The Sportscar and Endurance Thread

[IdeFan]

I've been meaning to create this thread for a little while now, but was holding off until we got some shots of the new Toyota, but just half an hour ago there was a shock announcement that Peugeot are withdrawing:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97080

I was never much of a Peugeot fan, but I was looking forward to another classic battle between them and Audi this year, their withdrawal pretty much hands Audi the world championship on a platter, and probably the Le Mans win too. Toyota are now the only other factory prototype team and few expect them to put up much of a challenge in their first year (they're not running a full season and only running one car).

Perhaps more importantly, this removes a lot of the F1 reject interest at the sharp end of the grid, last year's Peugeot lineup included rejects Anthony Davidson, Franck Montagny, Pedro Lamy and Sebastian Bourdais as well as an ex Minardi driver in Marc Gene. With the announcement coming so late it doesn't look likely that they will all find drives.

There have been a few spy shots of the new Toyota doing the rounds today, and in my opinion it looks terrible, at least it will be driven my a reject in Kazuki Nakajima!

http://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?p=6525013#post6525013

2012 Calendars:

2012 FIA World Endurance Championship
17/3 - 12 Hours of Sebring
5/5 - 6 Heures de Spa-Francorchamps
16/6 - 24 Heures du Mans
25/8 - 6 Hours of Silverstone
15/9 - 6 Hours of São Paulo (Interlagos)
29/9 - 6 Hours of Bahrain
14/10 - 6 Hours of Fuji
27/10 - 6 Hours of Shanghai

2012 European Le Mans Series
1/4 - 6 Hours of Castellet (Paul Ricard)
20/5 - 6 Hours of Zolder
15/7 - 6 Hours of Donington
9/9 - 6 Hours of Brno
4/11 - 6 Hours of Algarve (Portimao)

2012 American Le Mans Series
17/3 - 60th Anniversary Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring
14/4 - Tequila Patrón American Le Mans Series at Long Beach
12/5 - American Le Mans Monterey (Laguna Seca)
7/7 - American Le Mans Northeast Grand Prix (Lime Rock Park)
22/7 - Grand Prix of Mosport
4/8 - Mid-Ohio Sports Car Challenge
18/8 - Road Race Showcase (Road America)
1/9 - Baltimore Grand Prix
15/9 - Virginia International Raceway
20/10 - 15th Annual Petit Le Mans (Road Atlanta)

[Phoenix]

To say the new Toyota LMP1 car looks terrible is an understatement. Why they have to use those horrendous fins, WHY? The only beautiful thing in the car (so far) is the livery.

[mario]

Now that is surprising - OK, it is true that there were some whispers that the senior management of Peugeot were concerned about the cost of their Prototype program, but up until now they still seemed pretty committed given how hard they pushed development of the car in 2011.
IdeFan, you're right that they might as well give Audi the title already, not to mention Le Mans, given that Audi have a colossal advantage over everybody else in the field right now. It'll be interesting to see, though, whether the departure of Peugeot could actually lead to the field being more level in the longer run since that will only leave one manufacturer (Audi) in place to fight for the diesel program whilst the petrol powered teams are gaining a major manufacturer in the shape of Toyota.

To say the new Toyota LMP1 car looks terrible is an understatement. Why they have to use those horrendous fins, WHY? The only beautiful thing in the car (so far) is the livery.

You can thank the ACO for that - and that is before you mention the massive holes over the wheels that the cars have this year (which looks exactly like the inelegant compromise that it is).

[IdeFan]

It'll be interesting to see, though, whether the departure of Peugeot could actually lead to the field being more level in the longer run since that will only leave one manufacturer (Audi) in place to fight for the diesel program whilst the petrol powered teams are gaining a major manufacturer in the shape of Toyota.

There have also been the constant accusations pro-French bias of the ACO, without a French manufacturer they might make more than the previous token efforts to balance petrol/diesel in order to give OAK/Pescarolo a fighting chance again. Back in 2004/2005 they heavily penalised the R8 for not meeting the hybrid regulations and that heavily favoured the Pescarolos (they still didn't win, but not for lack of pace.)

@Phoenix - I have actually gotten used to the fins, on the coupes at least they don't look too bad, the Toyota is just a particularly bad implementation of one. The big honking holes (as Mulsanne's corner puts them) however are terrible, interesting to see the Toyota doesn't seem to have them yet, hard to tell from those pics but there might be a small one on the front wheels, but certainly nothing on the rears.

[Shadaza]

I hope the current 908's get sold to some privateers or something, so it won't be a total Audi walkover, what of ORECA Peugeot???

[AdrianSutil]

That can't be the finished Toyota can it?! The headlights seem alright, despite what others on that fourm have pointed out, but the whole back end doesn't look finished to me. Especially that engine cover.

[IdeFan]

I hope the current 908's get sold to some privateers or something, so it won't be a total Audi walkover, what of ORECA Peugeot???

Oreca are running the factory Toyota this year, perhaps Pescarolo might be able to get their hands on a 908 or two? This announcement is quite sudden, just last week at the Autosport show the Peugeot drivers were giving press conferences as if they were contesting a full season, so I doubt any plans have been made to sell the 908s yet.

[Phoenix]

@Phoenix - I have actually gotten used to the fins, on the coupes at least they don't look too bad, the Toyota is just a particularly bad implementation of one. The big honking holes (as Mulsanne's corner puts them) however are terrible, interesting to see the Toyota doesn't seem to have them yet, hard to tell from those pics but there might be a small one on the front wheels, but certainly nothing on the rears.

My problem with those shark fins is that they're very crudely implemented onto the car's shape. I actually found fins on F1 cars pretty attractive, but those are out of sync with the car. I'm sure if they were arranged in some other way they'd make the cars beautiful.

[DanielPT]

That Toyota car is one ugly motherbathpluger... Which is a crying shame since for me the GT-one is one of the most beautiful cars to ever grace Le Mans. Without any reason other than being a Toyota, I was expecting this one to be in the same page. It clearly isn't.

[Pointrox]

Had it not been for this hideous fin, the car would look awesome. Why they can't just go for the plain, sleek design like this?

Speed Eight is one of my all-time favourites

Still, it's not as hideous as the Deltawing car:
http://deltawingracing.com
However I support them, because this radical design might be the future of LeMans if they succeed.

[DanielPT]

Still, it's not as hideous as the Deltawing car:
http://deltawingracing.com
However I support them, because this radical design might be the future of LeMans if they succeed.

I actually don't find the Deltawing car hideous from what I've seen until now... It looks futuristic and I like that.

[Stramala]

Fins are mandatory to increase car stability, to stop this from happening.

I agree they are really really ugly but they're there for safety reasons.

[mario]

Still, it's not as hideous as the Deltawing car:
http://deltawingracing.com
However I support them, because this radical design might be the future of LeMans if they succeed.

I actually don't find the Deltawing car hideous from what I've seen until now... It looks futuristic and I like that.

Mind you, the underpinnings of the Deltawing aren't entirely optimised, or necessarily promising - a fair amount of the chassis and survival cell come straight from the AMR-One because it reduces the time taken to homologate the design, so you have to assume that there are some compromises in the front suspension design (considering that the suspension pick up points would be designed around a quite different concept).
As to the overall design, it is certainly quite distinctive (even if quite a few people have questioned the design of the car); it has to be said, though, that there will be the issue of separating the performance effects of the particular aspects of this design against some of the less esoteric benefits that car has, such as being given a significant weight advantage over the other cars (the projected kerb weight is 475kg when an LMP1 car, for example, has a minimum weight of 900kg).

Fins are mandatory to increase car stability, to stop this from happening.

I agree they are really really ugly but they're there for safety reasons.

From what I've heard, even if the car did have a fin in that case it'd potentially could have flipped anyway - in rapid yaw situations that fin works fairly effectively in killing lift, but mulsannecorner were reporting that even with the fins fitted the cars are still potentially vulnerable to flipping over if the accident speed exceeds around 190kph. In that case, Ortelli was thought to have been doing around 315kph before the accident, so it is possible that the car could have flipped anyway; furthermore, there were reports that Gené wrote off a 908 in testing when the rear suspension collapsed, with initial reports suggesting that the car flipped despite being fitted with that fin. Against that, it has to be said that the system worked fairly well with McNish's accident last year at Le Mans, so the evidence is a little mixed.
However, the openings over the wheels might well turn out to be a major mistake; Audi was complaining quite strongly last year that the effect of the opening had not been properly considered, and noted that the openings caused a significant forward shift in aero balance as well as upsetting the airflow over the rear wing. So, Audi's viewpoint is that, well intentioned though the ACO's changes are, there is a good chance that they could have actually made the problem worse by making the cars less, not more, stable at high speed.

It'll be interesting to see, though, whether the departure of Peugeot could actually lead to the field being more level in the longer run since that will only leave one manufacturer (Audi) in place to fight for the diesel program whilst the petrol powered teams are gaining a major manufacturer in the shape of Toyota.

There have also been the constant accusations pro-French bias of the ACO, without a French manufacturer they might make more than the previous token efforts to balance petrol/diesel in order to give OAK/Pescarolo a fighting chance again. Back in 2004/2005 they heavily penalised the R8 for not meeting the hybrid regulations and that heavily favoured the Pescarolos (they still didn't win, but not for lack of pace.)

@Phoenix - I have actually gotten used to the fins, on the coupes at least they don't look too bad, the Toyota is just a particularly bad implementation of one. The big honking holes (as Mulsanne's corner puts them) however are terrible, interesting to see the Toyota doesn't seem to have them yet, hard to tell from those pics but there might be a small one on the front wheels, but certainly nothing on the rears.

From the state that Pescarolo was in last year the team will need all the help it can get from the ACO - certainly, the 2012 regulations surprised a number of people by placing most of the burden of development on the diesel powered manufacturers for once (and which may have factored in the decision by Peugeot to pull out), particularly by cutting the permitted boost pressure. And for the first time in years the petrol teams now have a major manufacturer, who is likely to have greater leverage with the ACO, on their side - it might take another year or two to filer through (with major rule changes coming up in 2014 the ACO might finally strike a better balance), but it may slowly start tilting away from the dominance of Audi. Not that Audi won't fight hard to skew things their way - see their arguments about liberalising the 2014 regulations in such a way as to coincidentally give them a massive performance advantage (by making the sport significantly more expensive at a time when Audi had comfortably more to spend - hell, last year they had %40 more to spend than Peugeot did for a start).

[ADx_Wales]

http://radiolemans.0157.org/nplayer.php

More on the 908 NOW (18/1/2012 8pm GMT)

...well. within the next two hours.

[nome66]

For me, the purist, the World Endurance Championship calendar starts with the 50th running of the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona.
god i miss those Group C/IMSA GTP prototypes. .....sigh

i'm just glad Corvette-based prototypes are back! Yay America!




....oh, and toyota will be at LeMans this year.

[RealRacingRoots]

i'm just glad Corvette-based prototypes are back! Yay America!

You mean this proposed Corvette LMP1 from 2007 that was suppose to be the new regulations?



I think so.

[nome66]

the one i posted is an American Grand-Am Daytona-proto. i wish it was an LMP, though.

[RealRacingRoots]

I really think that's where Grand-Am got their idea for the new DP Regs, TBH. It's not bad, the Green-House that the DPs are infamous for are still apparent.

[Faustus]

I really think that's where Grand-Am got their idea for the new DP Regs, TBH. It's not bad, the Green-House that the DPs are infamous for are still apparent.

As much as I don't like the look of the 2nd generation Grand-Am (although the 3rd generation Corvette-inspired car looks much better), I have to admit that the racing was decent and the costs weren't too ridiculous. A guy I used to work with in sportscars did a well-informed costing exercise to work out exactly how much it would cost for a car, 2 spare engines, spares and the running costs of a team and it really wasn't that bad. Certainly cheaper than the FIA GT World Championship, with better TV exposure and bigger grids.

[nome66]

small question. Because the FIA has mandated the shark fins, will the American LMP contenders need them in the races where ALMS competes as well as the WEC, such as Sebring and Road Atlanta?

[IdeFan]

small question. Because the FIA has mandated the shark fins, will the American LMP contenders need them in the races where ALMS competes as well as the WEC, such as Sebring and Road Atlanta?

The ALMS has been struggling to attract prototype entrants for a few years now and most of their regular runners are running old cars. Also the IMSA has always some discretion about which ACO rules they chose to apply, such as using wider wings in 2009/10 and running lighter LMP2s in 2008. Given these two facts, I'd guess that the ALMS regulars will be allowed to run whatever they have, but entrants for the World Championship will need to run full 2012 spec cars.

For some reason the WEC left Petit Le Mans off the calendar (they even initially scheduled a race the same weekend, but thats been changed) so the only crossover between the two is Sebring, there is no crossover between the LMS and WEC.

The ALMS might possibly attract a few more prototypes this year because the LMS has scrapped LMP1, so some of the LMS P1 runners might jump to the ALMS, but honestly it looks more likely they would run WEC instead.

Which reminds me I should post the calendars in the first post.

[This]

Colin colles is rumoured to be planning to run 2 Lola-Judd-BMW in lotus colours

[nome66]

nothing Lotus about that. except maybe the Judd motor.
i'm just glad to see Honda back in the sports-prototype scene. i've been waiting for a comeback since their American Acura arm axed their program.

i know this isn't a factory machine, but it is Honda powered at least. man, this F1-Deprivation thing really messes with you sometimes.
i wonder if they'll use the Indycar V8 that the Acura used....

[F1000X]

This thread WILL include coverage and discussion of the Rolex 24, even if boils down to me talking to myself. Knock it if you like, but this is a good bathplug race. Going to see it in person last year is one of the best decisions I've ever made. Let the true motorsport season opener begin!

[IdeFan]

Toyota formally unveiled their car today (the other pictures were just spy shots) and announced that they would run two cars at Le Mans and possibly other WEC rounds.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97163

This is great news for the 24h, Toyota are still unlikely to challenge the Audis but their chances are much better with two cars than one.

[nome66]

eugh two of that car? it's still ugly. they should have at least changed the headlights.

[Stramala]

This leaves André Lotterer with a conundrum. Continue with Audi Sport, with whom he won the 2011 Le Mans 24 Hours, or switch to Toyota, a marque he has spent many years driving for in Japan? I think certainly he would be Toyota's #1 driver target for their Le Mans programme.

Other obvious candidates that come to mind are Seiji Ara, Yuji Tachikawa and Daisuke Ito. Although, with Peugeot pulling the plug on their programme there will be plenty of drivers looking for another seat at Le Mans. Stéphane Sarrazin, Nicolas Minassian, Alex Wurz, Marc Gene, Pedro Lamy, etc are all there for the taking....

[nome66]

now will Toyota be competing at Sebring as well as LeMans?
i figure it's a good way to show us Americans what a Hybrid can really do.
anyways, MOAR NEWS i guess.

i gotta say, this car looks delicious in terms of "eye candy". Don't know how fast it will be though.

[Myrvold]

This leaves André Lotterer with a conundrum. Continue with Audi Sport, with whom he won the 2011 Le Mans 24 Hours, or switch to Toyota, a marque he has spent many years driving for in Japan? I think certainly he would be Toyota's #1 driver target for their Le Mans programme.

Other obvious candidates that come to mind are Seiji Ara, Yuji Tachikawa and Daisuke Ito. Although, with Peugeot pulling the plug on their programme there will be plenty of drivers looking for another seat at Le Mans. Stéphane Sarrazin, Nicolas Minassian, Alex Wurz, Marc Gene, Pedro Lamy, etc are all there for the taking....

Now, Wurz, Nicolas Lapierre and Nakajima has been contracted to drive one car for a long time.

[RealRacingRoots]

now will Toyota be competing at Sebring as well as LeMans?

Toyota will compete at Spa, Le Mans, and at Fuji for the WEC. Honestly, I really like the look of the TS030. Sure the headlights aren't the nicest, in the same way they weren't the nicest on the Lola-Aston, but the rest of the car really looks the business. I really want more Red on the race livery, though. I really want more nods to this livery:

[nome66]

that livery would be perfect.
....time to crack open photoshop. i'll show you guys what i can come up with. First thing to get chopped? the headlights...

[RealRacingRoots]

Give it Dome S102 Headlamps pl0x.

[IdeFan]

I have to say I don't mind the look of the Toyota so much now I've seen it in higher resolution, the grainy spy shots didn't do it justice. I really like the lightning effect on the red bits, and I think that the GT-ONE livery plus the lightning effect would look great, though they might need to darken the shade of red as the lightning lends it a pinkish hue.

I agree that the thing that is letting it down most is the headlights, giving it a goofy looking "face". Incidentally, the triangular headlights is something I adopted on my LMP (Shameless plug) before I saw the Toyota, although on mine the triangle is inverted and all three headlights are the same size. I think mine looks better, maybe Toyota should hire me for their next effort!

On the subject of Lotterer, I heard a (totally unsubstantiated) rumour that Audi were very keen to keep him (he and his co-drivers were superb at Le Mans last year) and were willing to pay a fair bit to do it, no word on whether that would impact on his Super GT commitments though.

Toyota should definitely snap up one or two of the Peugeot drivers though, they already have Wurz but with a second car at least one more experienced hand would be useful. I personally would pick Davidson, he does tend to whine a bit but proved to be exceptionally fast in the 908 last year, I believe he took more poles than anyone else and did well everywhere except Le Mans (sort of Peugeot in a microcosm!)

On Daytona: I've never followed Grand Am very closely, no particular reason why, perhaps its just that I am more interested in the cutting edge technology in the LMPs that the cost controlled DPs just don't have, I am also not a big follower of the GTs either. I'll probably follow the Daytona 24h a bit closer this year because McNish is racing and has a chance to complete the Endurance Triple Crown (Daytona, Sebring and Le Mans).

[nome66]

original


my idea

[Shizuka]

now will Toyota be competing at Sebring as well as LeMans?

Toyota will compete at Spa, Le Mans, and at Fuji for the WEC. Honestly, I really like the look of the TS030. Sure the headlights aren't the nicest, in the same way they weren't the nicest on the Lola-Aston, but the rest of the car really looks the business. I really want more Red on the race livery, though. I really want more nods to this livery:

The '98 paintjob is SO BEAUTIFUL!

[AndreaModa]

Really looking forward to the WEC this year, I hope it gets a bit of momentum going and that Audi and Toyota commit to the long term. Shame about Peugeot calling it a day, but hopefully it won't affect the series too much.

What's happened to the Aston Martin programme? Is that all in the bin now after the woeful display at Le Mans last year?

It's good to see the FIA have an officially sanctioned endurance championship though. I never really liked or followed the ACO-sanctioned stuff because you never knew whether everything was really honest and above-board (especially with the favour shown towards the diesels).

EDIT: Top Gear just posted this video on Facebook, here's the original link on youtube: The Toyota sounds awesome!!

[Pointrox]

EDIT: Top Gear just posted this video on Facebook, here's the original link on youtube: The Toyota sounds awesome!!

That moment when electric motor turns off and V8 kicks in is just BIBLICAL!

[RealRacingRoots]

[quote="AndreaModa"

What's happened to the Aston Martin programme? Is that all in the bin now after the woeful display at Le Mans last year?
[/quote]

IIRC, they are doing a GT2 works program with a Vantage. Either that or going to LMP1 with a Lola-Aston in the ALMS. It's been a while since they were in the news with the new Vantage GT3.

[AndreaModa]

So the whole works LMP entry was canned then? Would be a terrible shame to have seen all that effort go to waste. It was a terrible showing, but they were unprepared and hadn't had much time behind them. With a year's experience they'd be much better off.

[IdeFan]

So the whole works LMP entry was canned then? Would be a terrible shame to have seen all that effort go to waste. It was a terrible showing, but they were unprepared and hadn't had much time behind them. With a year's experience they'd be much better off.

All reports seem to indicate that the LMP1 program is canned. Its a real shame because most of the insiders said the car "had potential". It was really a year too early for Prodrive, both Audi and Peugeot had been track testing for months when the AMR-One was announced, to jump right in with not only their first scratch built prototype but also a scratch built engine was too big an undertaking with Le Mans just 6 months away.

The engine was not only underpowered but unreliable, resulting in them running the engine tuned down; some people estimate as little as 350 BHP, approximately half the Diesels and less than many LMP2s. Despite this they were never able to get any extended running and therefore did almost no work on the chassis. That said, the engine was one of the most compact and probably the lightest on the grid, had they tackled all the teething problems behind closed doors and arrived this year with the car well sorted, the program might have been a success.

I loved the look of the car, they could have done better with the livery (whats with the black bits?) but the front end just looks mean: