LMS Rnd 1: Monza 1000 kms 7-9 May 2004

[Tim Northcutt]

Since the scrutineering begins tomorrow, I thought I would start a general discussion and news thread for the LMES Season Opener at Monza....

We have a predition thread and the entry list has been discuused on another....

But I thought this would be useful to us as a separate topic to look at practice and qualifying, see photos from anyone who will be there, and possibly even make this the Race thread...

But those tend to be rather involved so if anyone feels the Race itself should be separate, please do so at the appropriate time...

One request:

If anyone will be there and taking photos, please do show us some of the cars that are NOT at Le Mans this year, so that we can see what the European sportscar competitors' cars, liveries, etc., look like...

As for me...I want to see the Tampolli.....but I hope it is not painted in either "Silver" or in "LMP2 Blue"

Here is a complete schedule of events for the weekend, starting with tommorrow's check -in and scrutineering:

This schedule is courtesy of the LMES Site:

Thursday 6 May 2004
08.30-12.30 / 13.30-18.00 LMES Checks
09.00-13.00 / 14.00-18.00 LMES Scrutineering


Friday 7 May 2004
09:00-10:00 LMES Checks and Scrutineering
09:00-11:00 F.X - F.Palmer Audi Checks and Scrutineering
15:00-18:00 CER Checks and Scrutineering
09:45-10:30 F.X Free Practice 1
10:45-11:15 F.Palmer Audi Free Practice 1
11:30-12:15 LMES Free Practice 1

14:00-14:45 F.X Free Practice 2
15:00-15:30 F.Palmer Audi Free Practice 2
15:45-16:30 LMES Free Practice 2
16:45-17:15 F.X Qualifying Practice 1


Saturday 8 May 2004
08:30-10:00 CER: Checks and Scrutineering
09:00-09:30 F.X Qualifying Practice 2
09:45-10:15 F.Palmer Audi Qualifying Practice 1
10:30-11:00 CER Free Practice 1
11:15-12:00 LMES Qualifying Practice 1

13:00-13:30 F.Palmer Audi Qualifying Practice 2
13:45-14:15 CER Qualifying Practice 1
14:30-15:30 F.X Race 1 (1 h)
16:00-16:45 LMES Qualifying Practice 2
17:00-17:30 F.Palmer Audi Race 1 (10 laps = Km. 57,930)
17:45-18:15 CER Qualifying Practice 2


Sunday 9 May 2004
09:00-09:20 LMES Warm Up
09:45-10:45 F.X Race 2 (1 H)
11:00-12:00 CER Race (1 H)
12:15 F.Palmer Audi Race 2 (10 laps = Km. 57,930)
13:20 LMES Race (173 laps + 1 formation lap = km. 1007,982) (Maximun duration : 6h)

Look forward to reading any news and discussing this first event of what looks to be the start of a "Great Season" coming up, and a much-needed revival of sportscar racing in Europe....

[Graham Goodwin]

Looks like a rainy weekend for the race - could make it entertaining!

[Tim Northcutt]

Too bad...I'd rather see them running at full pace....

[jhansen]

Me to Tim, I'm curious what kind of lap times they can put up at Monza. As I said in the prediction fantacy thread I'm really excited about this race. It's a tough call all the way around. The Audis are an absolute toss up with great line ups. The race behind in LMP1 will be unbelievable. So many teams in this one. And you never know we might see a surprise podium out of this one. The GTS and GT battles should be furious as well. LMP2 is the only disappointment for me, only four entries, but I'm sure they will entertain. I only wish we could watch it live on this side of the pond.

Anyone have pole time for 2003 FIA SCC round at Monza?

[jhansen]

Nevermind, I think I found it. Fastest lap of the race was by RfH Lammers/Bosch with a 1:42.869. Fastest time from practice was 1:41.581 by RfH. There were a couple of other high 1:41 times as well.

Lap record at Monza is 1:21.832 set by Michael Schumacher in one of those red cars.

Fastest Group C time recorded at Monza was in April of 1992 by a Peugeot 905 EVO (Warwick/Dalmas). The time was 1:26.019.

[gi_gav]

I'll be there taking photos Tim, so i'll do my best to record all the non-LM runners...

Rain might make the race interesting, but also my life rather more difficult than it needs to be, so lets hope it's dry!

I'll be back by Thursday next week, complete with absurd amounts of photos.

Cheers,

Gav

[JAG]

FIA GT pole time this year was a 1.43 so pole in LMP1 should be 1.35 or so, IMO. The FIA SCC pole was particulalry slow, either du to conditions or lack of competition to RFH.

Monza has also been slowed quite a bit since 1992 as well.

[JAG]

Wet weather could bring the Zytek/DBA and MG to the fore.

BTW how many wet races have there been in the ALMS. Poor weather conditions could throw up a few suprise results in Europe which you don't often see in the ALMS.

[jhansen]

Yeah, wasn't sure if the track configuration had changed JAG. Thanks for the info.

If FIA GT was at 1:43 wouldn't the R8's be lower than 1:35? The quickest LMP at Pre-Q went 3:32.615 while the quickest GTS car went 3:49.982 (roughly 17 secs. difference). At Paul Ricard the quickest LMP went 1:39.411 while the quickest (and only) GTS car went 1:49.744 (roughly 10 secs. difference).

Based on that info, I'll guess at a 1:32 lap with good track conditions.

[Tim Northcutt]

Originally posted by JAG
FIA GT pole time this year was a 1.43 so pole in LMP1 should be 1.35 or so, IMO. The FIA SCC pole was particulalry slow, either du to conditions or lack of competition to RFH.

Monza has also been slowed quite a bit since 1992 as well.

If I remember correctly, that race was run in the early days of a nasty heat wave that hit all of Europe for about the last half of the summer....

Temperatures in the high 90s and low 100s (Fahrenheit, of course...that would really be cooking on the Celsius scale!)

Monza, Oschersleben and Donnington all had terribly hot weather...tough on the cars and drivers....

[JAG]

Could well be. LMP1 cars tend to be 12-15 seconds slower than the F1 pole time.

Going off ALMS times, from what I can recall the LMP1 pole tends to be 8-10 seconds quicker than GTS pole.

[Tim Northcutt]

Thanks from all of us, gi_gav...we're looking forward to seeing pics....

I work with a lot of photographers in my line of work (media relations)....

Rain plays Hell with a camera....drplets, foogging and generally getting very expensive equipment wet that should not get wet...

But I will say this:

One of my shooters took images of an outdoor concert we did with a laser light show that was synchronized to the music we were performing on-stage....the rain drops made the laser beams look like they were made of glitter....

Awesome pics!!!!!

[Tim Northcutt]

Originally posted by JAG
Wet weather could bring the Zytek/DBA and MG to the fore.

BTW how many wet races have there been in the ALMS. Poor weather conditions could throw up a few suprise results in Europe which you don't often see in the ALMS.

Panoz beat two Audis at Sears Point in 2002 in a monster deluge of rain....horrible weather....

That race was run between the Test Days and Le Mans itself...in mid-May...

That's the last rainy race I remember in the ALMS anyway....

but Miami had a very wet weekend last year (September) for practice and qualifying...I think it dried out by the time the ALMS race was actually run though....

[Tim Northcutt]

BTW....

The Zytek didn't race at Monza last year...

But in every race they did run in the FIA-SCC, they were among the fastest in the field...and at every place they raced, they led many laps...

except for Spa...Team Goh's only appearance...'nuff said right there...

I just hope that the LMES or the Monza track site or someone has a "Live Timing & Scoring" hook-up....

I haven't seen any kind of a link on the LMES site for one...

and I have Zero idea as to when we will actually see the "Highlights" show here in North America on SpeedChannel....

We didn't see FIA-SCC or FIA-GT events until December and January last year...

[SALEEN S7R]

I really dont think the LMP 1 class cars will be down into the 1:35's, maybe a 1:38 but not a 1:35. GTS class cars and LMP 1 class cars are very similar top end speed wise, and Monza is very much a high speed track, what GTS cars lack if anything is downforce, and downforce isnt needed for Monza. Also its worth remembering that the FIA GT cars run bigger rear wings than the ALMS/LMES GTS class cars, therefore the FIA GT cars produce more drag, which at a circuit like Monza should in theory make them slower...

[jhansen]

Here's an interesting piece of news.

http://www.lmsr.net/konradmonza.html

Why would Gabbiani and Ortiz leave the Zytek team to race in the Spinnaker Dallara? The Zytek was much more competitive than the old school Dallara at Pre-Q. Has Spinnaker updated their car??? An explanation would be nice if someone has it.

With that said, if Zytek does gets Brabham in with Wallace look out! Could be Zytek's gain, unless they lost some money out of the deal.

[JAG]

Originally posted by SALEEN S7R
I really dont think the LMP 1 class cars will be down into the 1:35's, maybe a 1:38 but not a 1:35. GTS class cars and LMP 1 class cars are very similar top end speed wise, and Monza is very much a high speed track, what GTS cars lack if anything is downforce, and downforce isnt needed for Monza. Also its worth remembering that the FIA GT cars run bigger rear wings than the ALMS/LMES GTS class cars, therefore the FIA GT cars produce more drag, which at a circuit like Monza should in theory make them slower...

Fair point but I think the LMP1s will be under 1.38. Monza has some very fast coners were the light weight and downforce of an LMP1 will help.

You also need to take into consideration the much better braking and accelereation of the LMP cars due to being 200kg lighter.

[Fab]

We'll have a flag to flag telly coverage on MotorsTV, plus the Ten-Tenths coverage : I expect from you the same commitement as we had for Sebring !

A wet race could lead to some unexpected battles, especially with that kind of field (still 55 cars ?) : and notice that the Monza track is much shorter than the Le Mans one... I can still remember the November race at LM : what a cracker !

Check : Infocourse mention 42 entries, the field keeping on melting...

The Lister is out...

[Fieldgate]

Originally posted by jhansen
Here's an interesting piece of news.

http://www.lmsr.net/konradmonza.html

Why would Gabbiani and Ortiz leave the Zytek team to race in the Spinnaker Dallara? The Zytek was much more competitive than the old school Dallara at Pre-Q. Has Spinnaker updated their car??? An explanation would be nice if someone has it.

I thought Spinnaker had pulled their Monza entry

[Karl Kling]

Will there be any radioweb coverage of the race? There was talk about it on Radio Le Mans at Sebring but i haven't heard anything since.

[Tim Northcutt]

Originally posted by jhansen
Here's an interesting piece of news.

http://www.lmsr.net/konradmonza.html

Why would Gabbiani and Ortiz leave the Zytek team to race in the Spinnaker Dallara? The Zytek was much more competitive than the old school Dallara at Pre-Q. Has Spinnaker updated their car??? An explanation would be nice if someone has it.

With that said, if Zytek does gets Brabham in with Wallace look out! Could be Zytek's gain, unless they lost some money out of the deal.

I don't know this for sure, but I don't think that Spinnaker can alter or upgrade their chassis after "Test Days" scrutineering....

If I remember correctly from last year, Durango was supposedly going to put updates on their car, and a Forum member pointed out the rule that prohibits alterations like that once a car has passed "Test Days" scrutineering and has received the official "ACO Sticker" as approved for competition for Le Mans...

I could be very wrong on this....because upgrades that they would make (I assume) would be the same ones that are now on the RollCentre Dallara....and they were approved...

But the way I have undestood it, once you go through "Test Days" scrutinieering, the car as you submitted it that day will be the car wyou will compete with and that any "add-on" changes or revisions to it are not allowed...

Could someone please clarify this for us????

Maybe even quote the provision in the regs that addresses this???

Because I know it is in either the 2004 regs or in documents pertaining to scrutineering for the race...

[paul-collins]

No word on RLMES yet.

[Graham Goodwin]

There is definitely no RLMES for Monza

[Fab]

Ten-Tenths will be the live coverage !

[Graham Goodwin]

Motors TV and DSC will be covering the race live too!