. Quite a lot of crashes and offs for the LMP2 class this year.

GTE-Pro was amazing to watch all race and the last lap battle for the lead was great. I'm still gutted for Corvette Racing, but they put on a good show with Aston Martin and the Vantage GTE finally got a swan song victory.

Lastly, props to JMW Motorsport for running a clean race and dominating to the end. This year the Am-cars managed to stay out of trouble which was quite refreshing compared to the incidents of the previous years (well, except for the Larbre Corvette that just kept running off).

[Scorchess]

Good shout, there were like 15 Am cars but most of them behaved well. The quality of the entire field was quite high in general I thought.

Except Tracy Krohn, of course.

[tigas]

I'm a bit sour that Lamy got nothing again because of something that happened while Mr. Dalla Lana was driving. This time it was just a Dunlop tire exploding (which also happened to the Dane Train, so Mr. The Boss is innocent this time)

[Maelochs]

Tracy Krohn spinning is like Scott Pruett saying "Hi to my family at home." It's part of any event they are part of.

A least Krohn usually manages to spin all alone.

Paul Dalla Lana surprises me... I thought this a few times during the race. He is a rich guy who wants to play racing but it seems to me he plays really well. He doesn't seem like one of those "gentleman drivers" the rest of the driving crew spend 20 hours recovering from, nor does he do a huge number of stupid moves.

He isn't a seasoned pro, but he is in a well-finish car a whole lot, and I don't think that is 100 percent the other drivers carrying him. I think the guy actually has some talent.

[Scorchess]

Agreed about Dalla Lana. Yes he's made some (silly) mistakes but as far as true gentleman drivers go he's certainly one of the best.

[bentley speed 8]

Now when I thought the race couldn't get weirder, I read about this fake marshal/misunderstood thumbs up/whatever it is that might be the primary cause for the #7's retirement.

[rdjones]

I have just been trying to make sense of what we saw over the weekend and mainly in GTE Pro. So doing my best Truswell impression I have put the end of hour position's into a graph and I think it's quite easy to say that the 10 hours of the race was a bun fight at the point then some people dropped away. However it then took another 7 hours to really become clear who was going to fighting for the win.

Looking at the data is clear to me that on the balance it was always going to be between the #63 Vette and #97 Aston. However it did take the best part of 15 hours for the Vette to join the part. I guess they where keeping there nose clean and keeping out of trouble for before going on the attack. However around the same time the Ferrari challenge fell away and at looking at the Ford's it appears to me that they where never in it. But then again the Aston was always there or there about's.

What ever the data say's GTE-Pro was one hell of a race. More of the same next year please and remember we will have the new Aston and BMW will be joining the party.

[chavez]

Originally Posted by kvenom

This moron needs to be seriously reprimanded.

What, you can't give the thumbs up to a fellow competitor?

It is still a sport isn't it?

[Jam3s]

vincent capillaire didn't really do anything wrong there tbh, it's unfortunate that his outfit closely matched that of a marshall, and he should have kept his nose out of the business of other teams. At the end of the day only Toyota have themselves to blame for producing a car which was unreliable.

[zizzo]

Originally Posted by Jam3s

vincent capillaire didn't really do anything wrong there tbh, it's unfortunate that his outfit closely matched that of a marshall, and he should have kept his nose out of the business of other teams. At the end of the day only Toyota have themselves to blame for producing a car which was unreliable.

When seen in motion, his move is still a bit awkward and hard to understand...
https://streamable.com/kvdca