AMR & Oreca: Slow diesels further, or we quit

[Gingers4Justice]

Interesting reading in this week's Autosport. Oreca and AMR want out if Diesels aren't pegged backed even further.

All I can say is grow up. I'd say they are now about where they should be for a new team compared to one team thats been it the biz for 3 years, the other for a decade.

Basically, these two are saying
"We're coming in, but the others have an unfair advantage because they have years of development, can't you cancel that out?"

Dave Richard's is claiming that the World GT championship is a viable alternative. Sometimes, he talks out of his behind.

[ger80]

Let them quit - Audi supports LM racing since 10 years ...

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

Sometimes, he talks out of his behind.

And the ACO dont !!!

If they are going to ban V12 & V10 in LMP1 ..... what about banning diesels. Its the biggest upset since the 3.5 litre days , cuz it wasnt handled properly in the first place .

And no ..... I dont want to see AMR or Oreca pull the plug cuz we need everyone we can get for a decent championship .

[deggis]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

All I can say is grow up. I'd say they are now about where they should be for a new team compared to one team thats been it the biz for 3 years, the other for a decade.

Imagine if petrols were suddenly given an power advantage (if you could even call that "advantage"). Audi and Peugeot cries - just "grow up", right?

[Gingers4Justice]

Originally Posted by deggis

Imagine if petrols were actually favoured. With a clear displacement, restrictor and boost advantage. Altough petrol wouldn't really need advantage. Audi and Peugeot cries - well, just "grow up", right?

I don't think the diesels have any more of a performance advantage than if they would with a petrol engined car anymore, their pace is through development.

[Acid09]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

I don't think the diesels have any more of a performance advantage than if they would with a petrol engined car anymore, their pace is through development.

Agreed, I think people just focus way too much on the petrol vs. diesel thing.

It's not about that, it's Peugeot Sport/Joest against privateer efforts. How can anyone expect them to be at the pace of the works cars? I don't understand...

And yes, Aston Martin is somehwat of a factory effort. But since they didn't even build their own car, you really have to consider them to be a semi-privateer effort in terms of development and performance.

[Félix]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

Interesting reading in this week's Autosport. Oreca and AMR want out if Diesels aren't pegged backed even further.

All I can say is grow up. I'd say they are now about where they should be for a new team compared to one team thats been it the biz for 3 years, the other for a decade.

Basically, these two are saying
"We're coming in, but the others have an unfair advantage because they have years of development, can't you cancel that out?"

Dave Richard's is claiming that the World GT championship is a viable alternative. Sometimes, he talks out of his behind.

Speaking of talking out of one's behind... What I've heard is not exactly what you have there.

What Richard says is that he understands that restricting the diesels further 1 month away from the race is not good, so he suggests giving the petrol cars and break so they have to adapt. Yes he feels they're too fast and I think the truth in that debate will be even more clear after LM.

Then there's the reason for threatening to quit: they were told by the ACO that they would have a fighting chance in P1 before they committed. The board wanted to stick to GT but Richard got his way... but now they're "flying guests from all around the globe to witness their cars fighting for 7th place at LM" (his words).

Hugues de Chaunac has been saying for months that he's selling his stuff to his sponsors by talking about challenging for the lead at Le Mans (this year and even more next year, if there's a next year).. and now he's stuck in the middle of the fast petrol car group and realistically 5 seconds a lap away from diesels come June. If he wants to keep on moving forward, he needs his partners to be happy (again, watching a fight for 7th place is not so great when you spend big $$$$$) and he needs to feel he can gain the pace he doesn't have yet somewhere - but the cutting edge car he just introduced will still leave him pretty far from the diesels.

The lesson here: these two organizations are serious, have big sponsors and are professional enough to race elsewhere (as they have in the past) if they feel they have a better chance and that it makes the ones paying the bills happier. But they can also be fantastic opponents to Audi and Peugeot with the great cars they have, if the rules allow them to run in the same class.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

I don't think the diesels have any more of a performance advantage than if they would with a petrol engined car anymore, their pace is through development.

Originally Posted by Acid09

It's not about that, it's Peugeot Sport/Joest against privateer efforts. How can anyone expect them to be at the pace of the works cars? I don't understand...

Maybe the thing that Audi and Peugoet have been the only factory teams and still remain the biggest teams have little bit saturated the situation, but aren't you basically suggesting that a petrol-Peugeot or petrol-Audi would somehow bypass the performance deficit set by the regulations?

[JAG]

The ACO have already gone against type and restricted diesels further mid season, they'll be restricted again next, then we'll see all new engines in 2011.

In the meantime everyone will argue their cause, not for an even playing field, but for their own advantage, as always.

[Fogelhund]

ACO racing is dangerously close to falling on it's face, with FIA GT taking over.

[rich07]

Originally Posted by JAG

In the meantime everyone will argue their cause, not for an even playing field, but for their own advantage, as always.

Quite true.

[TWK]

How much of that five seconds (over eight miles) is the rule advantage of diesels? How much is the excellence of Joest, for instance, or Allen McNish and his mates?

Excuse me, if after listening to Mr. Richards in ALMS, I'm a little skeptical that he puts the work into the team, car, and drivers that he puts into whining about how unfair it all is to him. Whether he has a point or not, he is absolutely insufferable.

[GT6]

It would be nice to see the AMR cars up with the deisels but at spa they were some way slower, however the pesco and oreca cars were keeping pace for a fair chunch of that race and those teams are truely privateers. Mr Richards should look at developing and perhaps his cars will be more competative rather than restrict other teams.

[KA]

Originally Posted by GT6

It would be nice to see the AMR cars up with the deisels but at spa they were some way slower, however the pesco and oreca cars were keeping pace for a fair chunch of that race and those teams are truely privateers. Mr Richards should look at developing and perhaps his cars will be more competative rather than restrict other teams.

If anyone's read the Autosport piece, Richards isn't asking for the diesels to be slowed further, but for the petrol-engined cars to be given a break:

Originally Posted by Dave Richards

What I am saying is don't penalise them, but help us. I would like it if the ACO were to say to the petrol teams 'If you want a bigger diameter restrictor, then you can have one.....The danger is, if the ACO don't do anything, teams like AMR and ORECA may not be able to find the sponsorship to come back next year

Is he right? I don't know. Is the gap between the Pugs and Audis and the rest purely because of the diesel to petrol equivalency, or just because they're factory teams racing against privateers. To me, there are two indications we need to see if we're going to decide that- the first is a full-force petrol-engined factory effort at Le Mans (Are you listening Porsche or Acura?), the second is a proper competitive privateer diesel outfit- I reckon the performance of Pescarolo's Pug (and to a lesser extent the Kolles R10s, though I've got doubts about the competence of that effort going on their LMS showing so far...) at Le Mans might go some way to proving the point either way- if Henri's 908 turns out to be five seconds a lap faster than the petrol cars all week, then maybe Richards has a point....

[scoff]

Does anybody know how much all these teams spend a year (privateers and manufacturers)? In time of 1999 I once heared Toyota only spended 100m a year for LM and preparation. Wasn't Racing for Holland's budget around 2 to 3m a year?

Before lowering the budget in 2009 I expect Peugeot and Audi to spend around 150m each in 2008 (incl ALMS and LMS), and now around 100m. For privateers like Pesca and Oreca I expect around 10m. Is this right?

I think the current differences between diesel and fuel are right. I bet a P1 Porsche would be right up to speed with the audi's and peugeot's. There is more to learn about racing diesels than fuel so I would expect their performance to improve increase every year and cutting/correcting there performance year by year slowly.

[cdsvg]

Originally Posted by KA

If anyone's read the Autosport piece, Richards isn't asking for the diesels to be slowed further, but for the petrol-engined cars to be given a break

Is the article online anywhere, or is it just the print edition?

Before lowering the budget in 2009 I expect Peugeot and Audi to spend around 150m each in 2008 (incl ALMS and LMS), and now around 100m. For privateers like Pesca and Oreca I expect around 10m. Is this right?

I think the numbers for the factories would be significantly less than that, maybe something like 30m for 2008. Car development costs are a different matter though.

[Bentley03]

Originally Posted by cdsavage

I think the numbers for the factories would be significantly less than that, maybe something like 30m for 2008. Car development costs are a different matter though.

I'm sure Peugeot announced a 150 million euro total budget for the current 3 year campaign, which would equate to an (average) annual budget of 50 million euros.

[MulsanneMike]

Originally Posted by TWK

How much of that five seconds (over eight miles) is the rule advantage of diesels? How much is the excellence of Joest, for instance, or Allen McNish and his mates?

Excuse me, if after listening to Mr. Richards in ALMS, I'm a little skeptical that he puts the work into the team, car, and drivers that he puts into whining about how unfair it all is to him. Whether he has a point or not, he is absolutely insufferable.

Everyone knows where I stand on the diesel equivalency issue so I won't beat that dead horse. But I find myself disagreeing with Aston's tactics in this case. I'm hearing of behind the scenes attempts by Aston to garner the support of fellow competitors and this all smells, as TWK points out, of putting your effort in the wrong place. First they hooked Peugeot in going along with them to ***** about the Audi, now Oreca to ***** about the rules in general. Suffice to say, I know some of their fellow competitors said thanks but no thanks, we'll do our talking on the track, when they were approached by Aston to form a "gauntlet", if you will. Just get on with it already. Last year the time difference at Le Mans was 6.6 seconds between the diesel pole and the first gas powered car. The in-race absolute performance deficit was 8.8 seconds. Has that changed significantly? Based on Spa times, perhaps, as there was about 1 second difference on in-race performance between the diesels and gas cars compared to about 5 seconds a year ago. Did we see true diesel performance or just enough to stay ahead of the gas cars? Who knows, but for now it appears things are slightly closer than last year. So get on with it Aston, but ultimately your modifications of the Lola shouldn't have been so conservative and you know it.

[chernaudi]

Well, that's what AMR gets by showing up with their hybrid, "Renesmee" children, using an off the shelf chassis and a stock block engine. I mean, Pescarolo has a fraction of the budget that AMR/Prodrive has, but they nearly won both races in the LMS this year-including Spa against Peugeot. The Pesca wasn't quite as fast as the 908, but the Pugs didn't exactly walk off, either. Maybe Richards should learn it's not how much money you have, it's what you do with it.

[Flat12-Aircool]

I think the Aerodynamics of the Aston are better suited to the straights of Le Mans than the various twisty tracks of the Le Mans series. That's what they're primarily interested in, so that's influenced the design of the car and I don't blame them for doing it.

[MulsanneMike]

Originally Posted by Flat12-Aircool

I think the Aerodynamics of the Aston are better suited to the straights of Le Mans than the various twisty tracks of the Le Mans series. That's what they're primarily interested in, so that's influenced the design of the car and I don't blame them for doing it.

Disagree, look at the Audi R15. Aston was one of the outfits who were behind the push with the ACO to impart road car styling for future LMP regulations and I think their Lola exercise was more about styling than aerodynamics. I'll go as far to say that they didn't find any substantial aero gains, that their singular task was styling that didn't hurt the Lola's aero.

[Dead-Eye]

Originally Posted by MulsanneMike

I'll go as far to say that they didn't find any substantial aero gains, that their singular task was styling that didn't hurt the Lola's aero.

Lola's press release in the naming argument certainly implied that.

[Flat12-Aircool]

Originally Posted by MulsanneMike

Disagree, look at the Audi R15. Aston was one of the outfits who were behind the push with the ACO to impart road car styling for future LMP regulations and I think their Lola exercise was more about styling than aerodynamics. I'll go as far to say that they didn't find any substantial aero gains, that their singular task was styling that didn't hurt the Lola's aero.

Well by the same token I think that Audi were guilty of that a bit with the aero of their R10. It seems to me that they were more interested in making it look like the spawn of an R8 rather than being revolutionary in any way. They knew they were going to have a massive engine advantage for the next few years and so did not need to alter their styling radically.

As for the R15, I'm sure their "Basking Shark" front end will go a little more conservative for Le Mans to be a bit less of a parachute down the Mulsanne.

[Nortad]

Originally Posted by ger80

Let them quit - Audi supports LM racing since 10 years ...

right... racing against... nobody... (except the privateers) thats like winning by default of the opposition...


nobody really cares about diesels, and yes further restriction is needed


(i know what im saying isnt great, but im not in a mood for long speaches and explaining my reasoning... )

[kingkai]

Surpriced with Dave Richards comment.
At Spa last weekend I heard at AMR that they are planning to make a AM for the new GT1 rulles but they themselves won't be racing it for the next years because they deffenatly want to stay in LMP1. The new GT1 car is for customers..