[WEC Race] WEC 2024: Round 6 - Lone Star Le Mans

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

And yes, the point is being labored and dragged out.

As long as we add something new no problem. It’s only a problem where there is nothing new and people just keep saying the same thing again and again.

And also that you are accepting of others opinions. So all good

Originally Posted by flatlandsman

This is a discussion area, not a lets post stats all day. This is a valid discussion and I see no issue with there being a few posts about it, it decided a race for two teams.

Of course, as long as it's not just the same stuff again and again. When we have the self awareness when we are just saying the same thing again.

I mentioned laboring because I was becoming conscious of that it could appear there was a users post being singled out and to be mindful.

[Adam43]

It had been close all through the race between #6 and #8. Pretty intense, especially between Hartley and Lotterer in the stint before. The Toyota had just got the lead due to others stopping. The Toyota stopped and so thee Porsche was on warmer tyres and trying to make the undercut work as they'd stopped 8 laps earlier.

Both were new into the car. Although Toyota were single stinting and Buemi had already had a stint. Whereas it was the beginning of Estre's double. Interesting different approach there.

The slow lap, repair and (consistent) penalty cost #7 3 minutes.

[Matador]

Originally Posted by flatlandsman

However if a mechanic touches a car by reflex accident, that is easily worth a 30 second drive thru, not lifting throttle past a yellow when everyone else lifts for a tenth of a second (and probably scrubs off 5 mph) and get away with it, is worth a drive through, for a car pulled over on the exit of a hairpin 20 yards off line.

I know this is a bit OT but boy oh boy.... I think that was unreasonably harsh.

[chernaudi]

In the old ALMS days, doing that was worth an added 15-20 seconds to a pit stop if it was caught by an official (same as a crewman not having his goggles or gloves on or on right, or the visor on his helmet not closed, and too many men working on the car at one time).


It was illegal to do anything that was considered to be servicing to the car aside from cleaning the windscreen or helping with a driver change (and even then only one other person could help with the latter) while the car was being refueled, and only 4 people aside from a driver assistant (also counts for cleaning the windscreen) could work on the car at one time unless it was in the garage area.

[Articus]

Originally Posted by Adam43

I don’t recall Ant defending him. Just said he was desperately defending initially. Here is the pudding:

None of the commentators on this feed reacted that is was Estre’s fault. I don’t know about RLM.

Whatever, we are laboring this. Public or non public puts the blame on Buemi and not Estre. People with his team don’t think it was down to Buemi. I for one fully support Estre keeping his foot in. There was plenty of room even if it meant he was forced off track and that kind of bullying Schumacher esque defending needs to be stamped out of the sport.

In my opinion Davidson defended it. He said (quoting the video):

Estre continued to move off track and that might have aggravated the swiss driver from inside the car and he thought well I'm just going to carry on squeezing then if you are going to continue overtaking all 4 wheels off the track

Davidson turns it into a "overtaking all 4 wheels off the track" issue which is simply preposterous to even invite that discussion considering how Estre ended up there in the first place. Ant was Buemi's teammate in 2014. I'm sure it was instinctive for him to defend Buemi. He must have had to do it in 2014...I can't fathom why anyone would focus on Estre overtaking all 4 wheels off the track in this situation other than to somehow try and apportion blame for Buemi's driving, on reacting to Estre going off track, but this is faulty framing of the incident.

Martin Haven even challenges Davidson after he makes that claim. "Where was he supposed to go?".

[flatlandsman]

Sorry but posting stats endlessly is not new for me either, each to their own, I would prefer a separate thread for that kind of stuff, but that is not going to happen is it!!

I simply feel that if a reflex action means the poor guy accidentally touches the car, this is not something that should be penalised, yes it is a mistake, but it is a very harsh penalty, it is not like a driver error like Buemi's he simply put his hand out to sort of fake stop the car!! What would you do if a car was blatting towards you are 50kph!!

Sadly we live in a world where F1 makes the rules and everyone follows, they have pathetic penalties for all sorts of nonsense it is one the things that turned me off the sport, and now it is creeping into so many other forms of racing. WEC is big enough now to stand alone, be different, cut this garbage out a bit.

Most of them are sensible, reasonable and fair, but for me enforcing a penalty for a waved yellow non lift with 50 minutes to go when the incident happened nearly two hours previous is a nonsense and I would not be shocked if eventually the teams demand quicker actions are enforced.

[chernaudi]

Not to drag out this issue, and I'm not a huge fan of F1, but where else would you rather the WEC draw inspiration from for their rules and how they enforce, legislate and interpret them? NASCAR? I don't think so, and they for sure are not IMO bastions for fair or consistent rules enforcement, let alone conjuring or interpreting them.


I do think that the IMSA model where the race director is the Captain of the ship and generally what he says goes should be adhered to here. IMO it for sure worked in the days of the ALMS and such just fine even if some calls were questionable (sometimes even questioned on air by commentators), but at least the decisions were made quickly.


Enough of me droning on about that point. And yes, I'm no fan of the ACO or the FIA copying the F1 model for somethings (like favoring Grade 1 tracks for the VIPs and such), but I also for sure don't want to see them emulate the NASCAR model. Either do your own thing, or if you're gonna emulate or copy someone, do what IMSA is doing and has done for quite a few years now (probably dating back to the IMSA GT days prior to the ALMS).

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by flatlandsman

Sorry but posting stats endlessly is not new for me either, each to their own, I would prefer a separate thread for that kind of stuff, but that is not going to happen is it!!

This is a great point. Race related stats are in a different thread to the general WEC discussion. Which is now here: https://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=159040

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by helgi

I'm 100% sure lap times average by drivers is going to be a bit surprising.

Which drivers were you thinking of?

[helgi]

Originally Posted by Adam43

Which drivers were you thinking of?

Milesi for sure. Do they (Schumacher and him) always use fresh tyres or what? They are consistently faster than their teammates. Could be explained by "track evolution" this time, but still, much faster than other 2 drivers on a regular basis. Not sure their co-drivers that slower in equal conditions.

[tomcug]

Adam already posted averages for drivers. Milesi was lapping equal to Kobayashi, Schumacher only a little bit slower. Others in both Alpine cars were much slower, Lapierre and Chatin the slowest on track in fact and those aren't weak drivers. Take a look at race replay, maybe you'll be able to spot tyres they were using, I don't remember myself.

[Adam43]

Yes all the Hypercar drivers' average times are here: https://www.tentenths.com/forum/show...&postcount=374

Originally Posted by helgi

Milesi for sure. Do they (Schumacher and him) always use fresh tyres or what? They are consistently faster than their teammates. Could be explained by "track evolution" this time, but still, much faster than other 2 drivers on a regular basis. Not sure their co-drivers that slower in equal conditions.

You called it.

• Here are a collection of comparisons.
• The comparison of driver's laps ranked from fastest to slowest (the spread)
• Race battle including the winner
• The lap times by lap of the different drivers
• The pit stop times

Maybe there is some track evolution as you say (track and temperatures) as we see that for others.

Stints were slightly different. Mainly due to the additional stop near the beginning, but otherwise it was change drier until the last stop.

Whatever those two were impressive. Love it.

[Gerard C]

Lets see what Gounon can do, or not, for Alpine at Fuji.