What is Aston Martin up to?

[Pandamasque]

Words like 'having fun' and 'good progress' from Meyrick's twitter.

Meanwhile AML announced the new Zagato model based on the V12 Vantage to be unveiled on may 21st. More importantly many say it's the one to race at N24!

[Le Vieux]

Originally Posted by gustavobamba

Did any one know how the Aragon test went??? any pics? any development??? any decision related to Le Mans??


So many question´s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Am I just being cynical, or does the deafening silence on this subject suggest all is still not well?

[gwyllion]

On the twitter of Adrian Fernandez and Andy Meyrick there are some tweets about the test, all very vague.

Originally Posted by Andy Meyrick

Having fun here in motorland. Stefan in the car, making good progress

Originally Posted by Adrian Fernandez

Good morning all, beautiful day again for our 2nd day of testing in Motorland Spain. Did a good run this AM felt good but need more miles.

[gustavobamba]

According to sportmotores.es

"Aston Martin Racing has been testing Motorland variant which includes the straight line of 1,726 meters long, which is demonstrably have been testing various configurations for the 24 Hours of Le Mans"

[JAG]

Originally Posted by BRG

1. torque is you friend .
2. A well developed open car with a turbo engine could be very close to the top.

Could KERS give a petrol car enough punch out of the corners to compensate for the diesels torque advantage?

Also read in two places diesels are likely to have a fuel tank reduction, petrols a restrictor break.

[MulsanneMike]

Originally Posted by JAG

Could KERS give a petrol car enough punch out of the corners to compensate for the diesels torque advantage?

Also read in two places diesels are likely to have a fuel tank reduction, petrols a restrictor break.

Maybe for 2011. But not for 2012 or whenever the diesels show up with their hybrids. Restrictor break is a throwaway give-me given the time to Le Mans. There just isn't the time to implement it. This from an anonymous source.

[JAG]

Given experience with engines like the HPD and Judd V8, which must have been fitted with half a dozen different restrictor sizes in recent years, how long do you think is needed?

[Pandamasque]

Why not just add some 30-50kg to all the diesels? That would be the best way to counteract their torque advantage + will slow the top runners down towards the magic number of 3:30.

[MulsanneMike]

Originally Posted by JAG

Given experience with engines like the HPD and Judd V8, which must have been fitted with half a dozen different restrictor sizes in recent years, how long do you think is needed?

From talking to those involved. And the HPD is in what, two cars? The Judd in 4-6? That's hardly the entire gas powered grid. Point is, the ACO, who even today have still made a decision, are taking far too long to come to a conclusion. The question that needs to be asked, how is it that they got the equivalency so wrong yet again?

[templer]

Originally Posted by Pandamasque

Why not just add some 30-50kg to all the diesels? That would be the best way to counteract their torque advantage + will slow the top runners down towards the magic number of 3:30.

That's an easy way. But you are talking about two manufacturers which supported endurannce racing for quite a long time. I am sure Peugeot and Audi will not be happy to invest a lot of money to built underweight cars and then getting furthermore penalized. And the ACO have to take care that both don't leave the racing circus.

We are all sure that the diesel cars have still an advantage on the engine side, but no one knows how large this advantage really is cause they have for sure aso the better chassis and suspension design then all private teams not to talk about their preperation advantage. A private team did perhaps 1000 - 5000 km testing and the works teams are in the region of 30.000 - 50.000 km.
So similar to Group C, or the GT1 championship in the 90s a private team did never have a real chance against a works team besides it use the same car (like the Porsche 956 in Group C. And even during this time is was luck or certain circumstances then Joest or Lylod succeeded during the period of the full works effort.

[MulsanneMike]

Originally Posted by templer

That's an easy way. But you are talking about two manufacturers which supported endurannce racing for quite a long time. I am sure Peugeot and Audi will not be happy to invest a lot of money to built underweight cars and then getting furthermore penalized. And the ACO have to take care that both don't leave the racing circus.

We are all sure that the diesel cars have still an advantage on the engine side, but no one knows how large this advantage really is cause they have for sure aso the better chassis and suspension design then all private teams not to talk about their preperation advantage. A private team did perhaps 1000 - 5000 km testing and the works teams are in the region of 30.000 - 50.000 km.

So similar to Group C, or the GT1 championship in the 90s a private team did never have a real chance against a works team besides it use the same car (like the Porsche 956 in Group C. And even during this time is was luck or certain circumstances then Joest or Lylod succeeded during the period of the full works effort.

The preliminary figures appear to show the diesels have twice the torque of the normally aspirated gasoline cars. The turbo gas should fare better but I don't have any empiric figures for those. I'll have to speculate something up.

And why should it be assumed that only factories are allowed to win? From a sustainability standpoint it doesn't make any sense to constantly court the factories. Boom, bust=sportscar racing. But that's just because the same poor hindsight is constantly used. Now I'm not saying we don't need them, what I am saying is that why are the privateers constantly kicked? This whole diesel/gas thing is a farce. And you think it's bad now? Wait till the diesel hybrids show up.

At this point we're way off topic, apologies.

[templer]

Originally Posted by MulsanneMike

The preliminary figures appear to show the diesels have twice the torque of the normally aspirated gasoline cars. The turbo gas should fare better but I don't have any empiric figures for those. I'll have to speculate something up.

And why should it be assumed that only factories are allowed to win? From a sustainability standpoint it doesn't make any sense to constantly court the factories. Boom, bust=sportscar racing. But that's just because the same poor hindsight is constantly used. Now I'm not saying we don't need them, what I am saying is that why are the privateers constantly kicked? This whole diesel/gas thing is a farce. And you think it's bad now? Wait till the diesel hybrids show up.

At this point we're way off topic, apologies.

Your are right we are off the topic, so only a few more words.

You are absolutely right that the whole rule system between diesel and gasoline is bull****. And I like small teams as well as works teams. I always keep the fingers crossed for Pescarolo or others. They are the real spine of the whole endurance racing system.
But if you look at any series in history with manufacturers involved you have the same problem. No chance for any private team. Even if take away the diesel discussion and force all to drive with other engine concepts. A private team will never win. They don't have the money and the resources to do a car design on the same level.
And we all know that the privates do it for racing and publicity. The works teams did it almost only for publicity and they spend the money to win and not for getting beat by small teams.
If we want competitive cars the ACO should think about the FIA system of balance. That system worked great in the FIA GT1 championship. But if you will find more works teams with such a system? I have my doubts.

[JAG]

Last point on this, in Autosport the ACO say article 19 is to equalise engine performance only, a second sporting rule is to maintain the gap between different technologies to within 2%.

At Sebring the difference was less than 2%, at Spa it was 3.5%.

[WolfsburgRS]

Originally Posted by templer

But if you look at any series in history with manufacturers involved you have the same problem. No chance for any private team. Even if take away the diesel discussion and force all to drive with other engine concepts. A private team will never win. They don't have the money and the resources to do a car design on the same level.
And we all know that the privates do it for racing and publicity. The works teams did it almost only for publicity and they spend the money to win and not for getting beat by small teams.
If we want competitive cars the ACO should think about the FIA system of balance. That system worked great in the FIA GT1 championship. But if you will find more works teams with such a system? I have my doubts.

To continue the slightly off-topic rant, back in the 'glory days' of the 956 / 962 private teams beat factory teams all the time. Joest at Le Mans with the 956, and in IMSA various private teams in Porsches and Marches also won their fair share.

To bring that back to the Aston, I feel that the smaller displacement cars should be encouraged and given a weight break. They may not ever have the grunt of a factory diesel obviously, but a lighter and more nimble 2.0 turbo Aston Martin would have it's own advantages and could even things out much more than just a little more power. Less weight would also need less torque, further closing the gap.

[templer]

Originally Posted by WolfsburgRS

To continue the slightly off-topic rant, back in the 'glory days' of the 956 / 962 private teams beat factory teams all the time. Joest at Le Mans with the 956, and in IMSA various private teams in Porsches and Marches also won their fair share.

To bring that back to the Aston, I feel that the smaller displacement cars should be encouraged and given a weight break. They may not ever have the grunt of a factory diesel obviously, but a lighter and more nimble 2.0 turbo Aston Martin would have it's own advantages and could even things out much more than just a little more power. Less weight would also need less torque, further closing the gap.

Sorry but you are not correct: 1983 three victories of private teams ( 2 x Joest and 1 x Fitzpatrick), 1984 Le Mans Joest ( without a works Porsche) and 2x Lloyd , 1985 1x Joest. All other Porsche victories in Group C were made by the Rothmans works cars during their full involvement which ended in 1986.

A better engine would Aston definitely help, but they don't have a better engine and the car design is also questionable. I think we can forget the AMR team in 2011. That's sad but reality.

[Aysedasi]

Time to kick this right back on topic I think now guys......

[Aysedasi]

Time to kick this right back on topic I think now guys......

[Pandamasque]

Torque could be the reason why AMR went for a turbo i6. I'm pretty sure Prodrive saw some significant benefits (other than cost) in such an engine and chassis design if they went for it. Otherwise they'd be safe and comfortable with the grandfathered Lola-Aston. 5.9L V12 even in its restricted form wouldn't be down on torque compared to other petrols, right?

[MulsanneMike]

Originally Posted by Pandamasque

Torque could be the reason why AMR went for a turbo i6. I'm pretty sure Prodrive saw some significant benefits (other than cost) in such an engine and chassis design if they went for it. Otherwise they'd be safe and comfortable with the grandfathered Lola-Aston. 5.9L V12 even in its restricted form wouldn't be down on torque compared to other petrols, right?

Yes, a gas turbo is your only hope. But you'll never match or exceed the diesels. You can only hope to just not be as bad as the normally aspirated gas.

[Ultimo]

If a manufacturer (say, Toyota) approaches the ACO and says that the the imbalance is too great, then would not the ACO maybe move the goalposts? I would guess they'd have more leverage than Pescarolo.

[chernaudi]

I think that the talk about equivlancy is starting to really detract from the discussion about the AMR-One itself. Unless it pertains directly to the AMR-One and it's design, discussion would be better served in like the 2011 rules thread or something of that nature.

If it's something that's directly related to the AMR-One, then OK, by all means place it here, but if there's no direct connection, there are other places that that element of discussion can fit better.

On to the AMR-One, I do think that a gasoline turbo engine is the route of the future for LMP1 gasoline cars with the trends in production cars using small four cylinder turbocharged/supercharged engine with DFI.

Question here is is the AMR-One's inline 6 even capable right now of producing its quoted power, let alone for a 24 hour race? I'd think that a four cylinder would've been a better choice (shorter but stiffer block), but I don't design engines, but Baretzky from Audi has done so for a living for about 30 years, and he knows from work at BMW before he joined Audi Sport that an inline 6 isn't the best choice, even with modern advances. But then again, he had to be persuaded to go with the V6 used in the Audi R18, probably after the low CG of a 120 deg V6 and short and compact demensions opened some gates for him and his designers.

The case of the AMR-One seems to be one of an underdesigned car with an engine that's already perhaps being pushed to or even beyond its practical limits.

[Steptoe]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

Baretzky from Audi has done so for a living for about 30 years, and he knows from work at BMW before he joined Audi Sport that an inline 6 isn't the best choice, even with modern advances.

I hope Baretzky is wrong but I doubt it then again his recent rant in Motorsport is very negative toward the AMR one. That said he also stated in the same article that a petrol car would be quicker than a diesel but refused to answer why Audi had not considered going petrol again if petrol was the quicker choice.
I don't think he knows everything though his Audi market research said the fans preferred less engine noise at a motor sport event, hence quiet diesels , I doubt he asked any genuine Sportscar Fans !!

[photopigg]

has anybody heard any news of how the test went in Spain with the new engines?????

[Tom908V12]

Excellent question !! News about the latest tests from AMR

[gwyllion]

Nothing new since http://tentenths.com/forum/showthrea...34#post2879234