***Official Le Mans 24 Hours Thread***

I got back last night :)

Ok-ish race. I've seen better, but the first 6 or so hours were pretty epic. The Delta Wing was doing well and everyone was really into it, including the commentators. There was an amazing battle in both the GT classes all the way through. Toyota started closing on Audi and eventually took the lead. I thought it was going to be a race. However, Toyota started making some pretty stupid overtaking manoeuvres that in my opinion led to the demise of two other cars. I was watching down at Porsche curves during one and Arnage during the other, and they were going in waaaay too aggressively and basically endangering the other cars. They didn't seem to understand the way Le Mans works and I'm hoping they won't make the same foolish errors next year because it's a good car.

The weather was completely crazy. Thursday was pretty good on the drive down but turned into rain shortly after we had pitched up. Friday was wet and it got VERY cold. Saturday morning was deluged with rain and the Group C boys had a tough time in a lot of standing water on the track. We were out in full waterproofs, umbrellas and thermals. Then at about 1pm it suddenly cleared, the sun came out and the temperature soared. It stayed clear and sunny for the whole race, cooked us alive and stayed dry until early hours on Monday morning. We had a brief sunny window when we packed up and it then rained hard as we left. Completely mad!
 
Jonny69 said:
Ok-ish race. I've seen better
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Ooo, be careful, saying stuff like that might get you accused of being insulting or disrespectful!

Glad you enjoyed it. I think the Davidson crash was not the fault of the Toyota, but I did see a few incidents like you mention of the P1 cars just expecting the lower classes to jump off the road for them. But when the battle is as close as it was at some stages you can understand why they didn't want to wait for the straights.

The Delta Wing was a massive shame. You could see the emotion in the driver when he eventually called it a day trying to get it back to the pits. It did appear to be incredibly popular. They had some senior Nissan guy on the Eurosport coverage and he kept avoiding answering questions about the future of the Delta Wing, which makes me think thats it, it will be locked away and never seen again. Its a real shame. I think the ACO should look at adopting the American Le Mans rules where you can get the car back to the pits with assistance and still re-enter the race if you fix it. The Delta Wing was a brilliant story cut short through no fault of their own :(.

The GT battles were epic, as usual. 16 seconds apart with 15 minutes to go!

Currently trying to rally the troops to see about going next year. Can't believe its something I still haven't done!
 
I'm quite looking forward to the upcoming regulation changes in regards to fuel consumption. I like the idea of a maximum fuel flow rate rather than air restrictors. I'm guessing we'll see extreme lean-burn engines kicking out huge amounts of NOx instead of CO2 :D
 
The ACO really need to change the rules around retirement to match the ALMS. So heartbreaking to see so much passion for something wasted through no fault of their own.
 
I don't think I fully understand the rules at Le Mans. I don't think the crew are allowed to bring tools out so presumably that screwdriver and pair of pliers Motoyama was using must have been in the car. I swear if I was a team boss I'd probably stick a folding multi-tool in the car and probably a hammer :p

So if the car can't make it back to the pits under its own power it is retired. So if it runs out of fuel or it's too damaged to drive, it's game over. That bit I'm ok with. How does it work now when the marshals get involved? I'm sure I've seen cars get retired when they've ended up in the gravel traps and not been able to get themselves out, but then on other occasions I swear cars have been pushed, winched or lifted out and allowed to continue?

What's different about the ALMS regs?
 
In Le Mans regulations no driver is allowed any outside assistance from anyone, and the car must be able to make its way back to the pits under its own power. Exceptions are allowed for things like moving them out of the way of gravel traps by marshals as that counts as moving them on safety grounds, not assistance. The same for when the marshal ripped off the bodywork of the Audi. Not really assistance, they just removed loose bodywork and the driver carried on.

This is why the mechanics for the Delta Wing were not allowed to touch the car. Aparently they even got to the stage of taking high resolution zoomed photos through the fence and sending them back to the engineers in the pitlane to get advice, but all through it only the driver is allowed to touch the car. The tools must have been in the car with him.

So yes, if you get stranded out on track for any reason, be it a crash, being punted off, or just running out of fuel, your out. I think any car stuck in gravel can now be moved by the marshals and continue.

The ALMS rules are different in that while I think they still limit on track involvement to the driver only, the car can be recovered to the pits and then if repaired to a standard deemed safe by the stewards, can rejoin. For the Delta Wing this would have meant that they could have towed it back on a flatbed, fixed it, even if it took 10 hours, and then rejoined the race to see the flag.

I think its a key difference the ACO need to look at implementing.
 
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I can't help thinking it might promote more reckless driving like the Toyotas did, if they know they can always have the car recovered. One of the things at Le Mans is the more relaxed style they have to adopt around the other cars to ensure survival.
 
Jonny69 said:
I can't help thinking it might promote more reckless driving like the Toyotas did, if they know they can always have the car recovered. One of the things at Le Mans is the more relaxed style they have to adopt around the other cars to ensure survival.
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Maybe, but I think the closer racing might stop that. Loosing 1 lap can loose you the race, nobody would willingly risk loosing 10 or 20 laps to recover a car by going for a dodgy overtake.

As with most things theres pros and cons. But its heart breaking watching that Delta Wing video, knowing that if it was at Sebring they would have been able to get back into the race.
 
Allowing the cars to be recovered makes sense on purely safety grounds. I cringed watching that Audi driver running around ripping bits off that car as he was in such a vulnerable location that someone else could easily have piled into there, especially as at the time we had no idea why he had gone off and there could have been fluid down just off line.

At least the marshalls are trained to deal with such things with a calm head whereas a driver running on adrenaline and focused purely on getting the car back is going to take stupid risks. And that's before we get on the issue of 3 wheeled wagons being allowed to trundle down the Mulsanne under race conditions...
 
If it was in a dangerous position they typically red flag and move the car out the way so the driver can deal with the car in relative safety. Recovering the car wouldn't prevent Dumas doing what he did.

That's by the by. You only have to see McNish's crash last year to see that the French aren't as tight on safety as other countries. Nothing changed this year.

What do you mean by 3 wheeled wagons and trundling?
 
Jonny69 said:
What do you mean by 3 wheeled wagons and trundling?
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I was referring to the Audis driving back with broken suspension and wheels hanging off whilst everyone else is piling past them with a massive speed differential. You only need some unfortunate timing to arrive at a scenario where an LMP car pops out from behind a GT to find a slow moving vehicle blocking their path.
 
kaiowas said:
I was referring to the Audis driving back with broken suspension and wheels hanging off whilst everyone else is piling past them with a massive speed differential. You only need some unfortunate timing to arrive at a scenario where an LMP car pops out from behind a GT to find a slow moving vehicle blocking their path.
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I think this is a valid point. The Le Mans track is a very long one with some very high speed sections, and the rules mandate that to be able to continue a driver must drag a potentially incredibly slow car shedding parts around up to the whole lap.

Its not normally a problem though, but the Delta Wing just showed how cruel the rules can be.
 
Skeeter said:
Its not normally a problem though, but the Delta Wing just showed how cruel the rules can be.
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I'll agree with that
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Reading Evo today they suggested that Nissan's 2014 all electric Le Mans car will be based on the DeltaWing.

Not sure that is true as Nissan walked away from the project as soon as the 2012 race was over. The DeltaWing is currently racing in the US with an Elan engine and no backing from Nissan at all. Seems odd that they would pick the project back up again for their electric prototype. I also don't think the DeltaWing design lends itself well to being full of batteries.

However, would be epic if it did happen.
 
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