[WEC] LMP Future Regulations (was Le Mans EVO rules - now hypercar rules)

[Maelochs]

Originally Posted by Maelochs : The whole idea of racing is to get to the end first.

NKoske responded: And if you do it more efficiently than the next guy you beat him


No dude. If you get there first, more efficiently or not, YOU WIN. We keep talking about Audi using More fuel to win at Spa, and Still Winning.

I will read the rest and really think about it before I respond, but that first point is just So Wrong.

[Bandicoot17]

Originally Posted by Maelochs

Originally Posted by Maelochs : The whole idea of racing is to get to the end first.

NKoske responded: And if you do it more efficiently than the next guy you beat him


No dude. If you get there first, more efficiently or not, YOU WIN. We keep talking about Audi using More fuel to win at Spa, and Still Winning.

I will read the rest and really think about it before I respond, but that first point is just So Wrong.

It was more efficient to use the extra fuel than to conserve it and go a longer distance then.

[Bandicoot17]

Originally Posted by Maelochs

Originally Posted by Maelochs : The whole idea of racing is to get to the end first.

NKoske responded: And if you do it more efficiently than the next guy you beat him


No dude. If you get there first, more efficiently or not, YOU WIN. We keep talking about Audi using More fuel to win at Spa, and Still Winning.

I will read the rest and really think about it before I respond, but that first point is just So Wrong.

Therefore it was more efficient to use the fuel to go quicker, than save it and make less pitstops.

It was more efficient to use the extra fuel than to conserve it and go a longer distance then.

[Maelochs]

Before I get all into this, I want to make a point: the only point I see us debating is the definition of “Green.”

To me “green” means making lowering environmental impact the prime priority. In racing, lowering environmental impact is Zero priority.

Even when Audi dials back power to save pit stops, they do it to save pit stops, not to save fuel. They only care about winning. If they could win by pouring gas on the ground and burning it, they would.

That is fine with me. I like racing and I do not want to see cars “racing to save resources.” I want to see cars racing to get to the finish line first. Go faster, I like it better.

Anyway … then there is all this.

Regarding the hybrid rules, NKoske comments:"You see it as adding rules...I see it as opening up rules. Giving engineers more options in drive is opening up rules in my view. Yes the rule book gets bigger, but you're defining the final car less that's what I mean by less rules.

I think it would be fun to say give a budget of $10 Mil (maybe it's more I'm not sure $20 Million), give a weight limit, some crash test regs, unit of energy allowed, 4 wheels must be covered. Now go...let's get back to true prototype racing. May make for less close racing, but will probably create some spectacular things.

Okay, this is not worth a fight. Adding rules for hybrids added rules and also added options. I don’t have a problem with more rules if they are well-written and I like more options. Here we do not disagree at all.

One reason I like fuel-delivery limitation is because it adds options. Maybe one guy builds a big, low-revving stock-block Viper motor with a tone of torque that sips fuel, while another builds a 1.6-liter turbo which gulps fuel, but the two use the same fuel overall because of the five times displacement difference. Maybe another guy goes with a huge hybrid system and a small gas engine. Maybe the next guy does something in between. The rules allow for a wide range of possibilities, which makes the sport a lot more interesting to me, and to you too I guess.

By the way, I really like your proposed regs. I'm not sure if it would work but I'd love to see it tried.

Maelochs Posted: "My question with cost caps is, how will they be enforced? Would cost caps be more financially efficient?"

NKoske replied: "That's for the bean counters to figure out. There's a way to do it, just need to put some smart people in a room to figure it out."

See, that doesn’t work. Saying, “There must be a way,” is just a guess. Is there really a way to get a huge corporation to open its entire financial records department to the FIA? Is there a Cost-Effective way of policing spending?

I cannot imagine one, and I have never seen one suggested. Saying, “Someone will figure it out,” is like saying “There is no problem we cannot solve through human ingenuity,” but I look around and see so very many unsolved problems.

NKoske says: “Yes there always the balance between speed and resource utilization.”

To this I reply, “Wrong.”

In racing there is always a series of possible ways to get to the end fastest; “strategy” is picking which ones your team will use. More or less aero? More or fewer tire stops? More power or more fuel economy?

In None of these case is resource conservation an issue.

Audi doesn’t say, “We need to increase mileage to save fuel.” Audi says, “We want to do fewer pit stops in this race so we will decrease power.” They are Not trying to save fuel; they are trying to win a race.

If they were truly “Green," there would be no consideration Before saving fuel. The car would be as fuel-efficient as possible, and other variables would be adjusted to get as much speed as possible while saving fuel.

Thing is, Audi doesn’t care in the least if it burns 515 liters of fuel in a race or if it burns 565. They care about the number of pit stops (for instance, at Le Mans, they will set up to run 11 laps, even if they could save fuel and run 11.75, because They Don’t Care about saving fuel. Saving pit stops is about saving time, and saving fuel is a by-product.

Regarding the new smoky Audis Nkoske posts: “I personally don't think they should be getting away with the amount of smoke they're currently producing. I saw the R10 many time in real life never saw any smoke out of it (when it started yes, on track no), but the R15/18 smoke like chimneys. Maybe the diesel and petrol rules would have more balance if diesels weren't allowed to smoke.”

I have to agree. Audi turned the wick up too high for its own scrubber system, and FIA/WEC refuses to call them on it.

NKoske posts; “Racing is about being efficient and being efficient is 'green'.”

So very, very wrong.

Racing is about getting to the finish first. End and Done. Full Stop. Period. When Toyota was burning more fuel, and more tires, they were still winning because they were faster than Audi. Resource conservation had Nothing to do with it.

Efficiency doesn’t even mean doing more with less. It really means having no waste. Energy delivered versus energy supplied (see below.) Production versus cost. It has nothing to do with the absolute amount of a resource consumed; it has to do with how much is actually used to Win. If the car burns ten time the fuel and wins, it is efficient in terms of a race car. It sure is not Green in any way.

Here is what Miriam-Webster’s says: Definition of EFFICIENCY
1: the quality or degree of being efficient
2 a : efficient operation
b (1) : effective operation as measured by a comparison of production with cost (as in energy, time, and money) (2) : the ratio of the useful energy delivered by a dynamic system to the energy supplied to it

Nothing to do with Conserving resources. Everything to do with using those resources without waste.

Efficiency is Part of “being green.” But efficiency alone is not all of it. If a car uses less gas year after year, that is an improvement in terms of resource conservation, but it is only worthwhile to a race car if the car wins.

On the other hand, if the car burns more fuel and wins, it is a great race car, but it isn’t green, even by your definition.

Racing doesn’t care about resource conservation. Sure, racing can use less, but only by accident or as a by-product. And it can even be made more green, by, say, limiting the number of tires each team can use in a weekend, or by using Dr. Panoz’s new recycleable carbon fiber for some body panels.

But no matter how you say it, if you say racing is inherently green, I will dispute that with solid fact.

So … since we agree on almost everything, let’s drop the whole “Racing in Inherently Green” debate. If you think it is, that’s your opinion. Mine differs. We have both explained ourselves. Nothing more to say on that.

Let’s get down to figuring out how to implement cost caps. That’s a tough enough topic in its own right.

[nkoske]

Originally Posted by Maelochs

So … since we agree on almost everything, let’s drop the whole “Racing in Inherently Green” debate. If you think it is, that’s your opinion. Mine differs. We have both explained ourselves. Nothing more to say on that.

Sounds good to me. As it seems more agree with me so I guess that makes me the winner .

One thing you may want to try when arguing is not calling the person you're arguing against 'wrong'. Tends to shut people up and they stop listening to your potentially valid points. It's my opinion...doesn't make me wrong...just wrong in your eyes. Just saying.

[kimiaimar]

Talking economy for green isn't so meaningful IMO
But diesel engine can trade fuel economy for power output, while petrol car is difficuilt. Especially natural aspired engine. If you want 70-80 more horsepower, what you can do is only to make redline higher, which is very risky in endurance races

[Dutton]

Originally Posted by nkoske

One thing you may want to try when arguing is not calling the person you're arguing against 'wrong'. Tends to shut people up and they stop listening to your potentially valid points. It's my opinion...doesn't make me wrong...just wrong in your eyes. Just saying.

It is true saying such can shut people off, but that is not the same thing as correctness or incorrectness being purely subjective.

Two opposing things cannot both be true. There is a lot of pretending they can in the world, in the name of not hurting peoples' feelings, but that doesn't actually change reality.

[Sodemo]

Originally Posted by MulsanneMike

Reduction in aero drag, ACO is pushing efficiency through drag reduction.

Thus creating cars that are more unstable, and arguably more dangerous. I presume there is an accompanying reduction in downforce as well? Because if there isn't then all the teams will do is just wack on more downforce to combat the instability.

If they really wanted to be "green" they should leave the cars width as it is and slash the downforce levels.

[cdsvg]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

Thus creating cars that are more unstable, and arguably more dangerous. I presume there is an accompanying reduction in downforce as well? Because if there isn't then all the teams will do is just wack on more downforce to combat the instability.

If they really wanted to be "green" they should leave the cars width as it is and slash the downforce levels.

Why does a reduction in drag make a car more unstable?

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by cdsvg

Why does a reduction in drag make a car more unstable?

I think the point is that if you could reduce drag while keeping the same downforce levels (and staying within the rules), the teams would have done this already. So (all things being equal) by reducing drag, you are also reducing downforce.

It might be a bad analogy given how much time has passed, but think to Porsche's initial philosophy with the 917. They had an extreme focus on low drag. So much so that the car was undriveable in it's initial form (it would wander around the track at high speed). Add on some wings which added more drag, but this also generated the needed downforce to make the car driveable and dropped the lap times.

Richard

[Richard C]

To push my 60'/70's Porsche analogy even further...

You might ask the question as to why Porsche had such a strong focus on low drag when they designed the 917. This is because their prior experience was with cars such as the 2 liter 906/907. The lower displacement limited power. So Porsche had less power to push a car down the long high speeds straights at LeMans. So it became an exercise in overall efficiency. This resulted in the need for low drag to try to keep the speed on the straights up and the overall laptimes down.

For the new regulations, it is not a situation of limited displacement, but limited energy. So again it becomes an exercise in overall efficiency. How to maintain high (or relatively high) speeds on the long straights. Which is likely to result in low drag designs.

Richard

[FstrthnU]

As the Audi R18 page pointed out, this year was the last year for open-cockpit LMPs. Next year ALL LMPs (LMP1 and LMP2) must be closed-cockpit. So it looks like a lot of LMP2 teams will be buying new cars for next year

Edit: Actually, one commenter said that LMP2 is still open-cockpit for 2014, will be closed-cockpit in 2015

[Dead-Eye]

Originally Posted by FstrthnU

As the Audi R18 page pointed out, this year was the last year for open-cockpit LMPs. Next year ALL LMPs (LMP1 and LMP2) must be closed-cockpit. So it looks like a lot of LMP2 teams will be buying new cars for next year

Edit: Actually, one commenter said that LMP2 is still open-cockpit for 2014, will be closed-cockpit in 2015

Neither of those statements is true. Current P2 rules will remain at least until 2015 and possibly longer, and there is no announcement on what will replace them.

[TF110]

All lmp1 will be closed cockpit. Unless theyre letting Strakka run this year's car.

[FstrthnU]

I'm going to post a quick list of the LMP1 options/plans for 2014

Factory:
Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro Turbodiesel V6 Front-hybrid
Toyota TS030 Hybrid natural V8 4-wheel hybrid
Porsche LMP1 unknown engine or hybrid

Customer:

Chassis:
Rebellion R-One
Perrin LMP1
DOME S103
HPD ARX-04
Adess LMP1
OAK LMP1
Lotus T128

Engines:
Toyota 3.4L V8
HPD 3.4L V8
Praga?

[deggis]

Originally Posted by FstrthnU

Rebellion R-One

Maybe you didn't mean it, but anyway: will not be for sale, according to Bart Hayden.

Adess LMP1
Lotus T128

Is this actually the same design?

[Maelochs]

Strakka’s HPD will be grandfathered for one year, last I heard, and I doubt the Adess P1 and the Lotus 128 are the same … but I bet part of the Lotus/Adess legal battle is that Adess used too much of the T128 in their P1 design and they are fighting over who owns the Intellectual Property rights of the T128 (not my idea—someone much smarter suggested this in the Lotus P2 thread.)

[Victor_RO]

HPD preparing both a customer LMP1 car and a hybrid LMP1 powertrain for 2014.

[Gingers4Justice]

Can someone explain why it's HPD and not Honda? That's never made sense to me.

Is the decision to do this anything to do with Honda at all?

[Christian Mogami]

HPD badge chassis

Honda badge engine

[Salamus]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

Can someone explain why it's HPD and not Honda? That's never made sense to me.

Is the decision to do this anything to do with Honda at all?

HPD = Honda Performance Development

It's a subsidiary of Honda that is responsible for their racing activities. Why they brand it as HPD instead of Honda, I have no clue.

[Gingers4Justice]

Originally Posted by Salamus

HPD = Honda Performance Development

It's a subsidiary of Honda that is responsible for their racing activities. Why they brand it as HPD instead of Honda, I have no clue.

That's what I was getting at really. Why hide the "Honda" part of the name? HPD means absolutely nothing to the casual viewer.

Another question: am I reading this correctly, that Honda's engine/ERS combination would be available separate from the HPD chassis?

[zanfo zanfagni]

If am i not wrong HPD is the north american racing division of American Honda Motor. 2014 rules impose to use hybrid units only to manufacturers team, so if honda will build an hybrid engine, then a work honda team will step inside the grid.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Salamus

HPD = Honda Performance Development

It's a subsidiary of Honda that is responsible for their racing activities. Why they brand it as HPD instead of Honda, I have no clue.

Originally Posted by zanfo zanfagni

If am i not wrong HPD is the north american racing division of American Honda Motor. 2014 rules impose to use hybrid units only to manufacturers team, so if honda will build an hybrid engine, then a work honda team will step inside the grid.

Yes HPD is a North America based racing subsidiary of Honda. They seem to be the ones funding this project instead of Honda Japan. They already had an engine built for Indycar, so this is another way to use it.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by zanfo zanfagni

2014 rules impose to use hybrid units only to manufacturers team

Wrong; corrected in the other thread: http://tentenths.com/forum/showpost....postcount=2725