What is Aston Martin up to?

[FordCosworthPanoz]

Originally Posted by The Badger

If you want to win ..... you need something differant than an off the shelf chassis , off the shelf gearbox and off the shelf engine .

So , apples and pears ..... yes , i am right !!!

Great you win!!!! Congrats. Now if Prodrive with the AMR One could actually win something other than the first retirement at Le Mans then maybye I would take them seriously.

[FordCosworthPanoz]

Originally Posted by The Badger

If you want to fail epically, be over 20 seconds off pace in class and complete a combined six laps in a 24 hours and have less horsepower than some customer LMP2 cars ..... you need something differant than an off the shelf chassis , off the shelf gearbox and off the shelf engine .

So , apples and pears ..... yes , i am right !!!

fixed it for you.

[FordCosworthPanoz]

Originally Posted by carabus

I'd like to be wrong, but all it seems so much like ... a Lister LMP story. As a Czech, I wished Tomas Enge to drive the car, now it's not the case...

And it looks like somebody back on March 19th predicted the disaster that is the AMR One!

[carsten66]

Quote: Originally Posted by The Badger
If you want to fail epically, be over 20 seconds off pace in class and complete a combined six laps in a 24 hours and have less horsepower than some customer LMP2 cars ..... you need something differant than an off the shelf chassis , off the shelf gearbox and off the shelf engine

So , apples and pears ..... yes , i am right !!!

Originally Posted by FordCosworthPanoz

fixed it for you.

[GTRMagic]

Originally Posted by FordCosworthPanoz

Im sick and tired of hearing excuses for Prodrive. The car was an embarrassment for a so called *professional* racing organization. Not only is the AMR One a disaster in every aspect, but their GTE program is a joke as well. Give Oreca or Pescarolo the same time and resources to develop the car and I guarantee the car would have been both faster and more reliable, even the Jetalliance people managed it. Cannot believe Adrian, Harold and Andy dump their money into this sham.

Im suprised DR hasnt put out a press release complaining that every other LMP car in the field is illegal, perhaps the car could race alongside the touring cars in BTCC, judging by horespower and reliability it could probably race competitvely there, although I doubt it could last for 20 minutes.

Would the F1 project have been worse than Hispania?

We still have the prodrive-owned Ford Performance Racing down here, the team that is always going to win the V8Supercar championship... next year... and many of the same frustrations exploded here are true of this particular effort.

It is a shame, as I am sure there are many very clever people in the AMR operation... but there doesnt seem to be the grey haired, old hand of reason that stops the unconventional from becoming the reality.

You can call something purple when it is green as much as you like when you are winning.. but until then, call it purple and migrate to calling it green. In other words, go conventional... migrate to unconventional once the runs are firmly on the board

[AGD]

Originally Posted by The Badger

If you want to win ..... you need something differant than an off the shelf chassis , off the shelf gearbox and off the shelf engine .

So , apples and pears ..... yes , i am right !!!

I know you'll say this is apples and pears or chalk and cheese, and you're probably right, but that ideology reminds me of what a lot of Indycar teams thought in the early 90s. Championship winning teams like Galles, Rahal-Hogan/Truesports, and even Penske to an extent (when you consider their 1995 fiasco) discarded their championship winning Lolas (well, in the case of Galles and R-H) for in-house chassis programs. It turned out to be disasters, especially for the first two. Galles and R/H became also-rans for many years after their failed programs. Galles never came close to a championship ever again even in the early IRL and it took Rahal 7-8 years before they were major factors again.

Apples and oranges, yeah yeah. You're probably right. But AMR had arguably the best petrol LMP1 car in Europe. Ok, if nothing else they needed a new engine in 2012, but they could have done that more conventionally and with far more development and still retained their title as having an awesome petrol LMP1. Maybe they wanted to be more than that, but it's hard to say that their new package was going to be the magic elixir.

I'm sure things will improve if they do development and testing. If nothing else, it surely can't get worse. Who knows what will happen, who would have guessed that JLOC would have won a race in 2009 after their disastrous Le Mans race earlier that year? Strange things happen. It would be great if things improve, but they've done a lot of damage to their hard-earned reputation in the interim.

[Dead-Eye]

What I just don't get is why AMR felt the need to "develop in public". They knew the car was late, so why race it? They could have continued with the grandfathered Lola, saying "we'll debut the new car during the season". Sure, they wouldn't have been close to the front of the pack, but nobody would have expected them to be with a grandfathered car. It wouldn't have been such a PR disaster.

[AUSRSR]

Hope they can get their crap together coz the car looks and sounds the tits!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok9s8...watch_response

[AGD]

Originally Posted by Dead-Eye

What I just don't get is why AMR felt the need to "develop in public". They knew the car was late, so why race it? They could have continued with the grandfathered Lola, saying "we'll debut the new car during the season". Sure, they wouldn't have been close to the front of the pack, but nobody would have expected them to be with a grandfathered car. It wouldn't have been such a PR disaster.

The Pescarolo grandfathered car has been quite fast within the petrol class. There's no reason to think the AMR Lola would not have been as well. The Kronos/MarcVDS car was decently fast given their lack of experience with the car.

Does AMR have any of their Lolas from last year still in their possession or are they all with privateer teams and collectors? I'm not sure about that.

As for the new cars, I believe they have presold a number of cars to collectors and privateer teams. Perhaps they wanted to give collectors cars from this year with a racing history? I'm not sure when the cars were expected to be handed over to the collectors. Well, the collectors might get some pretty historic cars, but not in a good way!

[KA]

Originally Posted by AGD

Does AMR have any of their Lolas from last year still in their possession or are they all with privateer teams and collectors? I'm not sure about that.

I've been wondering that- Anyone know how many Lolas AMR have/had? We know that Kronos have the car Signature Plus ran last year, and Pickett has one in the ALMS (leased rather than owned?)
Would AMR have even been able to consider using the Lolas this year if they'd already been shipped off to their owners?

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by AUSRSR

Hope they can get their crap together coz the car looks and sounds the tits!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok9s8...watch_response

It sounds awesome ..... but its the only car that ever didnt look better in the flesh !!!

[KA]

Originally Posted by FordCosworthPanoz

Well, you are right, the Jetalliance guys probably had less time, resources and money. Question? What do you think the budget difference is between Extrême Limite AM Paris with its Norma and Prodrive with Aston Martin Racing??? One of those cars did more than 200 laps and the other did a combine six. But let me guess, chalk and cheese.

JetAlliance/Lotus were also adapting an existing production car and engine for GT racing- and wasn't a fair amount of that farmed out to others (ie Cosworth did the engine). Surely that's a very different different situation to designing and building chassis and engine from scratch. The Norma, OK, they did the chassis, but again they bought in an off-the-shelf engine package from outside.

Prodrive's background of course is largely in developing production-based cars for touring cars, WRC and GT racing- Have they simply taken on too much given the limited budget available to them?

[JAG]

What's with all the panic, I've never understood the desire to right someone off after a mistake, it happens to the best of them, what matters is how they respond.

[Gingers4Justice]

Crikey guys, calm down! Don't you think this is all a little OTT? I mean, there's global famine, wars in the middle east, climate change, some serious stuff that might warrant furious keyboard tapping of this degree - but come on, some people seem downright offended by this car, what's all this bashing trying to achieve exactly?

We know the car's rubbish, but worst effort in Le Mans history? Have we forgotten JLOC already!?

The worst thing that could possibly happen is that the AMR-ONE will be branded a complete disaster and Aston Martin will pull out of sportscar racing.

Nobody will be hurt, and nobody will die.

[acox93]

Originally Posted by KA

I've been wondering that- Anyone know how many Lolas AMR have/had? We know that Kronos have the car Signature Plus ran last year, and Pickett has one in the ALMS (leased rather than owned?)
Would AMR have even been able to consider using the Lolas this year if they'd already been shipped off to their owners?

One lola chassis is left, however its at least a months worth of work away from being race ready should the need arise for it to be used. However the chances of it being raced again are nil.

[AGD]

Originally Posted by FordCosworthPanoz

While the other commentators were defending AMR (for time, lack of funds, ect), Nick pretty much said the car was a complete embarrassment, and the team made a lot of stupid mistakes. He also said something Ive wanted to say for a while which is “If He were a manufacturer who paid Prodrive money to build and develop and LMP car and it ended up like the AMR One, he would want his money back”. Also, made some interesting comments about Prodrive itself as well which are worth a listen.

Wow, I think I need some seatbelts for my office chair. I just got done listening to MWM in the background while I was working on something here at the office and I nearly fell off my chair when Hindy was quoting David Richards saying something along the lines that the reason why Audi and Peugeot are so vitriolic toward the AMR-One and it's configuration (although to be fair I have not heard anything from Peugeot about the AMR-One, but maybe I missed something) is because they are "running scared" about the regulations and how they will change next year with the FIA because the performance balance will be more reasonable or whatever.

Ok, obviously my first thought is that Richards must have gone off the deep end or is attending the Atherton school of PR if he is implying that Audi and Peugeot are afraid of the AMR-One! Ok, maybe they will have something to be afraid of next year. Maybe they will get things right - it is certainly possible. Still, wow, is that the best way to respond to the criticism? To blame performance balancing essentially?

My second thought and question: just how much impact will the FIA have in regard to performance balancing? I thought stuff like that is still up to the ACO to decide. Maybe not?

But, yes, Roller and Daman did have some unsavory things to say about Prodrive. That is interesting.

[FordCosworthPanoz]

Originally Posted by AGD

Wow, I think I need some seatbelts for my office chair. I just got done listening to MWM in the background while I was working on something here at the office and I nearly fell off my chair when Hindy was quoting David Richards saying something along the lines that the reason why Audi and Peugeot are so vitriolic toward the AMR-One and it's configuration (although to be fair I have not heard anything from Peugeot about the AMR-One, but maybe I missed something) is because they are "running scared" about the regulations and how they will change next year with the FIA because the performance balance will be more reasonable or whatever.

Ok, obviously my first thought is that Richards must have gone off the deep end or is attending the Atherton school of PR if he is implying that Audi and Peugeot are afraid of the AMR-One! Ok, maybe they will have something to be afraid of next year. Maybe they will get things right - it is certainly possible. Still, wow, is that the best way to respond to the criticism? To blame performance balancing essentially?

My second thought and question: just how much impact will the FIA have in regard to performance balancing? I thought stuff like that is still up to the ACO to decide. Maybe not?

But, yes, Roller and Daman did have some unsavory things to say about Prodrive. That is interesting.

Exactly, want to know why my bashing picked up around the midweek and not after the race??? You now have your answer, a lot of people screw up, but if Prodrive is truly as delusional as Dave Richards makes it sound in that press release or interview (forget which) then I have no time for them.

[daallo]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

We know the car's rubbish, but worst effort in Le Mans history? Have we forgotten JLOC already!?

JLOC did way better and was a privateer GT that at least was in the pace.

This IS the worst Le Mans car ever, by far.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by daallo

JLOC did way better.

No way. One 'provenance' lap with a car with torches taped to the doors to comply with the regs? Yes, the Aston effort was poor, but the JLOC effort plumbed hitherto unknown depths.

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by AGD

Wow, I think I need some seatbelts for my office chair. I just got done listening to MWM in the background while I was working on something here at the office and I nearly fell off my chair when Hindy was quoting David Richards saying something along the lines that the reason why Audi and Peugeot are so vitriolic toward the AMR-One and it's configuration (although to be fair I have not heard anything from Peugeot about the AMR-One, but maybe I missed something) is because they are "running scared" about the regulations and how they will change next year with the FIA because the performance balance will be more reasonable or whatever

Just possibily Dave Richards knows a little bit more info than you do , and hears a little bit more info than you do .

Get some brakes for the chair while your at it , and a wiper to clear your vision .

I think the car will come good , but the trouble is both Pug and Audi are already starting with a fast car . I love the sound , but will never like that chassis really .

[Malfunction Junction]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

No way. One 'provenance' lap with a car with torches taped to the doors to comply with the regs? Yes, the Aston effort was poor, but the JLOC effort plumbed hitherto unknown depths.

*cough* BRM 351 *cough*

[stylish]

Its funny, i went to Le Mans full of hope that they may have turned a corner with the car, and watching it during practice it looked half tidy through the Porsche Curves, it sounded ace too, but all those dreams came undone in the first hour.

i hope they can fix it and come back strong, as the guys who work on it have put in a monster effort to get it up and running in such a short time scale, and having to do your testing in public, in front of the world, its either going to work or bite you on the butt.............

[JAG]

On Racecar Engineering they said the turbo set-up may change to a twin turbo.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by Malfunction Junction

*cough* BRM 351 *cough*

That was definitely better. It looked great and it at least got some running.....

[Gingers4Justice]

Originally Posted by daallo

JLOC did way better and was a privateer GT that at least was in the pace.

This IS the worst Le Mans car ever, by far.

JLOC did one lap. One measely lap.

And do you really have a memory that stretches back to 1923...?