The Le Mans General Discussion Thread

Luckily there are very few pay driver in Endurance racing... Oh wait.

You can't knock pay drivers. DHH, for example. He's pretty good. A handful of the Challenge guys are pretty decent too.
 
nitrorocks
Yeah...it's so unfortunate. Don't even get me started....especially on pay drivers..:lol:
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Dude, in today's motorsports 80% of the drivers have to pay for their ride! The times where people got paid to drive are long gone!
 
Jav
I find it offensive that the sanctioning body can make a factory team competitive by the use of "concessions" in just 4 races but yet do nothing for a privateer like Alex Job in the Lotus. It's just ridiculous!
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Its Lotus, the same brand that can't do crap other then take up space on other cars (Look at their indycar program for example). As far as I can tell, the only way a Lotus ever wins is as a sticker on a another car thats not powered or built by Lotus (which is exactly what happened with Rebellion). Its not so much the ALMS favoring a Factory team over a priveteer as it is Lotus doing a piss poor job of supporting their lone ALMS entry, which IS basically their "Factory" effort (not much to Concession which the Manufacterer is hardly supportive). Hell, HPD has one P1 team and it did a hell of alot more for Muscle Milk then Lotus ever did for AJR. Quite frankly, I find their racing program to be alot like their Supposed road car program: All hot air.
 
That's the thing, they're not hurting Lotus, they're hurting AJR who was left on its own since the begining of the program.
 
Jav
That's the thing, they're not hurting Lotus, they're hurting AJR who was left on its own since the begining of the program.
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I wasn't saying they were hurting Lotus, I was saying Lotus was Hurting AJR with their lack of support much like they did the Indycar teams.
 
RACECAR
I wasn't saying they were hurting Lotus, I was saying Lotus was Hurting AJR with their lack of support much like they did the Indycar teams.
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Lotus is a joke! Having Lotus support being out of the picture should move the sanctioning body to help the team wich is pretty much on its own.
 
2013 ALMS Schedule is out it looks like.


March 16 – Sat. Sebring International Raceway
April 20 - Sat. Long Beach Grand Prix Circuit
May 11 - Sat. Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
July 6 - Sat. Lime Rock Park
July 21 - Sun. Canadian Tire Motorsport Park
Aug. 11 - Sun. Road America
Aug. 31 - Sat. Grand Prix of Baltimore Circuit
Sept. 21 - Sat. Circuit of The Americas
Oct. 5 - Sat. VIRginia International Raceway
Oct. 19 - Sat. Road Atlanta

Mid-Ohio is out, COTA is in. Sebring and Road Atlanta are going to air on SPEED, all other races are on a mix of ABC/ESPN 2.

Linky.
 
Another Toyota pole in WEC. 3 poles out of 6 races on the season now. Wurz says he messed up both his laps but it was still good enough to take pole by a tenth over the #2 Audi. Aston take pole in GT Pro and Lotus will start at the head of the LMP2 field.
 
Damn, they kept Baltimore. Would MUCH rather have Mid Ohio than Baltimore. But I'm sure there's a little more than that at play here...
 
Toyota are stunning to just come in and beat Audi in their first year multiple times 👍. Looking like another race going their way but still a long time left to go yet..
 
A great race for Toyota. If they would have raced from Spa Audi's drivers may have had another two (Wurz and Lapierre) to worry about.

Another thing, don't crack on Lotus. They are releasing a new LMP2 T128 made in house for next season. There is already 2 orders for it in WEC and a rumored 3rd car for ALMS ran by Dempsey.
 
freshseth83
A great race for Toyota. If they would have raced from Spa Audi's drivers may have had another two (Wurz and Lapierre) to worry about.
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Not really. The gap at the end was 77.5 points. In addition to not racing Sebring, Toyota also would have had to overcome the Audi never retiring.

Next year though...
 
I can't wait til next year now, really looking forward to the Toyota taking part in all the races. I also think its about time I got my Le Mans tickets! Got a funny feeling its going to be a great one next year.
 
freshseth83
Another thing, don't crack on Lotus. They are releasing a new LMP2 T128 made in house for next season. There is already 2 orders for it in WEC and a rumored 3rd car for ALMS ran by Dempsey.
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Here's my problem with Lotus: When it came to both their Road Car and Racing Programs, they made these huge announcements and big promises and where are all of those Road Cars they promised? Where the hell was that Support for their Indycar teams or for AJR? I'm not gonna even mention the F1 teams because as far as I can work out, it was some stupid fight over the right to use the name on their cars. So forgive me if I find it hard to Believe anything Lotus says anymore.
 
RACECAR
Here's my problem with Lotus: When it came to both their Road Car and Racing Programs, they made these huge announcements and big promises and where are all of those Road Cars they promised? Where the hell was that Support for their Indycar teams or for AJR? I'm not gonna even mention the F1 teams because as far as I can work out, it was some stupid fight over the right to use the name on their cars. So forgive me if I find it hard to Believe anything Lotus says anymore.
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Dany Bahr, 'nuff said

Jav
Lotus is a joke! Having Lotus support being out of the picture should move the sanctioning body to help the team wich is pretty much on its own.
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AJR should go back to Porsche..

Snaeper
2013 ALMS Schedule is out it looks like.

March 16 – Sat. Sebring International Raceway
April 20 - Sat. Long Beach Grand Prix Circuit
May 11 - Sat. Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
July 6 - Sat. Lime Rock Park
July 21 - Sun. Canadian Tire Motorsport Park
Aug. 11 - Sun. Road America
Aug. 31 - Sat. Grand Prix of Baltimore Circuit
Sept. 21 - Sat. Circuit of The Americas
Oct. 5 - Sat. VIRginia International Raceway
Oct. 19 - Sat. Road Atlanta

Mid-Ohio is out, COTA is in. Sebring and Road Atlanta are going to air on SPEED, all other races are on a mix of ABC/ESPN 2.

Linky.
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I posted that up a few pages back.. It sucks they kept Baltimore and got rid of Mid-Ohio (which I was planning on going to next year..)
 
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That Toyota just seems too quick for the Audis. I won't be surprised if Toyota comes to Le Mans with the fastest car, and not just in the speed traps.
 
sumbrownkid
That Toyota just seems too quick for the Audis. I won't be surprised if Toyota comes to Le Mans with the fastest car, and not just in the speed traps.
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Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Next season Audi will copy Toyota's wing, minimizing some of that speed advantage, and may change their hybrid system to a rear-wheel driven one like the Toyota has (or lobby to reduce the speed limit for 4WD usage). I'm sure Audi will also work on other areas of the car as well.

Also, Toyota have been fast, though not always (at Fuji the #1 Audi was just as fast or faster), but have always been at a disadvantage due to their poor fuel economy. Toyota desperately needs a newer improved engine.

Though the rules are much the same, both Audi and Toyota will be working hard over the winter on improving their cars: Audi with a larger budget at that. Who knows how the cars will compare next year.
 
Of course we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves.:)

But let's put this into perspective. Toyota didn't do any racing before the actual 24 hours, they only tested. At Le Mans itself, whilst quick in a straight line, the Audis were quicker everywhere else.

Then all that started to change suddenly when Toyota started showing up Audi at tracks with more corners (Silverstone, Bahrain, Interlagos, and Shanghai), where cornering was Audi's strength because of there aero design. Audi will copy that wing interpretation, but I'd bet Toyota will probably come up with something else that gives them advantage. The one at Fuji was really a draw between the two when it came to outright speed.

Audi's main advantage is diesel, and with the 2014 regs based on energy equivalency, Audi may have to slow down since they maybe alloted less Diesel fuel compared to gas for Toyota.

I'll take back what I said about Toyota being THE fastest car at Le Mans 2013, but I'm sure Audi will break a sweat here and there if the TS030 can maintain reliability to go with that speed. Barring any Ferrari hitting them of course.:sly:
 

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