[WEC Race] 2012 Six Hours of Fuji

[Beryl]

Congrats Toyota. Great stints by Nakajima.

Maybe Audi made the wrong decision double stinting the tires on that last stop, the #1 may have been able to take it otherwise.

[JAG__]

That may well go down as the single most significant sportscar event since the start of PLM.

[PascaLM]

A well deserved victory for Toyota, at home ! This sounds good for endurance.

And a well deserved championship for Starworks

[Canada ALMS fan]

What a race!!!
I couldn't be happier for Toyota. Great to see a large crowd and they were treated to a classic.

[DeathOrGlory]

Kaz is a revelation. He was rather sloppy in a F1 car, but LMP1 fits him like a glove, in Le Mans, he made a mistake and he owned up to that, by having good runs in Silverstone and this pole-to-flag win in Fuji.

[TF110]

Really good stints for Kazuki, he drove his butt off and opened a gap that they really needed before their final stop.

[kurski]

Amazing win Nakajima/Wurz/Lapierre, Kazuki career first WEC win and good LMP2 win Shinji Nakano and partners.

[chernaudi]

We also can't forget that Rebellion (LMP1 privateers' cup) and Starworks (LMP2 teams' championship) won their titles this weekend, too. Only major titles up for grab seem to be GTE-Am teams title and WEC drivers title, the latter looks good for the #1 Audi going into China as long as they finish the race on the podium or the top 5 in class.

[rich07]

Originally Posted by airbusA346

#77 Wins GTE-Pro.

Who would've thunk it?

Congrats to them, its been a looong year for the Porsche guys in GTE.

Originally Posted by DeathOrGlory

Peter Baron can rub that World Championship in Chip Ganassi's face, and they can say that they did not have to ram someone to get it!

Yep. Good on Starworks, they're a small, well run team that has conquered a seriously competitive LMP2 class and in their debut year to boot. Much respect.

Rapt to see Kaz so happy after Toyota's win and at home too, with all the fans there to will Toyota home to win with the board watching. Hopefully this win will unleash the purse strings a bit more. And a double win for Toyota with Rebellion wrapping up the LMP1 privateers championship beating the two Hondas and Oak to the title. One wonders if Honda have been looking on over the weekend at the amount of attention given to Toyota and whether they want a piece of the action. Hopefully so

Now all Im waiting for is to hear why Larbre have been excluded again (no doubt I'll hear Jack Leconte's angry voice from here in Australia )

[MitchZ06]

I'll hear Leconte losing his s*** before you Rich! (QLD woop woop :P )

Pretty much everyone I wanted to win won here so pretty rapt overall, congrats to all the winners!*



*Until Larbre get's DQ'd again.....

[rich07]

Originally Posted by MitchZ06

I'll hear Leconte losing his s*** before you Rich! (QLD woop woop :P )

Pretty much everyone I wanted to win won here so pretty rapt overall, congrats to all the winners!*

*Until Larbre get's DQ'd again.....

Damn banana state!

I think after it happening twice in the last two races he'll be so angry we'll both hear it at the same time

[MitchZ06]

I think Pluto's gonna hear this one....

[tyronnezx]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

live.fiawec.com

thanks fella. really a bang on effort from the Toyota gang. five races, two wins already. as the commentator mentioned this really isnt a toe in the water anymore from Toyota. well done to them. Audi should be worried.

[DeathOrGlory]

Originally Posted by rich07

Yep. Good on Starworks, they're a small, well run team that has conquered a seriously competitive LMP2 class and in their debut year to boot. Much respect.

Starworks is on a roll this year. LMP2 World Champion, Dalziel 2nd in Grand-Am, NAEC champion, Sebring, Le Mans class winners, 2nd in Daytona, Popow LMPC champion, 2 wins in Grand-Am...

Its good to be king eh, Peter Baron?

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by MitchZ06

I think Pluto's gonna hear this one....

Larbre ?

[The Badger]

Well , Toyota really blew their trumpet at this one , delighted for them .

[Simmi]

Finished watching the race. A thoroughly enjoyable six hours.

I genuinely don't know what more TTE can do to get a reasonable budget signed off for next year.

Surely not even the most frustratingly conservative Japanese approach will let this one go! 2 cars (WEC) 3 (Le Mans) is a must.

Kaz is an absolute star. Wurz is driving as well as ever. Nico will not be happy with his showing but plenty more to come from all.

[dxk1]

Nice to see Nakajima & Toyota get the home win!

DK

[gwyllion]

Big congratulations to Toyota and especially Nakajima. Unfortunately I was unable to watch the race.

Originally Posted by Beryl

Maybe Audi made the wrong decision double stinting the tires on that last stop, the #1 may have been able to take it otherwise.

I looked at the lap times to determine whether Lotterer should have taken tyres on his last stop.

You can see that Lotterer slowed down a bit during his second stint on the same tyres.

driver	laps	average lap time
Lotterer	36	1:29.596
Lotterer	35	1:30.550

A tyre changes takes around 25 seconds. So in order to make up for that additional time, Lotterer would have had to drive more than 0.7 sec faster per lap.

Nakajima had the big advantage that he only had to do 44 laps on his last set of tyres.

driver	laps	average lap time
Nakajima	32	1:29.750
Nakajima	31	1:30.085
Nakajima	31	1:30.030
Nakajima	13	1:30.123

Toyota has the big advantage that their double stints are a lot shorter because of their worse fuel consumption. Nakajima's first double stint was 63 laps, whereas Lotter had to do 71 laps on his tyres.

[TF110]

Toyota definitely chose to stay with the right strategy. During the broadcast the RLM guys were questioning whether it would work. Turned out it did. They almost threw it away with the big mess up in traffic by Lapierre, and then on top of it his botched overtake on the #1 Audi. That really set them back, but they did come back, with a little help from the mess ups with the Audi's and the penalty.

[gwyllion]

A little help from Audi's mess ups and penalty?! Toyota won the race because of Treluyer collision and the resulting penalty.

Fässler lost 37 seconds during the stop and go penalty: 5 seconds for the in lap (lap 145) and 32 seconds for the out lap (lap 146). The difference at the finish was 11.223 seconds.

Audi #1 was the fastest car on track, if you look at the average lap time during the complete race (excluding safety car laps, in laps and out laps):

• Audi #1: 1:30.023
• Audi #2: 1:30.828
• Toyota: 1:30.086

On average Audi #1 was 0.063 seconds faster per lap than Toyota. Over the complete race distance (233 laps) that means 14.7 seconds.

According to http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Res...Stops_Race.PDF Toyota spent 7:52 minutes in the pits:

stop	change	duration	total
1	fuel	56.112	56.112
2	fuel + tyres + driver	1:26.239	2:22.351
3	fuel	56.316	3:18.667
4	fuel + tyres + driver	1:22.343	4:41.010
5	fuel	1:02.753	5:43.763
6	fuel + tyres	1:24.741	7:08.504
7	fuel (splash)	43.272	7:51.776

Audi can do a full service stop (fuel + tyres + driver) in 1:21 minutes and a fuel stop in 56 seconds. Under normal circumstances, Audi #1 would have spent 7:41 minutes in the pits (assuming 5 full service stops + 1 tyre stop). So theoretically they would have another 11 seconds in the pits.

[gwyllion]

The scenario above assumes that Audi would have done their somewhat unconventional strategy of ending with a double stint by Lotterer (and Fässler only doing one single stint).

What could/would have happened if Audi would have completed the race with 7 single stints (i.e., 2 x Lotterer, 2 x Tréluyer, 2 x Fässler, 1 x Lotterer)?

If you exclude that final stint of Lotterer, which was slower because of tyre wear, the average lap time of Audi #1 was 1:29.924. With a single stint strategy, Audi #1 would have been 0.162 seconds faster per lap than Toyota. Over the complete race distance (233 laps) that means 37.7 seconds.

Evidently Audi #1 would need to spend more time in the pits with this strategy. 6 full service stops take 8:06 minutes. So Toyota would gain 8 seconds in the pits.

In the first scenario (double stint at the end) Audi #1 would have won by around 25 seconds. In the second scenario (single stints) Audi #1 would have won by around 30 seconds.

[Bentley03]

Excellent analysis, thank you gwyllion!

Trussers will enjoy this......be interesting to see if he spotted anything different.

[Bentley03]

Incredible race, have now managed to watch all 6 hours. And JAG_, you're right, the potential significance of this race should not be underestimated.

Delighted Toyota were able to take advantage of that little bit of luck (stop/go) to overcome the #1....as Graham said on air, it was truly a fairytale scenario. And Kaz Nakajima, what a hero!!!!!

And, HUGE congratulations to everyone at Rebellion....I'm choked to see their rise and rise and just so delighted for Bart....as pointed out in the commentary, Hugh would be so PROUD OF what BART has achieved.

[Simmi]

Predictably Ullrich isn't happy with the stop-and-go decision. I'd say it was pretty clear-cut to be honest. It's true the slo-mo replays did Ben no favours at all in terms of how bad it looked.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/103463

All sorts of variables at play as the safety car was a huge stroke of luck for them.