[ELMS Race] 2016 4 Hours of Estoril

[Starfish Primer]

Strange incident between Coletti and Pla. Racing incident to me.

[Starfish Primer]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Is Hanley a silver? If he isn't, then DragonSpeed will have drive time issues.

Pla throws away the podium challenge hitting Colletti

Yes, Hanley is Silver. Another rating difficult to explain.

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Is Hanley a silver? If he isn't, then DragonSpeed will have drive time issues.

Pla throws away the podium challenge hitting Colletti

I thought Hedman did a longer first stint even though I knew about the shorter second, has he not done 90 minutes then?

Looking good for Jota, and their title is won at last.

Edit - I am wrong, Hanley is silver. He won't be for much longer I imagine.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by J Jay

I thought Hedman did a longer first stint even though I knew about the shorter second, has he not done 90 minutes then?

Looking good for Jota, and their title is won at last.

Edit - I am wrong, Hanley is silver. He won't be for much longer I imagine.

Hedman did 90 min but I think silvers need to do 2 hours of the race.

[bentley speed 8]

Well that's it then
Congrats G-Drive and Beachdeen for the championships. They both had some luck, but job well done

[gert]

Congrats to Beechdean and Jota. I'm gutted for TDS and JMW though.

I'm a fan of the Zytek/Gibson car and Tincknell, however I am not fond of Dolan and van der Garde.

[bentley speed 8]

Good season overall. Looking forward to next year

[bentley speed 8]

By the way, this should be the last race for JMW's 458 as well

[gert]

The rain is 15 minutes late.

[Starfish Primer]

Jota and Beechdean champions, I didn´t saw this coming after Spa. Congratulations to them. I feel bad for the JMW guys, they are a small team with limited resources.

[J Jay]

The rain is really lashing down now.

I just hope for JMW that they don't become the TDS of GTE, particularly with the relative lack of resources compared to other teams (particularly Beachdean). I don't mean to take anything away from Jota & Beachdean - who did as much as they could and deserve massive credit for their victories - but the one wish I would have for the ELMS is that more of its titles were decided on-track.

[AndreasDavour]

Spirit of the race award to JMW for their fighting spirit.

Congrats to the winners.

[gert]

Originally Posted by J Jay

I just hope for JMW that they don't become the TDS of GTE

They already are.
Like John H said: they buy their luck at the same shop.

Both won 3 races, and deserve the championship more than the guys that actually took it. (IMO)

[Starfish Primer]

It is also amazing how competitive is the Gibson chassis. 2 titles in the last 2 years.

[TheMightyM]

Another ELMS race, another exclusion. This time, it’s Pegasus racing, for a (per S365) “fuel analysis anomaly.” Panis-Barthez Competition also got a 45-second time penalty, which didn't impact the results.

Also, per S365 this is happening:

The ACO has clarified that the top five teams from the LMP3 championship in the new-look Michelin Le Mans Cup will be invited to the ELMS LMP3 class the following year, with the five lowest ELMS LMP3 teams demoted to the support series, which will comprise of five two-hour races, plus the Road to Le Mans event in June.

And then there’s this:

A post-season Rookie Test for the European Le Mans Series is under evaluation for 2017. It would follow a similar format to the WEC test, which is held the day after the season finale in Bahrain, except taking young talent from the LMP3 class and giving them a chance in LMP2 machinery.

Are there promising young drivers in ELMS LMP3? I suppose, but the poor driving standards in the class are more of what caught my eye. I'm not sure the idea makes much sense in any case, as going to LMP2 as a gentleman driver always depends upon money, not talent (See: Krohn, T.). If you're a fast bronze or silver, you have value in any case, but in GTE cars, not so much in LMP2 under the current rules that require only one am driver per car.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by TheMightyM

Another ELMS race, another exclusion. This time, it’s Pegasus racing, for a (per S365) “fuel analysis anomaly.” Panis-Barthez Competition also got a 45-second time penalty, which didn't impact the results.

Also, per S365 this is happening:


And then there’s this:



Are there promising young drivers in ELMS LMP3? I suppose, but the poor driving standards in the class are more of what caught my eye. I'm not sure the idea makes much sense in any case, as going to LMP2 as a gentleman driver always depends upon money, not talent (See: Krohn, T.). If you're a fast bronze or silver, you have value in any case, but in GTE cars, not so much in LMP2 under the current rules that require only one am driver per car.

How many teams that get demoted will just quit or go to Creventic. Seems like a bad plan overall, but maybe the demand is so high they can justify this? All in all I think there will be another slump in entries at some point in the future and the ACO will have ****ed off a lot of people who would otherwise be supporting the series.

[TheMightyM]

Originally Posted by joeb

How many teams that get demoted will just quit or go to Creventic. Seems like a bad plan overall, but maybe the demand is so high they can justify this? All in all I think there will be another slump in entries at some point in the future and the ACO will have ****ed off a lot of people who would otherwise be supporting the series.

Agreed, and it is a real possiblity that demoting people will just **** off some team owners. (Of course, the ACO has never been overly concerned about ***ing people off.) A better way would just be to price people out by raising entry fees, lengthening the season, or raising driver standards. Actually, doing something about driving standards would be a good idea in any case.

This though does kind of explain their hard line on LMP3 rights ownership — you can get away this sort of stuff if you’re the only game in town (er, Europe), which is what the ACO is trying to be with LMP3.

[old man]

Originally Posted by gert

They already are.
Like John H said: they buy their luck at the same shop.

Both won 3 races, and deserve the championship more than the guys that actually took it. (IMO)

JMW actually won 4 on the road but got a DQ at Silverstone for, I was told, a wrongly fitted new front splitter where certain parts were not on the car (Not delivered?). Not fitting these parts meant the splitter was less effective than the one it replaced I was also told. AM inherited that win and as it turned out, inherited the championship.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by old man

JMW actually won 4 on the road but got a DQ at Silverstone for, I was told, a wrongly fitted new front splitter where certain parts were not on the car (Not delivered?). Not fitting these parts meant the splitter was less effective than the one it replaced I was also told. AM inherited that win and as it turned out, inherited the championship.

With a short schedule every race is critical. You hate to think one mistake in the first race puts you out of the championship, but it can sure happen.

[Ospi]

I have a strong dislike to the suggestion that the teams which won it did not deserve to however.

[old man]

JMW awarded "Team of the Year" at Sunday's Awards Dinner, might chear Jim up?

[GT-Eins]

Our Race report is finally completed:
http://www.gt-eins.de/Berichte2016/elms/elms_esto.html

including all-class statistics (at the very end of the report):

[cg7aa]

Does the ELMS ever have a drama-free last race of the season? Evidently not! Gutted for JMW but I don't begrudge Beechdean.

As for TDS, what Appalling luck. This racing lark can be very cruel sometimes.

[Akrapovic]

Given Jota were penalised for drive time regs, and TDS got away with drive time regs violations, I kinda feel it's a bit if karma tbh. Harsh but it worked out properly IMO.

[Ospi]

When did tds have driver time issues apart from the last race? (due to fcy which would be totally unfair to penalise).