[WEC] WEC 2024

[Tique]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Still sea post Le Mans.

Strange, they were giving as justification for the Qatar a deal with Qatar Airways for the freight. They were aven saying that it will be use to ship the equipment from Qatar to Sebring at that stage. Ar it was just an excuse to justify the Qatar. Who knows

[Tique]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Still sea post Le Mans.

Strange, they were giving as justification for the Qatar a deal with Qatar Airways for the freight. They were aven saying that it will be use to ship the equipment from Qatar to Sebring at that stage. Ar it was just an excuse to justify the Qatar. Who knows


The DSC artcile is so funny to read nowadays
https://www.dailysportscar.com/2022/...expansion.html

[Mike E]

No trouble telling the two M4s apart

https://www.dailysportscar.com/2024/...k-notes-2.html

[Mike E]

Prologue schedule revised again because of the freight issue.

Monday: optional 3 hour afternoon session, mandatory 5 night hour session
Tuesday: mandatory 5 hour morning session, optional 3 hour afternoon session

Teams can only run in one of the optional sessions. This is to accommodate teams still running behind schedule who can opt for the Tuesday session if they need to.

https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/...ogue-schedule/

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Tique

Strange, they were giving as justification for the Qatar a deal with Qatar Airways for the freight. They were aven saying that it will be use to ship the equipment from Qatar to Sebring at that stage. Ar it was just an excuse to justify the Qatar. Who knows

Cars and the bulk of the equipment is sea freight. Some minor stuff is air. The air stuff has obviously not been an issue.

[airbusA346]

Originally Posted by veeten

Then again, it would be better to inquire about this with companies that actually deal with logistics and freight as a mainstay of their business, like Fed Ex, UPS, DHL, and others. International Airlines can make an attempt in transport of certain articles, but only to a degree.

It's the reason why shipping companies are the main when it comes to moving racing vehicles from one continent to another. The time gap is essential for not only those but also transport and support semis, hospitality units and the like.

I'm sure the cargo department at the major international airlines know what they are doing. It's not uncommon for them to transport cars etc.

Originally Posted by Tique

I recall this.
The situation is so ironic. Crisis around the red sea has started last december. We are at the end of february.
Someone has clearky bot done his job.
Luckily, there is a prolog otherwise it would have been fun to rescheduled the race.
We are missing so much Sebring...

As far as I am aware the ship left Europe in December.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by veeten

Then again, it would be better to inquire about this with companies that actually deal with logistics and freight as a mainstay of their business, like Fed Ex, UPS, DHL, and others. International Airlines can make an attempt in transport of certain articles, but only to a degree.

It's the reason why shipping companies are the main when it comes to moving racing vehicles from one continent to another. The time gap is essential for not only those but also transport and support semis, hospitality units and the like.

Originally Posted by airbusA346

I'm sure the cargo department at the major international airlines know what they are doing. It's not uncommon for them to transport cars etc.

it is a good amount of the business Qatari and others from the ME to carry and move cargo. They run full on conversion cargo equipment and carry decent cargo on other flights. They know what they are doing and to pretend otherwise is intentionally dismissive of a major air freight mover, or just completely uninformed

[Graham Goodwin]

Ref sea freight - part of the problem - and there are a LOT of problems at the moment is that a HUGE amount of freight carriers are opting not to take the route that goes into the currently troubled waters.

That means a lot - and I mean A LOT - of additional freight from Europe via Suez is being offloaded on the west coast of the Arabian peninsula for onward despatch by road.

Significantly more than usual which s overloading the port, and road transport infrastructure - so port backlogs are very significant at present in the region.

[tomcug]

https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/...mer-lmdh-cars/
Looks like literally no one except for Porsche is interested in providing customer cars for private teams...

[KlBD]

Originally Posted by tomcug

https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/...mer-lmdh-cars/
Looks like literally no one except for Porsche is interested in providing customer cars for private teams...

It's disappointing but I feel the signs were increasingly pointing this way since the 2023 season started..

[broadrun96]

Well it appears we're going air freight after all

https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/...-qatar-delays/

[veeten]

They were trying to be nice about the situation, but let's face facts: trying to move civilian freight through a militarized area is just plain asking for trouble. It's the smart move, it's a little extra but everything will get there in Italy safe and sound.

[v8supes]

How long before tyre warmers are back? Because it looked lethal on cold tyres today with a decent track temperature so what about when it’s damp or cold at Spa or night at Le Mans?

Don’t get me wrong I’m all for the cold tyres, I think it’s a skill & another variable so I don’t want it scrapped but I also don’t want stupid accidents like Spa last year.

[KlBD]

Originally Posted by v8supes

How long before tyre warmers are back? Because it looked lethal on cold tyres today with a decent track temperature so what about when it’s damp or cold at Spa or night at Le Mans?

Don’t get me wrong I’m all for the cold tyres, I think it’s a skill & another variable so I don’t want it scrapped but I also don’t want stupid accidents like Spa last year.

Notably, it doesn't seem like the AM drivers were caught out by the cold tires last season, the high profile incidents were mostly from pros. The Hypercar qualifying today seemed to depict the drivers being more methodical to warming up their tires, so maybe they just needed the lessons of last year to get used to it.

[kartman24]

Methodical tyre warming goes out the window in a race, bit different in practice and qualifiying.........

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by KlBD

Notably, it doesn't seem like the AM drivers were caught out by the cold tires last season, the high profile incidents were mostly from pros. The Hypercar qualifying today seemed to depict the drivers being more methodical to warming up their tires, so maybe they just needed the lessons of last year to get used to it.

That exactly, none of the incidents were Ams wiping out, Pros took out Ams racing straight away

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by v8supes

How long before tyre warmers are back? Because it looked lethal on cold tyres today with a decent track temperature so what about when it’s damp or cold at Spa or night at Le Mans?

Don’t get me wrong I’m all for the cold tyres, I think it’s a skill & another variable so I don’t want it scrapped but I also don’t want stupid accidents like Spa last year.

Daytona makes it work.

[KlBD]

Perhaps we should also note that there are basically no Am drivers in the top class, and the classes that do have amateurs, GT3 and LMP2 last year, didn't seem to experience as severe of cold tire issues with their Goodyears. In fact, there was even that blurb this morning where Yasser Shahin said the Manthey EMA team were surprised by how little degradation they were seeing with their car. Different products for different operating ranges, I guess.

As for methodical tire warming during the race, there have been enough incidents in the past year that even if the red mist does descend, there is no ambiguity in the drivers' minds as to the consequences of pushing too hard on cold Michelins.

[veeten]

Well, one has to consider that LMP2 is more of a spec series, the same as P3. Hypercar differs from them as the powertrains do, both in design and output. While the tires originate from Michelin, each team and manufacturer have to find solutions as to get the most out of them.

The GTs are at a lesser extent, since their weight is far higher than the other classes being that they're production-based.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Daytona makes it work.

Shhhhh, and don't point out the lateral loads on the banking and the temps around 0 overnight often

[TF110]

The tires also have to meet different demands. A GT tire is a lot different from a hypercar as are the cars themselves. It's hard to put a finger on a single aspect but seeing Pro's struggle while AM's dont... there has to be more to it.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by TF110

The tires also have to meet different demands. A GT tire is a lot different from a hypercar as are the cars themselves. It's hard to put a finger on a single aspect but seeing Pro's struggle while AM's dont... there has to be more to it.

Because most of the Ams don't floor it 1m out of the pits on cold tires to race. It's more fear of screwing up the car, see also why some of the Ams don't follow the pattern. And same reason why some Pros ruin their car on warm up or T1 L1 of a 24 Hour race

[Gerard C]

Intersting to see that during the race some cars were not running the same tyre compound, left and right.

[v8supes]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

Shhhhh, and don't point out the lateral loads on the banking and the temps around 0 overnight often

See, many people made this argument last year including myself when the whole discussion post SPA was to bring the tyre warmers back and for various reasons the conclusion from the media was "you cant compare apples with oranges" or something.

For what its worth i dont want them coming back, i just put the question out there.

[broadrun96]

Because they are parroting what the teams tell them and the teams will always go for warmers and faster faster. You can NOT let teams wag the dog, it has NEVER worked long term for a series