ELMS Round 2 Monza

[antonylight]

LIVE TIMING AT: timing.71wytham.org.uk

[Akrapovic]

I love elms. The variety is outstanding.

Cleanish race start given the amount of am drivers. Love seeing the corvette back too.

Graff leading early. FCY for a beached P3 Paris Barthez car which just assaulted the World of Tanks car. Lapierre goes off under waved yellows. That won't go down well.

[J Jay]

Trust myself to get the timezones wrong again...

I'll watch this later and catch the Blancpain race live. I'm hoping for a good one.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by J Jay

Trust myself to get the timezones wrong again...

I'll watch this later and catch the Blancpain race live. I'm hoping for a good one.

The website countdown was wrong (again). Never ever use it. If the race starts at 1:30 local time then it counts down to 1:30 YOUR time. So I'd have missed the first hour. Always check the timetable and convert that. Never use the countdown, it's never right.

[Akrapovic]

Poor World of Tanks car. They've been beaten up a lot this year.

Graff putting in a good performance but poor strategy ended up costing them time. The Norma is a fantastic little car with an incredible straight line speed. That's really helping them against the Ligier.

[TheMightyM]

And we have another LMP3 crash fest…

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by TheMightyM

And we have another LMP3 crash fest…

It's not been that bad. We've had a couple of FCY for them. But it is an Am based series so shouod be expected a bit. Its not like PC where they were disrupting a Pro series.

[TheMightyM]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

It's not been that bad. We've had a couple of FCY for them. But it is an Am based series so shouod be expected a bit. Its not like PC where they were disrupting a Pro series.

I've watched for just over half an hour and in that time period, there have been two FCY for them. There was also an earlier FCY not sure why.

As I write this 1:40 in, six LMP3s are behind the entire GTE-Am field…

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by TheMightyM

I've watched for just over half an hour and in that time period, there have been two FCY for them. There was also an earlier FCY not sure why.

As I write this 1:40 in, six LMP3s are behind the entire GTE-Am field…

The GTE Am field is a pretty high standard. The LMP3 isn't. There was one additional FCY you didn't see which was LMP3s into Ascari. Outside of those incidents, there's been very few and most are actually LMP2s that have been off. The yellow banana mobile, Tockwith and a few others have had offs that came very close to FCY. I don't see the problem with a handful of LMP3 from the huge class being behind the lower class, especially it they aren't dangerous. It wasn't that long ago that LMP675 couldn't even best the GT Classes at Le Mans, and that class was more mature than the LMP3s. And the LMP3 performance difference to GTE isn't that big - ask our resident Mike about the problems that caused the GTE drivers.

Almost 2 hours in, I think we've had 3 FCY, each one 5-10 minutes long. We've lost 15-30 min of 115 minutes to FCY. That's pretty good given around 75% of this field is amateur. Standard seems high enough. I've seen worse WEC and IMSA races.

[GT6]

found live streaming in case anyone is interested

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2mcine

[chernaudi]

Seems like the Cosworth electronics problems that plagued the ACO spec LMP2s at Daytona and Sebring have returned at Monza. Did Cosworth and Gibson dig though stock piles of old British Leyland and Fiat and Alfa Romeo electrical components from the 1970s?

[Akrapovic]

They never went away. When it strikes a car, it does it consistently. Graff seemed to be the sufferer of choice this weekend, like Rebellion at Daytona. Graham Goodwin described it in a very simple way on the commentary - there's 2 different parts controlling different things, and every so often they can't talk to each other properly. Really does need sorted.

Richard Bradley was not a happy man. Unlike DragonSpeed who'll be very happy. A 1-2. Hedman was pretty good too. We're used to him doing Ed Brown style stints and losing so much time it's unrecoverable, but today he lost a couple of spots (Am driver, that's expected) but kept close enough that it could be recovered. They were no match for the sister G-Drive car, but that's an amazing line-up they have. Léo Roussel looked like a Pro today.

Becoming a big fan of High Class Racing. They're having a great first season.

[Maelochs]

I have ingeniously managed to misread the clock and the schedule again. Looking forward to the replay.

[GT6]

Originally Posted by Maelochs

I have ingeniously managed to misread the clock and the schedule again. Looking forward to the replay.

well worth watching a really good race

[isynge]

Originally Posted by GT6

well worth watching a really good race

Was out and about yesterday so missed the race, and while learning the result has percolated through quite looking forward to having it as background entertainment during the week.

Loved watching the qualifying coverage - contemporary LMPs around Monza look superb.

[Dani Filth]

i'm a fan of the Dallara LMP2 .. not surprisingly the Cadillacs are so much in front of the rest in ALMS
shame we don't have a big team running one in WEC
High Class and their drivers were really unknown to me before this season but i'm becoming a fan

LMP3 .. Norma wins but what a crashfest indeed and IMHO not such great driving standards

[isynge]

Originally Posted by Dani Filth

i'm a fan of the Dallara LMP2 .. not surprisingly the Cadillacs are so much in front of the rest in ALMS
shame we don't have a big team running one in WEC
High Class and their drivers were really unknown to me before this season but i'm becoming a fan

LMP3 .. Norma wins but what a crashfest indeed and IMHO not such great driving standards

I was struck at Silverstone that LMP3 cars are a bit of a challenge for some of the gentleman drivers - looking them going through Becketts / Maggots it was clear where some of them were teetering on the edge of control - which in a lot of ways is quite nice - it would have been really easy to create an LMP3 formula with too much downforce and not enough power - that they haven't is great.

Still looking forward to catching up on Monza - this evening ended up being distracted by some 1970s single seaters on YouTube (I know - heresy).

[Akrapovic]

A field of Ams in prototypes at Monza with the car setup for minimum aero. What do people expect? The race was not that bad either. We've seen a LOT worse in IMSA and PWC.

[TzeiTzei]

I liked it. The still ongoing electrical problems with the LMP2s are a bit worrying. Spec parts shouldn't be so unreliable.

[Ospi]

Was interesting that the top 2 LMP3's were running a high drag aero setup, not something you expect at Monza but I daresay suffered less tyre deg and easier for the Am drivers to push harder.

Shame regarding the P2 electrical issues, thought they were solved at Silverstone after the ACO gave Cosworth a spanking after the Monza test but the issue Graff experienced was the same one they suffered at Monza.

[bentley speed 8]

Apart from LMP2 electrical failures, it was one great race yet again. Both the Oreca and the Dallara seem to be pretty good choices, with the Ligier looking close but a little less reliable (especially the gearbox).

Plenty of overtaking and actually very little time under yellow, even with all those accidents involving LMP3 cars, which didn't really disrupt the flow of the race that much.

And before I forget, that's a great way for the JMW 458 to end its racing career. While I like the 488 more in the looks department, I'm sure it doesn't sound as great.

[chernaudi]

Ligier for some reason use Hewland gearboxes rather than XTrac, and in recent years Hewland hasn't had the best of reliability records.