Spa 24 Hours 2018

[GregoryDG]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

2016. Mercedes qualified 1-2-3-4-5-6. After they were thrown to the back of the grid, no adjustment was made to the BoP. Those cars started the race with a 5 minute penalty, lost 2 laps in the opening hour, and still managed to finish on the lead lap. Without the penalty (which didn't give them any significant speed advantage), they'd have won the Spa 24 Hours comfortably by 2 laps and locked out the podium based on speed.

Call it on a case by case basis. SROs 2018 BoP is pretty good. But 2 years ago it was abysmal. So was ACOs, and so was VLNs.

SRO was tipped by the ADAC after what had happened that year at the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring, where Mercedes monopolized the whole podium. When the six Mercedes cars dominated qualifying at Spa, SRO knew what it had to do and found the illegal mapping.

The situation is different than it was this year, as even without the fixing tape Audi maybe was a tiny bit too fast. Mercedes wasn't in 2016. If you took the effort to do some research, you would have seen that the Mercedes only lost one lap with their 5 minute penalty, thanks to a Ferrari being stuck in the Fagnes chicane in the first lap. Lucky break.

Looking at the opening hours, the Mercedes did not manage to unlap themselves to the other Pro cars, or at least not in a way you would expect with a 'clear BoP advantage'. The Mercedes in second place finally finished about two minutes away from the winning BMW. Knowing that taking a lap back is relatively easy thanks to the use of the Full Course Yellow and the Safety Car, that is NOT what I would call a clear advantage.

Remember how Team Bernhard's Porsche managed to come back after a 3 minute penalty after three hours last year? So did the Porsche have a BoP advantage? Or did the Audi in 2016 when it came back to third place after a collision with the Jaguar?