Peugeot 2010-2011 (Temporarily Closed)

[Porsche917K]

A good group of pictures of the Peugeot from endurance-info.com

http://www.endurance-info.com/versio...?page=343&np=0

[chernaudi]

The Pug seems to be a show car-I doubt that the LM nose will be used outside of LM, especially if the Audi R15 produces 2009-like downforce levels. But I'm surprised that the 908 didn't use the louvre panels that the Lola and maybe the Audi will use on their rear deck's tail section.

Or could the nose balance out the changes at the rear, in light of the fact that the sprint version of the Acura ARX-01 only has had the rear wing change(though it's had the waiver that Audi and Peugeot didn't apply for)?

Some E-I photos do have the "sprint" nose, though.

[MulsanneMike]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

The Pug seems to be a show car-I doubt that the LM nose will be used outside of LM, especially if the Audi R15 produces 2009-like downforce levels. But I'm surprised that the 908 didn't use the louvre panels that the Lola and maybe the Audi will use on their rear deck's tail section.

Or could the nose balance out the changes at the rear, in light of the fact that the sprint version of the Acura ARX-01 only has had the rear wing change(though it's had the waiver that Audi and Peugeot didn't apply for)?

Some E-I photos do have the "sprint" nose, though.

Pretty clear from the images we're looking at the "old" car as it doesn't have the revised rear end. The studio shots are same, old car in new livery. The press release talks of the thickened trailing edge to the front diffuser:

- thicker trailing edges on the 'extended' section of the front diffuser (they can be seen where the sidepods start, on each side of the monocoque);


This clearly is describing the Le Mans nose as it's TE ends just ahead of the radiator inlets. This leads me to believe that we may see the Le Mans nose as the primary nose. Given the changes to the regulations, the design direction for the front diffuser area may be less clear given the further restrictions for 2010 (symmetrical wing profiles now must have thick TE, 3% of chord or at least 10 mm, non-symmetrical wings must have a 30 mm TE). And this is the last year that the 908 can run the single piece diffuser past the front wheel centerline:

For 2010 only, the surface visible from the underside between the front of the car and the front axle centreline can extend rearward of the front wheel axle centreline, and it is permitted to limit the rear trailing edge thickness to no less than 30 mm.

Thus Peugeot might have found that it's better to run the long chord diffuser with the 30 mm TE than the short chord sprint nose with a 30 mm TE (remember, the 908's sprint diffuser was a non-symmetrical wing thus would need a 30 mm TE, revised 3.6.1). We shall see.

[The Badger]

Im glad they got rid of a lot of that crap chrome !!!

Looks a lot better in that blue , as it should be . They just need a few prominent id flashs ..... like dayglo green , orange and yellow , that would be even cooler imo . Shag the mirrors !!!

[chernaudi]

Well, that's an other arguement for why Peugeot shouldn't complain about the R15 not meeting the sprit of the rules. I know that the LM nose diffuser is legal for this year for now(2011 rules pending), but where did Peugeot get the waiver for LM '09-wouldn't the Pug's nose diffuser extending beyond the rear wheel centerline have been technically illegal in '09? Certianly didn't meet the sprit of the rules, and seems to be butting against the letter at that time, too.

I also raised the question because in the E-I photos, there was a shot of the rear of the 908, and it did seem to have the filler panels(the goldish-colored items in the open stub-longtail section behind the rear wheels: http://www.endurance-info.com/versio...?page=343&np=4).

If the rules are as that for 2010, could Peugeot if in pinch at like Spa, for example(a high downforce circuit) use the LM'09 diffuser on the sprint nose, or would that not make sense? Maybe not, since the Pug is a lame duck car now, but the Audi R15 is a lame duck car, and its reportedly being fairly heavily revised, and most of the changes aren't for ACO rules compliance.

[Tom908V12]

Great and not really a surprise to see "The Ant" alongside Gené and Wurz
Not a surprise neither to see Quick Nic' alongside Sarrazin and Montagny this year

But surprise to see Pagenaud though, as he's also comitted to Highcroft(so no 100% for Peugeot)

[MulsanneMike]

Pictures from Le Castellet testing show the 908 running the "LM" nose and with modified rear end. Peugeot appears to have simply boxed in the rear end just behind the tires with a plate. I'll post images tonight though I'm sure they're out there to have a look.

[WMUCarGuy]

Originally Posted by Tom908V12

Great and not really a surprise to see "The Ant" alongside Gené and Wurz
Not a surprise neither to see Quick Nic' alongside Sarrazin and Montagny this year

But surprise to see Pagenaud though, as he's also comitted to Highcroft(so no 100% for Peugeot)

He's driving for Peugeot at Le Mans, not Highcroft.

[CTD]

I just stumbled upon this:
http://www.oreca-racing.com/en/audi-team-oreca/
Will this be a problem for either Peugeot or Audi?

[Félix]

They just completed a 32-hour test with the freshly-launched 2010 car! The only question then is when Audi will be able to do the same, or how much of a pace advantage they will have to offset reliability that will most probably be inferior to Peugeot.

I guess the running they're able to get with the 2009 R15 or some kind of R15 hybrid counts, but it's probably not 32 hours straight nor with the many peculiarities of the final car.

[gwyllion]

http://www.endurance-info.com/versio...ance-3651.html has pictures of the 2010 Peugeot.

[Tom908V12]

Some other pics
http://picasaweb.google.fr/album.de....eat=directlink
http://www.pitlane-vision.com/index....rticle&id=1338

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Tom908V12

Some other pics
http://picasaweb.google.fr/album.de....eat=directlink
http://www.pitlane-vision.com/index....rticle&id=1338

those are some good pics on the picasa link, the new livery looks sharp.

[chernaudi]

Originally Posted by Félix

They just completed a 32-hour test with the freshly-launched 2010 car! The only question then is when Audi will be able to do the same, or how much of a pace advantage they will have to offset reliability that will most probably be inferior to Peugeot.

I guess the running they're able to get with the 2009 R15 or some kind of R15 hybrid counts, but it's probably not 32 hours straight nor with the many peculiarities of the final car.

Audi has done a multi day test at Sebring-including a 24 or 30 hour test, and have another test-including at least one more 30 hr endurance test-planned for within days of the 12 Hour race. Mechancially, Sebring is tougher than Paul Ricard(hence the Audi private tests at Sebring), but Audi seems to have put Sebring off for a race in favor of Paul Ricard a couple of weeks later-when they know that the LM-style areo pieces will be ready.

Audi sees no point appearanly in running a race at Sebring with a rules compliant but not fully updated car(the car that Audi had at Sebring was an '09 car with some '10 parts on it). The rules compliance issues(10mm blunt edge on the trailing edge of the front diffuser and the rear fender panels) aren't serious issues in themselves, as Peugeot and Lola have shown. However, the stuff that Audi has planned for the R15 at LM(to erase some of that 10mph gap to the Pugs down the straights) is another matter, though with Audi planning on launching the facelifted R15 in a few days time(whether it will be public isn't known), hopefully some of those questions will be answered fairly soon.

But getting back to the Pug, it seemed from the E-I photo showing the rear of the car that the valience panel had a bit of a camber to it, like a dive plane. I know that dive planes generate downforce by air going over them and exerting pressure on them, but some downforce surely is generated by the air going under them-they are shaped broadly like the underside of an inverted aircraft wing, after all.

Is the Pug's rear complance panel cambered like that, or is it an illusion?

[Félix]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

But getting back to the Pug, it seemed from the E-I photo showing the rear of the car that the valience panel had a bit of a camber to it, like a dive plane. I know that dive planes generate downforce by air going over them and exerting pressure on them, but some downforce surely is generated by the air going under them-they are shaped broadly like the underside of an inverted aircraft wing, after all.

I believe front dive planes are used to create vortices running down the side of a car, "sealing" the side entry to the underbody and more or less creating a virtual skirt. They have very little area so I guess the downforce they can generate directly is pretty low.

As for the rear valence plate solution, it will be interesting to see what solutions the other teams chose. I think we'll see 2009 rear ends only covered with louvers. I'm not sure about the performance implications since the air moving there is so messy the only priority must be to let it out fast without compressing it or putting something in its way. I wonder what happens with the high pressure zone over the rear wheel centreline, between the valence plate and the tire. Peugeot's solution doesn't look ideal there.

[chernaudi]

Maybe Peugeot is hoping that some vortex or aero effect is produced by air rushing under the angled plate. It should be noted that several "long tail" cars during the LMP900/675 era had very little area(Audi R8) or no area(Bentley Speed 8) open behind the rear wheels, especially above the rear wheel centerline.

Maybe that rule is a side effect of the Philepe Massa incident last year(Julian Sole from Lola says that's part of the reason) as well as the open faux long tail gains back what losing a true long tail took away under the LMP1/2 regs.

[prototype]

Originally Posted by MulsanneMike

Pictures from Le Castellet testing show the 908 running the "LM" nose and with modified rear end. Peugeot appears to have simply boxed in the rear end just behind the tires with a plate. I'll post images tonight though I'm sure they're out there to have a look.

I read the update Mike, thanks. Are you surprised that Peugeot has not gone to the swan neck mounting on the shorter rear wing, or do you think this would also be a "sprint" type of version?

[MulsanneMike]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

Maybe Peugeot is hoping that some vortex or aero effect is produced by air rushing under the angled plate. It should be noted that several "long tail" cars during the LMP900/675 era had very little area(Audi R8) or no area(Bentley Speed 8) open behind the rear wheels, especially above the rear wheel centerline.

Maybe that rule is a side effect of the Philepe Massa incident last year(Julian Sole from Lola says that's part of the reason) as well as the open faux long tail gains back what losing a true long tail took away under the LMP1/2 regs.

You wouldn't see any vortex shedding as the angled plate is closed off on either end; you need an edge for the air to trip over as on a dive plane. Peugeot is simply trying to mitigate the lost performance, I wouldn't read too much into their angled plate.

[MulsanneMike]

Originally Posted by prototype

I read the update Mike, thanks. Are you surprised that Peugeot has not gone to the swan neck mounting on the shorter rear wing, or do you think this would also be a "sprint" type of version?

Yeah, a little surprised. But then Peugeot's aero program never seemed very aggressive. And even Lola hasn't adopted the concept (Aston did though). From what I've been told, the swan neck is a gain across the board. How big? Not sure. So the magnitude of the gain might play in as well as it simply might not be deemed worth the effort. I could understand that from Lola's perspective as they ultimately have to produce cost effective cars. Peugeot on the other hand not so much.

[Tom908V12]

Originally Posted by Félix

They just completed a 32-hour test with the freshly-launched 2010 car! The only question then is when Audi will be able to do the same, or how much of a pace advantage they will have to offset reliability that will most probably be inferior to Peugeot.

I guess the running they're able to get with the 2009 R15 or some kind of R15 hybrid counts, but it's probably not 32 hours straight nor with the many peculiarities of the final car.

I thought AUDI already completed at least one 30h test program on the Sebring track this year(especially for Tréluyer, Fässler and Lotterer)

[Félix]

Just a thought, after reading speculation about the Audi R15 from Claude Gallopin: it's good because the underside of a rear wing always works more than the exposed side... but wouldn't it also be possible to engineer some flex into such a construction? Has there ever been a rear-facing camera mounted on a swan-neck car? Could be interesting to see the footage (not that the same effect couldn't be obtained from normal mounts)

[chernaudi]

Yes Tom, Audi has done a multi-day test that included an endurance test(24 or 30 hour, I'm not entirely sure) at Sebring a few weeks ago with the new guys as well as Allan, Dindo, and Rocky, and they have another multiday test scheduled for within days of the 12 Hour with a full spec 2010 R15 that inculdes at least one 30 hour test.

The only rearward footage I've seen of a quillar car was a video from the #2 R15 at Sebring last year on You Tube, but it's a low quality video. All I can say is if some one has torrented the whole race you can find the footage, or better yet, do as I did last night and buy the DVD set from the ALMS site-IMSA has a history on their Speed broadcast especially of showing onboard footage with little or no commentary during the commercial breaks, as I own several ALMS VHS and DVD videos that have high quality audio and video.

However, I don't know if what you said about the rear wing flexing like that has much muster, considering that the FIA allows driver adjustable front wings on F1 cars, but the fixed wing deal is still applicable to the rear wing on F1 cars, as well as to aero elements on the cars under ACO and IMSA rules. Granted, there is likely some flex as carbon fiber and aluminum sheet have some bend to it, but I doubt that it's significant due to areo regs, saftey, and ensuring consistant car performance. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised that the swan neck cars have the wings and their mounting beefed up to resist such forces, since they can litterally pull the wing off the car if such structures are too weak.

Why Peugeot hasn't gone the swan neck route might be two fold. Cost/benefit is one. The Pug as of the end of '08 had only at most two years of competitive life in it, and that(especially if the rules from '09 applied fully to '10, which of course they don't) if Audi improved the R15(which is the major part of the "+" changes) could give it trouble, but not enough, espcially at Le Mans, to warrent a full detail redesign. The Pug was designed for Le Mans, while the Audi R15 was designed with more of an eye towards the ALMS/LMS.

And then there's what Mike has stated here and in the past about the 908-that it's areo is compenent/generally par excellence, but fairly conservative and certianly not really ground breaking. Peugeot tried to do what Audi did with the R8 and the early versions of the R10-have good areo, but concentrate on making power/torque, having good mechanical grip and getting that power down above all else.

And maybe that's one thing that's helped the Pug having more of a rearward weight bias compared to the R15, as on occasion the 908 had a slight edge over the R15 on off corner speed in low speed corners(though the R15's less polar weight bias helps it in faster corners).

Peugeot is improving on what they have, which is good grip. It might not have the best handling overall, but for LM, having good bite out of slow corners can pay off when combined with straightline speed.

But as for the vailance panels, could their shape still have an positive or at least a neutralizing aero effect, since they may pressurize the air exiting out the rear and help with extraction(air behaves like a fluid, and as such, wants to go from areas of high concentration to low concentration, and when under pressure, can accellerate)?

[CTD]

New video from Oreca with the 908.
http://www.oreca-channel.com/blog/ac...a-peugeot-908/

[Tom908V12]

Pagenaud, Lamy, Gené and Davidson were testing at Sebring after the race on monday and tuesday

Audi was present too with one R15 and Rockenfeller-Bernhardt-Dumas

[gwyllion]

Peugeot now does proper regeneration to clean accumulated soot in the diesel particulate filter
http://art-racing.com/site/#/gallery...st/brake-fire/
http://art-racing.com/site/#/gallery.../brake-fire-2/
http://art-racing.com/site/#/gallery.../brake-fire-3/