[LM24] Speed restrictions at Le Mans

[pirenzo]

What is the right speed?

what do you think, do they need to go slower? Faster? or stay the same?

[E46]

I believe the cars should be faster but ACO rules is a big wall to jump.

[Aysedasi]

I think they should be faster. As my first Le Mans was 86 when we still had not only the Mulsanne but also the Dunlop Curve.

But the reality is that the speeds were dangerous. Just ask Win Percy or Jonathan Palmer. You can't ask Jo Gartner, unfortunately.

But I don't want to see Le Mans get any slower.

[rdjones]

Originally posted by Aysedasi
I think they should be faster. As my first Le Mans was 86 when we still had not only the Mulsanne but also the Dunlop Curve.

But the reality is that the speeds were dangerous. Just ask Win Percy or Jonathan Palmer. You can't ask Jo Gartner, unfortunately.

But I don't want to see Le Mans get any slower.

I would agree with that.

[egor]

Let them go faster by making the Mulsanne a straight again, how many drivers have said how good it was to have a rest going down the Mulsanne.

[racer69]

If we still had all of the Mulsanne and the old first couple of corners on the lap, i would say leave the speeds where they are.

Seeing as we have the track as it is now, i reckon that the speeds can be increased without increasing the danger levels of the track by much.

[MulsanneMike]

I voted faster, though I don't think they should be substantially faster. Maybe topping 220+ vs. 210+ currently

[paulzinho]

You know my feeling on the Mulsanne, I'd love to see the old Dunlop Curve and the straight after the Dunlop bridge back again too..... that would be very nice.

[Aysedasi]

Originally posted by egor
Let them go faster by making the Mulsanne a straight again, how many drivers have said how good it was to have a rest going down the Mulsanne.

The problem with the Mulsanne, however, was breakages. Gartner died in 86 when his gearbox seized. Others, like Percy and Palmer, had massive accidents when things broke.

When you're travelling at 240 mph+, if something goes, you're in the lap of the Gods.

Hence the rumours which abounded earlier in the year about chicanes or something similar on the run from Mulsanne Corner to Indianapolis - now the fastest part of the circuit.

[Fab]

Sorry, I made a mistake in my vote due to my lack of english practicing... I read too fast and thought the question was "do you think the cars WILL run slower"... and I answered "yes", alas ! But I'd like to see them running the same speed as 2002 best cars (Audis and Dallaras). Faster... not necessarely better : we could have two faster cars, and the others too far behind... the Audis were fast this year, and I'd like to see more cars in the same second... so my answer is "faster for the non-Audis"...

[paul-collins]

Good answer, Fab. Faster Panoz, Lister, etc.

Ayse, at what speed does a mechanical failure not put the driver in "the lap of the Gods?" Should we be aiming for 220, 200, 180, 160 as a top Mulsanne speed? (I'm not trying to be facetious - I'm just wondering, at what speed would a driver/car be able to recover or at least survive?)

[pirenzo]

modern cars should be able to survive an impact at about 220mph.

The new roll hoop rules should mean that an overturning car shouldn't have a problem, as Bentley proved at Paul Picard before Le Mans.

the 900s i think are more vulnerable to roll hoop collapse because their hoops are possible to catch on guard rails, mud etc, and get ripped off, as Michele Alboreto might have told you.

[Aysedasi]

I don't know the answers, guys. Frankly it's all conjecture. We can only speculate as to what speeds a driver may crash at and survive. Look at Webber and Dumbreck a couple of years ago. Yes, they survived with barely a scratch between them in accidents which would probably have killed them not so many years ago, but there is no guarantee in this business. The worry at Le Mans is what is going to happen if a car vaults the armco. You haven't got wide open spaces - you've got a lot of trees, telegraph poles, and, on the Mulsanne, houses and buildings etc. I wouldn't fancy my chances at surviving an accident at any speed if my car left the black stuff on the Mulsanne.

Don't get me wrong, regulars will know I'm the last person to suggest yet more circuit changes at Le Mans, but someone has to play devil's advocate.

[SurfXTC]

I hate to make this comparison. If Indy/Cart/IRL cars can survive an impact into a solid cement barrier at speeds well in excess of 200 miles per hour, why can't the cars running at Le Mans be allowed to get their speeds back up. Along the Mulsanne, what is there to hit? Isn't a guard rail, gravel trap, tree, etc. much more forgiving than than solid cement?

Plus, with the technology that has been developed using composite materials and so on allows the driver to be much safer than when the cars were running at 230-240 in the 80's.

I say bring back the glory days of Le Mans and let the drivers go flat out on the Mulsanne. Isn't that what racing is about...GOING FLAT OUT ???

[djb]

Ayed- Dumbreck was just plain lucky, whereas Albereto wasn't. I'm sure you'd agree that it was the way the Merc went in backwards and hitting initially smallish trees that brought the speed down without ripping the car to bits, plus the shallow angle was a huge help as well.

I don't know, yes the cars are tougher than before, but then you get a combination of the wrong place, the wrong angle, etc etc and things can happen.

this is off topic, but when I had motorcycles, I've fallen off numerous times, mostly on racetracks, and have gone off at somewhere near 90 or 100mph (no speedo, but a 5th gear corner) and was just bruised up. This summer, a bicycling friend of mine had a silly little walking pace fall, dislocated her shoulder, and she's still doing physio to attempt to get all the range of motion back! All that is to say that while I agree that everything about cars are safer now, sometimes weird stuff happens doesn't it?

As for the question, I can see the logic behind the Mulsanne chicanes, but as a (couch) driver I can understand the draw to a straight that long, not to mention the history of it. It would be interesting to hear some recollections from Paul's father from when he was there pre-chicane (wasn't he?)

[Aysedasi]

Originally posted by djb
It would be interesting to hear some recollections from Paul's father from when he was there pre-chicane (wasn't he?)

It would indeed, how about it Paul?

The siutation on the Mulsanne was improved some years back when the ACO finally installed triple layer armco - probably saved Percy's life.

[Fab]

May I ad a word to the talk ? I asked to myself during the LM Classic, if speed was important in the show (or fight) or not... I almost saw more fights on the track with the 'oldies' than in June... and they were far, far behind the slowest June car...

Well, I have to admit that I love to see very fast time' laps on the grid... in May, the interrest is to hear in the Radio Le Mans report the decreasing of the time' laps by the best cars... and how I was excited to learn that a Dallara made it at 3'30 in the afternoon... and thinking that the best Audi in June did as fast as the best 1999 Toyota, regarding the new La Chapelle curve and the limitation of power...

Since Boutsen accident in 1999, I can't remember very serious wreck in the last years ; the Ascari went out fast this year, but the pilot was OK... maybe the effect of new wide space to go out...

Serious wrecks cause problems in different ways : first of all for pilots life (how sad the race become when we hear that one of them is seriously wounded, or worst)... the feast is over ; then, if the pilot is safe and sane, the race is stopped (not good for the show) ; then, if the race is not stopped, the car is out (definitely) ; then, if the car is not out definitely, it could be dammage and putted down far behind the leader of the category...

So : I want fast cars (always fast), but I want them on the track, running well for 24 hours (and not 24 minutes : remember the Autoexe), and with some balance between them, to not know on Saturday afternoon who's gonna win on sunday (as it was, alas, the three last years...).

[SALEEN S7R]

Personally Id prefer to see the cars going faster than they do currently, not 240+mph like they used to but perhaps touching 230mph. With the bump in the Mulsanne flattened out there shoudnt really be much in the way of danger of a car taking off, should there?

Ive only been watching Le Mans since 1999 so Im afraid I never got to see the Courage flying down the mulsanne at 252mph.

[TVRfan]

the way to combat speeds is to introduce regulations that slow them down, less wing etc but if the rules stay the same then the cars will speed up. this years winning time, if the weather is the same of coirse, will be quicker than last years. The TVR's for next year can top 220 easily so we are getting faster. i say leave the rules as they are and allow the mechanics to make the cars faster AND still reliable (or in some cases much more reliable) after all that is what motorsport is about: the challenge for the drivers but also just as impoortantly the challenge for the technicians!

[paulzinho]

As for my dads view of the Mulsanne, its been a while since I asked him but from memory I remember him saying that the ACO/FIA (whoever you want to blame) ruined the kink on the Mulsanne, simply because at first it took you by surprise as to the extent of the corner it is!

I'll ask him again but I don't think he liked it at all! Nor did he like the chicane in the Dunlop curve...

I know Pescarolo doesn't like the Mulsanne chicanes either!

[paulzinho]

Right I just asked my dad about those chicanes and he said its a great shame that the Mulsanne straight has been punctured, it used to be a challenge, that kink especially!

Got onto a pretty interesting discussion about circuits generally and his opinion is that the challenging corners which we are losing so rapidly were a huge part of the challenge and buzz of racing, he also maintains that cars should be made to suit the circuits not circuits made to suit the cars. If a corner or circuit was dangerous then you didnt make a mistake! The drivers made sure of that!

One of his favourites was Pouhon at Spa, simply because he could make up so much time through there. OK he wasn't crazy to the extent of David Purley (whom he mentioned as having a death wish) but he believes that the satisfaction of doing a difficult, "horny" corner right was something else and its this that we are losing alot of.....