[WEC] LMP Future Regulations (was Le Mans EVO rules - now hypercar rules)

[carbsmith]

Originally Posted by AoB Special Stage

On the chassis side, I wish they'd extend them 100-150mm in width so they look proportional. It can be justified on grounds of extending side impact structures and (for the manufacturers) giving them more room for packaging.

Are you willing to accept 190mph trap speeds while you're at it?

[chernaudi]

The 2000mm wide LMP1s, even with the smaller engines, recorded the fastest Porsche Curves sector speeds and were still easily going 205mph. Which that's not much slower than the current LMP1s without a slip stream.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by AoB Special Stage

I see your cheeky reply on twitter. Might I suggest sprucing up your account to look more, is professional the right word? I'm not sure.

I don't want my picture on there, I guess I could use a sportscar avatar though

Originally Posted by chernaudi

The 2000mm wide LMP1s, even with the smaller engines, recorded the fastest Porsche Curves sector speeds and were still easily going 205mph. Which that's not much slower than the current LMP1s without a slip stream.

They had a lot less hybrid/power back then as well.

[AoB Special Stage]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

Granted, the whole hybrid thing would make a lot of sense to me if the systems were powerful enough and had enough juice so that the only thing that the ICE would have to do is serve as a generator. Now that would be awesome. That would, both on the track and on the road, serve as a perfect halfway house between pure EV and non-hybrid while eliminating both's major problems, range on EV, and emissions/fuel economy for the ICE.

However, with that being said, on the racing end, if 8MJ hybrids have proven to be expensive and borderline difficult to package in LMP1s with their space constraints as of now, imagine what those issues would be with a hybrid system powerful enough that the only reason you'd need an ICE of any type would be to be a simple generator.

Well, what you're suggesting is a series hybrid (cr Fisker Karma). The main packaging concern for electrics is not the MGU(s) its/themself/ves (<< wow ) but the batteries, although fitting the front motor on the TS050 is a nightmare for sure. With the ICE solely on generator duty, energy is far more readily available as needed, reducing the need for large battery packs. However, there becomes a need to package the engine-battery MGU, and this would cause some potentially odd issues with acceleration vs. top end and regulatory 'interpretation' that I don't want to expound as this is already going to a really long post.


tl;dr- it may work, but it could also be TS020 trunk=fuel tank level nonsense

Originally Posted by carbsmith

Are you willing to accept 190mph trap speeds while you're at it?

We needed something to counter active aero's speed increase.

Originally Posted by TF110

I don't want my picture on there, I guess I could use a sportscar avatar though

Like this, perhaps.
Odd comparison, I know. I don't use Twitter myself, so I found about what I wanted from clicking similar repeatedly.

[chernaudi]

Thing is that if you're relying primarily on EV power and you just need the engine to drive a generator, you can probably get away with a very small engine. Not like a single cylinder lawnmower engine, but for sure something a lot smaller than even the Porsche 2.0 V4. One issue is the MGUs, as you'd need them to drive all four wheels full time, or at least two wheels full time.

I don't think that's the main problem, provided that the MGUs are reliable, which electric motors usually are from a mechanical stand point until they wear out. The problem is, as mentioned, battery packs. Assuming that battery technology remains static (which it won't), you're probably going to need a larger battery pack to do a lap around LM unless you have a very efficient and powerful generator. Having the engine drive a generator should at least alleviate the problem, but won't cure it unless it can recharge the battery pack quickly. It'd also help if the batteries have a very deep energy density and can hold a big charge for a long period.

As mentioned, the Fisker Karma (conventional four cylinder engine) and an Audi A1 concept car (Wankel rotary engine) did use an ICE to power a generator to allow the cars to run for long distances and at relatively high speeds on EV mode. So, in theory, it can be done, at least with road cars. On race cars, especially current LMP1s, I'm not sure that you can fit a larger battery pack to make sure something like this is practical, not without a weight increase (probable larger battery pack, the fact that the generator and engine combo will probably weigh as much or maybe more than current engine/gearbox packages), and maybe making the cars wider to allow for the use of wider tubs for packaging reasons.

As I said, that would be a concept that I can get behind, because I don't think we can go pure EV unless the whole world is urbanized, and there's a push to still become less reliant on pure ICE technology in the future due to emissions and conserving oil. Granted, cars are cleaner than ever and more fuel efficient than ever, but there's more of them, and there's still a ton of older cars on the road that pollute more and chug more fuel.

Even now, Volkswagen Group (though their Audi division mostly) and BMW are being pressured by the Bavarian government to further reduce gasoline engine and especially diesel engine emissions, which Audi/VAG and BMW are planning to do with ECU upgrades on Euro 5 and Euro 6 cars currently on the road. Of course, this is to avoid restrictions on cars in big cities and increases on taxes.

[GasperG]

No one noticed corrected fuel flow numbers in the LMP1 technical regulations?
http://www.fia.com/regulation/category/118

Fuel flow has been droped from 80.6 to 80.2., will this stay till the next year's LeMans? With such a minor change there could be another record lap next year.

The more "electric" the hybrid is the more sense is to make it a series hybrid. But that makes it behave like CVT and FIA is afraid of them from the 90s, still banned today.

[AoB Special Stage]

I told forgot to mention it in my over long post, but the InMotion IM01 G56-hopeful is/was/shall be powered by a rotary series hybrid setup.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by GasperG

No one noticed corrected fuel flow numbers in the LMP1 technical regulations?
http://www.fia.com/regulation/category/118

Fuel flow has been droped from 80.6 to 80.2., will this stay till the next year's LeMans? With such a minor change there could be another record lap next year.

At least the original idea was the do the changes post-LM and freeze them for a year.

[blankfile]

Originally Posted by AoB Special Stage

I told forgot to mention it in my over long post, but the InMotion IM01 G56-hopeful is/was/shall be powered by a rotary series hybrid setup.

they are verry much still working on something for g56. they have a single seater proof of concept now that they will use to further development.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by blankfile

they are verry much still working on something for g56. they have a single seater proof of concept now that they will use to further development.

I think their concept is what the future of lmp1 should be. Not bigger, taller, wider cockpits. It doesn't have to look like an f1 with fenders and a canopy but that's a lot more futuristic than what the cars are looking like now and will look like soon.

[AoB Special Stage]

Originally Posted by TF110

I think their concept is what the future of lmp1 should be. Not bigger, taller, wider cockpits. It doesn't have to look like an f1 with fenders and a canopy but that's a lot more futuristic than what the cars are looking like now and will look like soon.

I disagree in that, call me old fashioned, but I prefer my sports prototypes to look solid. While from an aerodynamic standpoint I understand why they do it, I do not like the aesthetic of these channels going through the front and out the side (the Ligier JSP217 from behind is especially noticeable). I'd rather the front seem more 'road car esque', I suppose.

[TF110]

I get that, but these are prototypes, not road cars. There's a GT class for those imo. It doesn't have to be f1 like, but why make the cockpit wider and taller when you can just move the driver towards the middle and solve the problems. I guess that's not going to happen because of tradition.

[AoB Special Stage]

Originally Posted by TF110

I get that, but these are prototypes, not road cars. There's a GT class for those imo. It doesn't have to be f1 like, but why make the cockpit wider and taller when you can just move the driver towards the middle and solve the problems. I guess that's not going to happen because of tradition.

Back when prototype meant prototype for a road car . . .

OK, seriously, the P1 teams might be pushing back against that because of ease of egress and ingress. Further, at least Porsche at one point was (allegedly) packaging mechanical bits in the cockpit beside the driver.

Another thought has come upon me (I'm a man of many bad ideas and the occasional decent one ) that they could, without sacrificing the frontal area, lengthen the cars by some amount. Again, packaging space increases (although on a different axis) and the canopies can be made (probably regulatorily) to sweep back more gracefully. They might look more elegant that way.

Of course, the downside is either a longer wheelbase which is more stable but lacks the change of direction they may need to get through particularly dodgy traffic situations, or longer overhangs, and we all know how that went last time.

[chernaudi]

Originally posted in the IMSA 2018 thread:

Both IMSA and the ACO have screwed up the prototype stuff really bad since 2014. My solution on the ACO end is let semi-works teams into LMP1 privateer, since in the past (certainly in LMP 900) we had what IMSA and the ACO held to be privateer teams running with a huge amount of factory support.

On the IMSA end, just base DPI around being a professional driver line up favoring class with ACO LMP1 privateer being the rough performance target and open tire, and have LMP2 be modeled along ACO guidelines as far as pro-am driver line ups and maybe still be spec tire.

[Dyson Mazda]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

Originally posted in the IMSA 2018 thread:

Both IMSA and the ACO have screwed up the prototype stuff really bad since 2014. My solution on the ACO end is let semi-works teams into LMP1 privateer, since in the past (certainly in LMP 900) we had what IMSA and the ACO held to be privateer teams running with a huge amount of factory support.

On the IMSA end, just base DPI around being a professional driver line up favoring class with ACO LMP1 privateer being the rough performance target and open tire, and have LMP2 be modeled along ACO guidelines as far as pro-am driver line ups and maybe still be spec tire.

The DPIs were built to have P2 performance levels. Thus I am wondering how much more GM, Nissan, and mostly Mazda (and Honda & VAG too if those rumors are true) can get out of their current packages and how that compares to the speeds of the P1-Ps.

[Akrapovic]

They're BoP'd down, so I imagine there's room for more power. Caddy especially. The Nissan isn't the engine from the ByKolles, but that has a lot of power to spare if the fuel regs were opened up. Mazda...well, you can't really build rules for car that blows up if the wind changes direction.

I don't really see the problem with the current IMSA Prototype class, and I really don't think it has been "screwed up". We'd all like new tyres, but that won't happen given the money Continental provides. And separating DPi and P2 at this stage is maybe a bit early. You'd end up with 2 small classes. We already have people complaining about GTE-Am and GTE-Pro being an "everybody wins" situation, but there's far more argument for those classes being split than DPi and P2, in terms of sustainable entries IMO.

[chernaudi]

Originally Posted by Dyson Mazda

The DPIs were built to have P2 performance levels. Thus I am wondering how much more GM, Nissan, and mostly Mazda (and Honda & VAG too if those rumors are true) can get out of their current packages and how that compares to the speeds of the P1-Ps.

DPIs, especially the Cadillacs, and especially at the start of the season, would probably have been significantly faster than LMP2s on LMP2 spec tires, and were certainly faster than LMP2s on the IMSA spec Continental tires.

Each DPI team to one degree or another has been pegged back to try and approximate LMP2 performance levels, but the fact that the factory teams were allowed to develop their cars to be different then the LMP2s that they're based on, and are still it seems allowed to develop (ACO spec LMP2s have had their homolgation frozen, while DPIs have room for development right now as none have been fully homolgated even almost 6 months after the first race).

Also, DPIs and LMP2s are supposed to be making 600bhp out of their engines, but LMP1, LMP2 and DPI share the same basic chassis regulations under the ACO's and IMSA's technical regulations. Only the length is different between LMP1 and LMP2/DPI (4650mm vs 4750mm).

It should be easier with more open aero and some extra power to get DPIs and LMP1 privateer cars close on performance. And both can be done without anything like LMP1H budgets.

[chernaudi]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

They're BoP'd down, so I imagine there's room for more power. Caddy especially. The Nissan isn't the engine from the ByKolles, but that has a lot of power to spare if the fuel regs were opened up. Mazda...well, you can't really build rules for car that blows up if the wind changes direction.

I don't really see the problem with the current IMSA Prototype class, and I really don't think it has been "screwed up". We'd all like new tyres, but that won't happen given the money Continental provides. And separating DPi and P2 at this stage is maybe a bit early. You'd end up with 2 small classes. We already have people complaining about GTE-Am and GTE-Pro being an "everybody wins" situation, but there's far more argument for those classes being split than DPi and P2, in terms of sustainable entries IMO.

I've already been on tirades about how the ACO messed up LMP1 with the hybrid/ERS Incentive/fuel flow regs, so I'm not going to restate all of that here. But the fact is that on the DPI front, you have factory supported teams who clearly developed their own bodywork for their own advantage, not just to put road car styling cues on them. Even Audi did that with their LMP1 cars, and to a similar extent to the Cadillac DPI (headlight shape mostly).

Because they were developed independently from the LMP2 cars (who have their homologation frozen with the ACO and were designed around a single engine platform), the DPIs were always going to be faster, due to manufacturer investments, which involved powertrain (engine), aerodynamics (why would DPI teams make their own bodywork? Not just to suit IMSA wanting to have road car styling cues, as the changes on the Cadillac for example aren't exclusively just to create brand identity), and even to a degree almost all the DPI teams having an all pro driver lineup.

Just because an all-pro LMP2 car can keep up with the DPIs doesn't mean that's the way it should be without BOP. If there was no BOP, the DPIs would probably be miles ahead of even an all pro LMP2 car.

The problem there is how close would they'd be to a LMP1 privateer car? Since they won't race together at the same venue (Kolles won't even be at Austin), we can't judge, but when you consider how outdated Kolles' car is, they were still able to pass a Toyota on the first lap of LM this year, at least until Tetre Rouge.

Granted, you have two of the three ACO spec LMP2 teams in IMSA right now that are in favor of a separate DPI and LMP2 class. And one of those teams right now has the only all pro LMP2 driver line ups. And Troy Fils (Spirit of Daytona/Visit Florida Racing owner) feels it's unfair to have the DPIs shackled to being kept to roughly LMP2 specs. Either he's die hard about running LM with a ACO spec LMP2 at some point and doesn't want any IMSA influenced BOP, or he's moving to a DPI next year and wants more room for development and more speed out of the cars.

[AoB Special Stage]

I thought people didn't like having two small prototype classes, one of which has almost no competition whatsoever. Shows what I know.

[chernaudi]

Fact is that if something like a more open form of DPI was allowed into the ACO's LMP1 privateer regs, it'd work and you'd have more entries. As mentioned, not every car maker who wants to have something to do with LMP1 wants to spend Toyota's $80-100 million, let alone Porsche's $200 million, or run hybrid systems. Not to mention that LMP1H might be only a two or three car class at LM next year if the rumors of Porsche pulling out in favor of focusing on their GTE program and waiting to see what happens with the 2020 regs are accurate )or get replaced with another Volkswagen Group program).

And the other way, if DPIs can easily run to LMP1 privateer speeds on LMP1 spec open tires and at relatively little cost, let them into LMP1 privateer and let LMP1 privateer cars run in IMSA. I'm pretty sure that GM is probably spending LMP1 privateer level money on the Cadillac DPI program anyways, and they reportedly want to sell more customer cars beyond the three entries that are currently running them.

The only guys who might lose out (or, possibly, rather have a conflict of interest) is Dallara. They're developing a new LMP1 with SMP Racing that may or may not have much to do with their LMP2/DPI cars (granted, LMP2/DPI and LMP1 share chassis regs under both ACO and IMSA technical regulations). So there's a risk that Dallara might have two very different cars in the same class, so one or the other could get axed under the same scenario unless SMP wants to run the car as their own and only have Dallara build it.

At this stage, it's not like GM have the same deal that Audi Sport had with Dallara from 2006-2013 where Dallara couldn't really build their own LMP cars because of the Audi Sport deal prior to Audi Sport having YCom handle their LMP1 chassis construction (ironically, YCom already were building bodywork and other stuff Dallara wasn't dating back to the first days of the R10 program).

[MANvsFOOD]

Isn't it possible to have an EoT (equivalence of technology) to allow privateer LMP1 efforts? I suppose they'd risk losing Toyota and Porsche because they'd be spending much more money to create a car with essentially the same speed.

[carbsmith]

It's been tricky for the last few years because the rate of development of the factory cars has been insane and the rate of development for the privateer cars has been pitiful. By the end of last year the R-One was fast enough to be in with the 2014 factory cars, but the factory cars were a generation newer and 4 seconds per lap faster. With Audi gone and the regulation changes to slow things down maybe it will be easier.

[TzeiTzei]

It would be interesting to get some info about how fast a factory non hybrid would be. Could it be competitive?

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by TzeiTzei

It would be interesting to get some info about how fast a factory non hybrid would be. Could it be competitive?

Ideal lap (fastest sectors combined all week long) for the ByKolles at Le Mans was a 3:23.290. So I can't see a reason why a well-developed private LMP1 car can't do a 3:20.

[TzeiTzei]

Originally Posted by Victor_RO

Ideal lap (fastest sectors combined all week long) for the ByKolles at Le Mans was a 3:23.290. So I can't see a reason why a well-developed private LMP1 car can't do a 3:20.

Which is still miles off the pace. Unless they're matching the hybrids then they're nowhere. Remember Toyota in 2015? It wouldn't have made any difference had they not been in the race at all.