WEC 6 hours of Silverstone

Can't see a thread! It's the WEC 6 hours of Silverstone this weekend. Qualifying today and there's currently a 4 hour ELMS race going on. Tomorrow is the 6 hour first round of the WEC. Race starts at 12 midday and finishes at 6pm. The final 2 hours will be shown live on Quest, available on Freeview. Not sure about other TV coverage. Radio Le Mans providing live commentary as usual.

LMP1 contenders are Porsche, Audi and Toyota. Currently looking like all the cars are up on power since last year; bigger, more efficient hybrid systems and more efficient aero packages. Everyone is now pushing out over 900hp!

About: http://www.fiawec.com/races/6-hours-of-silverstone.html

Live timing: http://live.fiawec.com/

Porsche might be providing a live feed on Sunday: http://www.porsche.com/usa/eventsandracing/motorsport/worksracing/raceseries/fiawec/livestreaming/ - may only be USA though. International here: http://www.porsche.com/internationa.../worksracing/raceseries/fiawec/livestreaming/

The ACO seem to be broadcasting the ELMS race online here so might be also there for the 6: http://www.lemans-tv.com/

Radio Le Mans: http://www.radiolemans.co/

Watched a bit of the ELMS on Motors, and read a few articles on WEC. Lol at Practice being called off due to Snow!

Toyota look... slow. I've not checked practice times, but in Qualifying they look well off the pace?

I was watching the ELMS and thought "is this where Chris Hoy is racing this year?", and then they cut to his car stuck in the gravel .

I also see that the French guy with no arms or legs who has the Garage 56 slot at Le Mans has also been invited to take part in the ELMS series! Its pretty staggering the modifications that he has made to allow him to go racing, and even more staggering that its in a car that he shares with 2 other fully able bodied drivers! They have got all his equipment down to a custom seat and custom steering wheel which can be swapped out in a few minutes in pit stops! An amazing Human and engineering feat!

I was there today.

The snow storm this morning was ridiculous, couldn't feel my hands or feet!

Afternoon was glorious though:

I think the last 2 hours might be on BT Sport 2 also, might watch a bit on Motors also if that's on?

Edit - Eurosport has it live, BT Sport just highlights.

i'm going tomorrow

then i'm going to le mans in june

Haha we were there today, not too bad out of the wind in the afternoon.
Went through proper snow, in the Cotswolds on the way, proper winter wonderland.
WEC are so much better than f1 in looking after the fans, big hall in the wing was kitted out so anyone could go in and get warm, shuttle buses take you around, access to the paddock and a free pit walk.

Much easier when you have too look after 125 people rather than 125,000 though

Behave! Crowds were around 40k last year! Will admit that it looks empty because it's so huge.

Have to admit I was struggling to understand what was going on in the race, I couldn't hear the commentary and there were only three screens around the track. The LMP3 cars sound great at first, but with 19 cars with identical engines and gearboxes, you just hear the same deafening roar followed by a crack of a gear change at exactly the same point in the corner for every car, 19 times a lap for 4 hours. Problem with spec engines I guess. LMP2 was better for this, and GTE is glorious. Glad a couple of 458s are still in attendance.

As for the WEC, I think Toyota are closer than they look. It's a brand new car and the weather impeded practice and qualifying, but their dry pace is quite a bit closer. Don't think they're yet a match for the others though.

New Ford GT looks nice but sounds pretty bad, like a BTCC car, just loud and unpleasantly so. Will let them off as the car looks awesome and I like the driver line ups.

Don't take that view on engine noise into an F1 thread, they will come after you with pitchforks .

Last time I saw WEC it was when they had the Aston Martin LMP1 which screamed, while the Audi's whooshed, and then in GT there were Corvette's gargling nails while the Ferraris howled. The mix of sights and sounds is a great feature of WEC.

Oh don't get me wrong, there's still a good mix, but the classes with essentially spec engines aren't so good.

Strange I couldn't follow the race as I had no problem last year. Might just be that last year's was really close whereas this year's was a walk over even from an early stage.

I was meant to be going to this but everyone seems to have let me down at the last moment. Ive subscribed to the WEC app for the year, as the same as last year. However, they have really improved the whole WEC experience this year.

It's shaping up like a cracking season, I seem to enjoy watching this more so than the F1 now.

Hartley going for that overtake was very risky. Nakajima tearing up the rear of his TS050 with his ripped off tyre.

Has been good so far!

Those Audi's really aren't lookers, are they?

And that Ford is huge! Like they built a massive wide car, and then squashed it down some more for good measure!

Am i right in saying the fastest race lap was around 3 seconds slower the the 2015 f1 cars fastest race lap? If so not bad considering these run for 6 hours

The fastest lap at Silverstone F1 last year was 1m 37.093s by Lewis Hamilton (Merc) and Neel Jani 1:40.303 (Porsche)

What a great race today, its a real shame about Brenden but I guess that's just a unfortunate racing incident. It's looking like another really good season, I can't wait.

Aren't these things considerably heavier than F1, but have considerable aerodynamic advantages from being enclosed with covered wheels? They are much faster than F1 in a straight line.

Skeeter said:

Aren't these things considerably heavier than F1, but have considerable aerodynamic advantages from being enclosed with covered wheels? They are much faster than F1 in a straight line.

Click to expand...

Yes, they weigh in at 870KG before fluids and driver where as a current F1 car is 700KG ~ which includes the driver but not the fuel.

It's what makes WEC even more impressive and I think its more technically advanced then F1.

It's on a par with F1. The current F1 engines fit in the current WEC rules. WEC just pushes the energy recovery far further because of its advantages to endurance racing. F1 MGUKs produce 160bhp, whereas the motors in the top WEC P1 energy class are well over 400bhp!

WEC were first with adopting hybrid tech though, and will be leading the way when the tech moves again. F1 looks likely to lock in these engines until at least 2021.

Skeeter said:

It's on a par with F1. The current F1 engines fit in the current WEC rules. WEC just pushes the energy recovery far further because of its advantages to endurance racing. F1 MGUKs produce 160bhp, whereas the motors in the top WEC P1 energy class are well over 400bhp!

WEC were first with adopting hybrid tech though, and will be leading the way when the tech moves again. F1 looks likely to lock in these engines until at least 2021.

Click to expand...

That's true but what I find impressive, is they can run in this configuration for 6 or 24 hours without fault. If you tried that in a F1 car, I'm not sure it would last.

Had a brilliant time there today, first time I've been and certainly not the last.

Managed to snap a few pics too:









(Couple more in this album if anyone cares https://flic.kr/s/aHskyrsU1L )

Highly recommended to anyone who likes motorsport, I looked at going to the F1 there last year and the price was astronomical compared to this. Pit walk was great too with all teams and drivers around to chat/sign things.