[WEC] Rebellion Racing

[canaglia]

what if some kind of dpi philosophy?
base oreca 07 + different and distinctive lights and nose.

7 months guess is enough to make something looking new and competitive as well.

Ligier did the same with nissan dpi in how much time? a pair of months?

[Bentley03]

Originally Posted by canaglia

what if some kind of dpi philosophy?
base oreca 07 + different and distinctive lights and nose.

7 months guess is enough to make something looking new and competitive as well.

Ligier did the same with nissan dpi in how much time? a pair of months?

I believe the 07 needs to carry a lot of ballast, because it is well below the LMP2 minimum weight, so in that respect, it's a good starting point. But I'm not sure how useful their dabbling in DPi will be, they are working to a very different rule set.

[Coach Ep]

Originally Posted by Bentley03

In theory, I guess Rebellion's 07 tubs could be recycled and used for the R13...?

Hmm, haven't we seen that before in recent history? Correct!

So with the LMP2 07's tub being suitable for upgrading to a LMP1 car, it will be able lure current Oreca P2 runners and potential new entrants into P1 for a lower investment than the main competitors. Clever strategy!

For the same reason I don't believe Oreca "is behind" on their development compared to the other LMP1 constructors - they have years of recent development and operating experience, both in P1 + P2, much more than any of their direct privateer competitors and should be able to make up any possible disadvantage quickly.

[peebee2]

ORECA running the cars also likely to be better than the old crew, with all due respect.

[Akrapovic]

Well, people have been a bit critical of Rebellion and I'm not sure why. They were comfortably the best LMP1 privateer, and when they moved back to LMP2 they won the title in their first year against the highest quality LMP2 grid in history. I don't really see what else they could've done.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by Bentley03

I also think you're right that this won't be the quickest privateer P1 over a single lap, but I do think it will ultimately prove to be the most reliable of the new generation of P1's.

I think it will the quickest of the bunch actually. Say whatever you want about Oreca just slightly modifying old Frankensteins (which was already true in the days of them running Saleens and Courages) but they get the job done ultimately. Plus their tendency to optimize the package solely for Le Mans will be beneficial.

HOWEVER I'm not so sure about the reliability, the chassis will have the least running time of all come June. I wouldn't be surprised if they missed the Prologue despite the promises (just like few years ago) and even Spa (just like few years ago). Now, that's not to say that the other packages are particularly convincing in the durability side either, I mean the AERs of SMP Dallaras will almost certainly blow out, CLM is obviously write off, and we don't know anything about how Ginetta (not to mention Mechachrome) can fare. Maybe if they get the second chassis running it's a different story, but it will be difficult if it's just the singular entry.

The Dragonspeed Dallara-Zytek might be the most 'conservative' entity out there, but on the other side of the coin their gentleman driver is a liability the others won't have

[Akrapovic]

Still unsure on the DragonSpeed entry. Gibson motor is solid, but there is still this nagging thing about bronze drivers. That isn't resolved. I agree with Chiana, the AER will blow up a lot. The Ginetta will be interesting.

Ignoring drivers, I'd actually put the DragonSpeed entry as the best placed.

[Deleted]

If I had to bet I'd actually put equal amount of money for Dragonspeed overall win at the 24 than I would for Toyota lol Following that the top 3 at the 24 would comprise of Toyota, Oreca and non-AER Dallara (in whichever order), with first LMP2 either fourth or fifth.

In the sprint races the reliability isn't really an issue so the battle for (final) podium spot will be resolved by performance, however because of that the Toyotas will also be able to cruise ahead of them. Whatever the EoT commission does won't change that I suspect...

Sebring will be interesting one as Toyota has never been there and it will be rough surface for these now-so sophisticated systems, privateer might win that one especially if the they get some development done over the next winter

[Akrapovic]

A little birdy mentioned to me that Toyota may be in a bit of bother with the regulation balancing. But we'll see how that plays out.

I agree regarding Sebring - I just don't think the hybrids will survive that. I'd put money on a Rebellion victory there.

[Damian Baldi]

The tub is the same from the Oreca 05, so it already was able to fit the original Toyota v8, Nissan v8, Gibson v8, Honda v6, AER v6 and Acura v6.

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/cars/rebellion-r1/#

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

A little birdy mentioned to me that Toyota may be in a bit of bother with the regulation balancing. But we'll see how that plays out.

I agree regarding Sebring - I just don't think the hybrids will survive that. I'd put money on a Rebellion victory there.

I don't think the bumpy track is going to be much of an issue for Toyota. They have the rigs and all that back at TMG to simulate them. Of course it will be different once they run the track but I don't think it's much of an issue. Audi ran their hybrids there for testing so it's doable. Unless you think they won't win on pace. That remains to be seen! The Oreca is the fastest lmp2 right now so with 100kg less weight and more power it should already be very competitive with the others.

[NSX_LeMans]

There has been an interview with Nelson Piquet Jr. He talks about a lot of things but I will translate here the bits that are related to Le Mans, WEC and Rebellion only.

http://rodrigomattar.grandepremio.co...-com-nelsinho/

Piquet has three appearances at Sarthe, with a 9th place finish at his debut and a podium finish last year, which later resulted in technical disqualification for a team error from Rebellion, which opened a hole on the car so the mechanics could reach the starter motor. As homologated parts can't be modified, he and his teammates were excluded and lost a third place overall - second in the LMP2 class. But he revealed he faced more trouble than those at Sarthe.

"It sucked. (Mathias) Beche did not open his mouth to say anything because he depended on his job. He did not say anything, he did not complain. I'd tell everybody to f*** off. I left the team because of it. There were several times I had to take it easy to save tire, slowing down. So the option to switch the WEC for Stock Car, because I will learn a lot more and financially is much better", he says.

"At Rebellion, they favored the other car with three engineers and while ours had one and another part-time. They did everything to invest in the other car when they started to take advantage of the championship to the detriment of ours."

And he goes even further: "David (Heinemeier-Hänsson) is a good driver, but he had his ups and downs. The other car had a huge luck to get a very good engine from the second half of the season and ours was below average. This made a very big difference. From that point on, the team wanted us to help them and there began the confusion, the uneasiness within the team, which worsened in Fuji. David could sue the team if they did that and then they harmed us. They missed the calibration of our car 'accidentally', the car was slow. In Japan, Bruno took me out on the first corner"

Piquet Jr is still open to race at Le Mans and WEC, in LMP2, but Formula E and Stock Car Brasil will be his priorities.

[Mike E]

Not counting on a return with Rebellion though, is he?

[Coach Ep]

Sounds like the right attitude for stock cars.

[knighty]

The Piquets have a long history of running their mouths in the press, starting with his father in the 1980's, because they normally bring big sponsors, so therfore feel like they can say what they want......for him to blame his engine, in a spec LMP2 engine class, I can imagine the blokes at Gibson are rolling about the floor laughing.......

the only noteworthy thing that kid has done in motorsport is crashing his F1 car on purpose in order to bring out the safety car to give his team mate to win.......but as soon as they didnt get what they wanted within the team, they blew the whistle to the FIA 6 months later, and got Flavio sacked......whoever idea it was in the first place he was a muppet for going along with it, if he had any morals he would have flat refused to undertake such a lame act.

He brings no value to the WEC or F1 and is hanging off his fathers coat tails.......a bit like Bruno too I'm afraid, but I will admit Bruno is a far nicer character.

[Deleted]

His whining is at the level of certain elderly grandpa who blamed his seat belts and whatever for being slow in GT1 Corvette few years back.

[TF110]

To me it sounds like he has a point. If he was asked about it why not tell your story? I'd rather someone be straight and tell it like it is instead of being Mr. PC all the time with the same tired lines like "the team and I had a disagreement" or whatever. Sounds like his complaints are legit and Rebellion did favor the other car, you could see it in the races.

[Deleted]

It probably said in his contract somewhere that team orders may be enforced at any time, because they almost always are in sportscar racing

This guy shouldn't be stranger to team orders of course...

[Akrapovic]

Rebellion favoured the car that could win the title? I...don't see a problem with that.

Anyway, Nelson isn't the most trustworthy of characters to be perfectly blunt. So he may well be unhappy that situation, but it's understandable. And complaining that your team mate didn't complain? Huh.

[Damian Baldi]

He should ask Lotterer, that he was leading races just to be called to fill the entire tank just with 3 laps to go.

[carbsmith]

Originally Posted by knighty

for him to blame his engine, in a spec LMP2 engine class, I can imagine the blokes at Gibson are rolling about the floor laughing

With spec engines there's always soft ones and good ones. The difference with the Gibsons is of course supposed to be extremely small, but still if you get the lemon and your teammate gets the rocket a driver is going to notice it.

[Jam3s]

I know of a couple of teams who have seen glaring differences in engine performance when near their rebuild mileage vs freshly rebuilt/new. It's an issue with this engine, guessing ring/piston issues but never know.

[silente]

with spec engines there is always a performance tolerance that will be accepted to declare the engine "ok".

In my experience, everytime i worked in a class with spec engines, there were always better and worse ones. I heard the same this year in LMP2, with some teams clearly having less "luck" with their engines than others.

At the end, if you assume an engine has a +/- 2% power tolerance, it could be one engine has 600hp +2%=612 hp and another engine 600 hp -2%=588hp.

612-588=24 hp, not nuts.

Even if we assume 1% tolerance, we could still have 12 hp difference between a good and a bad engine. 12hp is something that a driver feels and that you see on your data, without questions...

[canaglia]

Originally Posted by silente

with spec engines there is always a performance tolerance that will be accepted to declare the engine "ok".

In my experience, everytime i worked in a class with spec engines, there were always better and worse ones. I heard the same this year in LMP2, with some teams clearly having less "luck" with their engines than others.

At the end, if you assume an engine has a +/- 2% power tolerance, it could be one engine has 600hp +2%=612 hp and another engine 600 hp -2%=588hp.

612-588=24 hp, not nuts.

Even if we assume 1% tolerance, we could still have 12 hp difference between a good and a bad engine. 12hp is something that a driver feels and that you see on your data, without questions...

Of course telemetry logs can easily find a hp/torque deficit; about drivers cognition I partially disagree.... or better explain, you can feel your car lack some hp only if this lack of torque is in low-mid rpm! when you basically can feel that your car is unable to accelerate as it used to do.
But to feel difference between a 590hp push and a 600hp push is really unlikely.... you can get that only watching speedometer losing some km/h of top speed.

Anyway specs series where "better" engines use to be delivered more often to certain teams is a old stuff....

[Mike E]

Rebellion line ups revealed. Quite surprised how they have split these.

http://www.endurance-info.com/fr/les...cing-repartis/