2014 IMSA TUSC - Round 1 - Rolex 24 at Daytona

[PatrickB]

Originally Posted by Ginaro Zukovsky

Conquest did a 1:40.5 unless you have different information?

Oak is in the 1:43's and the HPDs are at 1:42 even thought they have had a ton more time at Daytona then conquest ever had.

[fieldodreams79]

I don't have the foggiest as to what has happened here, but the times by themselves are pretty telling. If these transfer to the race, with endurance racing being a "flat out" affair, it's going to be an absolute DP runaway. I guess we'll see.

Originally Posted by Bandicoot17

Seems like some DP sandbagging has occurred

Sandbagging? Isn't that strictly against the rules in TUSC?

Originally Posted by Speed-King

Don't wanna get in the way of the whining and the conspiracy theories, but...

Of course BoP wasn't the issue for ESM; they didn't get BoP-ed to 3rd and 5th in PC; they just flat out missed it.

[Maelochs]

Whatever the reasons, TUSC has allowed the worst possible situation to arise: there is essentially no way anything but a DP will win. I don’t want to imply that the fix is in … bit it sure as $h!7 worked out that way. It isn’teven close.

This calls into question the legitimacy of TUSC as a racing series. This whole idea of, “We’ll give Daytona to the Rolex cars and Sebring to the ALMS cars” is crap, it isn’t racing. When the outcome is determined in advance, it isn’t sport.

I don’t care if a DP wins, but I care a lot if the DP doesn’t have to earn the win. I care a lot if some cars simply do not have a chance to win, despite being nominally in the same class and on par with the other cars in the top class.

TUSC had better be planning last minute AoP measures tonight.

[Fogelhund]

Originally Posted by Beetle

Daytona is a very hard track to get right, not only for IMSA but for teams also. It has several enormous straights and only a few tight corners. Sebring is more like an average track, Long Beach will favor the P2 cars by maneuverability alone, Laguna Seca is also tight, et cetera.
.

A track like Long Beach is mostly point and shoot. Torque and getting power down is far more important than handling to keep speed up.

Long Beach in many ways is similar to Daytona... slow corner, followed by acceleration. Daytona also has top speed, where Long Beach doesn't.

The P2's advantages are medium to high speed corners, as long as the straight isn't too long.

------------------

The marquee events are critical to have a chance for either formula to win. If over a season the formulas are even, but one formula has the advantage at the Marquee events, you can guess which formula will have all the cars in a couple of seasons.

[JoeMaters]

There was no video recording of the qual? If true, then this is a bad start for the series. One of the reasons I loved ALMS, WEC, etc is to be able to see qual also.

[Banggie]

Hopefully at race pace, the prototypes will show to be a little more equal. But if they don't, is it really a surprise? It was very unlikely to be able to take two entirely different types of race car and make them completely equal at every track in one off-season of very limited testing. That is just way too much to ask. The first few races and possibly the first season in its entirety, is gonna see a lot of adjustments from race to race to try and get the formula right, and probably a lot of lopsided races (either in the DP direction or the P2 direction) throughout the season. It is an unfortunate side effect of the merger that will take more than a limited off-season to fix. This year will have some growing pains in the P class. Hopefully the other 3 classes will help us get through it with some close racing and by the end of the year or next year, the formula will be adjusted and tweaked enough that the P2s and DPs are level at every track. It won't happen over night though.

[Fogelhund]

Originally Posted by JoeMaters

There was no video recording of the qual? If true, then this is a bad start for the series. One of the reasons I loved ALMS, WEC, etc is to be able to see qual also.

No video, no radio, no responses from PR.

[FstrthnU]

According to Dailysportscar, the OAK Morgan had a misfire and both of the ESM HPDs had electronic problems which prevented them from using full power.

[HJJ]

Preview show on FS1 (started @ 7:00PM) is pretty darn good.

[Breitling24]

Originally Posted by HJJ

Preview show on FS1 (started @ 7:00PM) is pretty darn good.

Agreed, well produced.

[Maelochs]

ESM and Oak did appear to have problems ... Muscle Milk, who knows? Thing is, the performance of the DPs relative to the P2s is the same now as it was at theRoar: 1.5 seconds advantage per lap.

Looking at all the cars over all the sessions, both Roar and Rolex practice ... DPs are much faster.

Saying it is impossible to balance the classes ... somehwo ALMS managed to balance Porsches, Corvettes, BMWs and Ferraris. Balancing different cars isn't That big a deal.

Cutting the revs on the DPs by a few hundred would likely have cut the top speed just enough that over a lap that the lap times could be equal, even if the DPs were still considerably faster.

Right now the P2s have as much chance to win overall as the PCs do ... or as the GTDs have to beat the GTLMs. Teams have to hope the fast cars break. That's not racing---when we are talking about cars nominally in the same class.

[jeast]

Originally Posted by Maelochs

Whatever the reasons, TUSC has allowed the worst possible situation to arise: there is essentially no way anything but a DP will win. I don’t want to imply that the fix is in … bit it sure as $h!7 worked out that way. It isn’teven close.

This calls into question the legitimacy of TUSC as a racing series. This whole idea of, “We’ll give Daytona to the Rolex cars and Sebring to the ALMS cars” is crap, it isn’t racing. When the outcome is determined in advance, it isn’t sport.

I don’t care if a DP wins, but I care a lot if the DP doesn’t have to earn the win. I care a lot if some cars simply do not have a chance to win, despite being nominally in the same class and on par with the other cars in the top class.

TUSC had better be planning last minute AoP measures tonight.

Since when has nascar cared about legitimacy in racing?

[MitchZ06]

They need to cut the DP engines back, the whole let them run at 600hp thing is crock. Cut the power back 100hp and it should even things out more.

[TheMightyM]

Three cars fail tech inspection, get sent to the pack of the pack:

#78 Starworks Motorsport (qualified 3rd in P) -- ride height infraction and an unapproved aerodynamic device.
#48 Paul Miller Racing (qualified 1st in GTD) -- rear wing endplate violation
#46 Fall-Line Audi Motorsports (qualified 3rd in GTD) -- ride height infraction.

John Dagys article here.

[FstrthnU]

The LMP2s are now within the top 10 in night practice, about 1 second off the leaders, I don't think they'll need to do a whole lot more. Maybe a couple hundred revs from the DPs or so.

Also, good news is that the #07 Mazda is now faster than the back 5th of the GTD cars

Feel really bad for Christopher Haase, got a day in the spotlight and then falls right back down

[skycafe]

Originally Posted by fieldodreams79

Sandbagging? Isn't that strictly against the rules in TUSC?
.

I don't think so as far as sandbagging, I think basically you can't slow down a more powerful and torquey engined car at Daytona enough to allow a more nimble car with limited potential to be equal or better, since there aren't enough corners. The P2 cars also seem to be having issues-which doesn't bode well for a 24 hour race!

I wonder what the tolerance factor for staying within performance that the officials will be watching? They want to park over-performers in a penalty box half an hour before the end, but I can not imagine they would park a huge percentage of the field if they all exceeded performance levels. Should be interesting

[Beetle]

Originally Posted by HJJ

Preview show on FS1 (started @ 7:00PM) is pretty darn good.

It was lovely and the family thoroughly enjoyed it. Here's to TUSC!

[Holt]

Didnt the ALMS teams get destroyed at Le Mans last year? It takes a time to learn a new tire.

I dont think the entire gap from DP to P2 comes down to the tires, but I think thats why theres hesitation to make more adjustments to the performance of the cars.

Besides, it would be kind of silly to let 5 P2s outpace 12 DPs, especially after all the money those teams spent upgrading their cars.

The real concerning issue to me is the pace of the Corvette DPs over everyone else. With the Ford DP reliability issues this could be another runaway like last year if not worse.

[Dyson Mazda]

What are the chances that the Mazda finishes ahead of the PC champion in a single race this year?

[RWill2073]

What is the expected fuel economy/pit stop differences between dip and p2? Will p2 be able to go a lap or two more per stop? Also, it will be a huge problem if all the marque events favor one or the other, but I imagine the p2s will have a similar advantage at sending as the dps do at Daytona.

You know, a second or less a lap difference is about what alms used to have between Audi/Peugeot and the rest too. So far all the p2 teams look like works in progress on a new track and new tires. None of them are fully sorted yet, except esm who have had myriad issues. In short, I'm not overly concerned yet.

[JHamilton]

Glad to see the website is still a **** show. I've been looking for the session results pages for 10 minutes, can someone help me out?

[TheMightyM]

Originally Posted by JHamilton

Glad to see the website is still a **** show. I've been looking for the session results pages for 10 minutes, can someone help me out?

http://www.imsa.com/sites/default/fi...actice%203.pdf

The right side of the Daytona race page has links to all practice session times, plus qualifying, and the provisional grid: http://www.imsa.com/races/rolex-24-daytona

[Danske]

Originally Posted by JHamilton

Glad to see the website is still a **** show. I've been looking for the session results pages for 10 minutes, can someone help me out?

imsa.com -> More Info (on the right if the current race banner is up, takes you to http://www.imsa.com/races/rolex-24-daytona right now) -> look under Race Results there (also on the right and easy to miss)

[JHamilton]

Originally Posted by TheMightyM

http://www.imsa.com/sites/default/fi...actice%203.pdf

The right side of the Daytona race page has links to all practice session times, plus qualifying, and the provisional grid: http://www.imsa.com/races/rolex-24-daytona

Originally Posted by Danske

imsa.com -> More Info (on the right if the current race banner is up, takes you to http://www.imsa.com/races/rolex-24-daytona right now) -> look under Race Results there (also on the right and easy to miss)

Thank you both! It's been a long ass day and I just wanted to see the results!

[joeb]

Originally Posted by Speed-King

Could be part of the problem, with the very short sessions. Also: The DP teams have thousands of miles of experience at Daytona, how realistic was it to expect the P2s right on the pace even with a good BoP (I am still not convinced it's bad, the DPs actually got kind of whacked after the roar)?

Exactly, after the roar adjustments were made that should have made the p cars closer but they were further spread today due to a variety of reasons others have mentioned. I think the corvettes have a pretty good chance since they are the most sorted and have experience at Daytona.