Team Management

[Osella]

I'm interested to find out what 10/10thers know about team management in endurance racing.

For example in the 24hrs, there is the task of managing your drivers' seat time relative to the rules, their speed, when you need to stop for fuel and tyres, how alert your drivers are. Does time behind the pacecar count as seat time for example?

Is there software to help them or do they do it all by instinct?

For the professional, but privateer, teams there is the problem of giving your paydriver value-for-money up against maximising the time spent by your better driver/s, for example.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

[Aysedasi]

I really have no idea. But I would have thought all of these things come into play.

If you want to know how it was done a few years back (well, quite a few actually), try and source a copy of The Certain Sound - Thirty Years of Motor Racing by John Wyer. Classic stuff by the former Aston, Ford and Porsche team manager. I gather its quite hard to source a copy though (and I'm not flogging mine).

[pirenzo]

I think it's mostly brain work, but they do have software to help predict traffic and stuff.

[Osella]

ok- so there's a gap in the market for an app called LM24 Team Manager!

[fabvt]

Pirenzo says:
"they do have software to help predict traffic and stuff"

I think this kind of software predicting the impact of traffic on the racing pace is only used by F1 teams (and maybe CART). This allow team manager to calculate how much time they drivers have to pass through to the pits during the race.
In endurance racing, this kind of simulation seems quite unuseful as there are so many cars on tracks. In addition, on tracks like Le Mans or Spa (long tracks with quite a lot of space to overtake slower cars), the drivers don't lose that much time in the overtaking manoeuvres.
I however think that the top teams use computer simulation to calculate fuel consumption (... but we might doubt about it if take into account the stupid incident of UK Team Audi at Le Mans this year!)

[noise boy 2]

Sadly, the Audi UK stupidity was actually a driver failure, no way to predict that. Robert

[fabvt]

Quite true ! Just forget about the last line of my previous threat...

[gttouring]

really did he try to go that extra lap just as a side deal to ensure bentley one, and UK only had one team to root for?
that was a really really dumb thing to do-error? They told him to come in-the track is 8.X miles long for heavens sake.

[pirenzo]

No, it wasn't entirely his fault. He tried to out accelerate a Panoz then come into the pits. He knew it had to be that lap, because the team had decided to stretch the fuel a bit. He hadn't banked on the Panoz accelerating as quickly as it did, and it got in the way of him entering the pits. So he had to go round, knowing he couldn't make it. So partly driver error, partly a team error

[fabvt]

I still do not understand how a drive who has been driving the same car on the same track for 3 years can suddenly imagine that he can manage one more lap than usual???
We could understand that a new driver with little experience would act like this but certainly not such an experimented one...
Did Bentley paid him for that ?? ;-)

[Tim Northcutt]

At such an early stage of this year's race, what was he going to gain by actually passing that Panoz before ducking into the pits anyway???

Why not back out of the throttle a hair or two, tuck in behind the Panoz, then entr the pit lane????

I can't help but think it was utter driver stupidity...and he would be one of the last drivers on the planet that I would expect to make such a mistake...

[gttouring]

and since when do the audi's Out accelerate the Panoz- those things are stump pulling monsters it isn't until 6th gear and 190MPh that the audi pulls away, and it pulls far away

[pirenzo]

Originally posted by fabvt
I still do not understand how a drive who has been driving the same car on the same track for 3 years can suddenly imagine that he can manage one more lap than usual???
We could understand that a new driver with little experience would act like this but certainly not such an experimented one...
Did Bentley paid him for that ?? ;-)

He didn't think he could drive another lap, and didn't intend to

[Osella]

ok we've wandered off a bit... does history actually recall the reactions of the Audi UK crew and messrs Salo and McCarthy in particular??

[pirenzo]

Dunno, but the car was conspicuous for it's lack of filth on the bodywork compared to the Bentley's at Goodwood. (they don't wash them, they like to keep them exactly as they were after the race for Goodwood.)

[paulzinho]

If you've got a pay driver that keeps crashing it in an endurance race you don't let him drive anymore!

[Aysedasi]

You have to say that for a driver of Biela's calibre, it was the most crass mistake since Klaus Ludwig did much the same thing in the lead works Porsche in 1988.

[Osella]

Originally posted by pirenzo
Dunno, but the car was conspicuous for it's lack of filth on the bodywork compared to the Bentley's at Goodwood. (they don't wash them, they like to keep them exactly as they were after the race for Goodwood.)

I remember after 1998LM, they had the unwashed winning 911GT1 at FoS, and someone was stopping us photographing the interior. Only later did I read that this was the unwashed winning bodywork on the spare chassis!

[paulzinho]

The cheek of it!!!!

I take it the Bentley was genuine then.