IMSA IMSA 2024

[tomcug]

Can someone please explain how that new BOP system works? What are the parameters that manufacturers have to declare regarding their expected performance. Target laptimes? Or more than just that? And I think with such a system there's always a risk that certain manufacturer didn't want to specifically gamble the system but just underestimated potential of their car... and it's a costly mistake now.

[airbusA346]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

Oops

https://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/f...turers-points/

Teams keep their points, wins, etc. Just manufacturer hit. Have to wonder if they both updated software or other to make changes across the board rather than team doing it.

Surely the teams/drivers should also be stripped of their points seen as they also benefited.

But then again IMSA have form with this after letting MSR keep their win at Daytona last year.

[Adam43]

This is often the approach in US Motorsport. Unless really egregious changing a result after the race is avoided, but it is still felt important that some pain is felt.

[airbusA346]

.

[airbusA346]

Originally Posted by Adam43

This is often the approach in US Motorsport. Unless really egregious changing a result after the race is avoided, but it is still felt important that some pain is felt.

Yet they still benefit from cheating. Won't look good if one of them won the championship.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by airbusA346

Yet they still benefit from cheating. Won't look good if one of them won the championship.

I get that. I was just saying what I believe the general philosophy or thought process is.

This is an interesting area as it is a two way process. The quality of IMSA’s assessment and competitor’s gaming of that assessment is not black and white. So maybe a middle ground is appropriate.

Maybe more draconian is appropriate. Maybe they should just suck it up and correct it for Sebring.

[broadrun96]

The argument against the teams themselves is fairly clear. It was not a team by team but rather Ferrari and BMW settings. The BoP is declared as to how the manufacturer wants to meet the desired pacing of IMSA. In this case the declared settings were not followed and the teams aren't the ones who declared or likely are responsible for that monitoring. Now whether they should have realized, that's debatable. But would a team say, uh we think we're supposed to be slower?? Probably not, if they were unreasonably faster or the settings were well outside of what they would expect maybe but I'm guessing they would go to manufacturer before IMSA in that case to confirm, and then IMSA if they felt something was afoot.

To me it's fairly clear, the established parameters were clearly modified so it's not an accident. It looks more like they were careless and didn't correct Column A when they adjusted Column B as part of an adjustment they felt the car needed. I think it's a better system of letting the teams meet an output goal rather than here's the settings, BUT needs oversight by both manufacturers and IMSA and CAREFUL oversight

[airbusA346]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

The argument against the teams themselves is fairly clear. It was not a team by team but rather Ferrari and BMW settings. The BoP is declared as to how the manufacturer wants to meet the desired pacing of IMSA. In this case the declared settings were not followed and the teams aren't the ones who declared or likely are responsible for that monitoring. Now whether they should have realized, that's debatable. But would a team say, uh we think we're supposed to be slower?? Probably not, if they were unreasonably faster or the settings were well outside of what they would expect maybe but I'm guessing they would go to manufacturer before IMSA in that case to confirm, and then IMSA if they felt something was afoot.

To me it's fairly clear, the established parameters were clearly modified so it's not an accident. It looks more like they were careless and didn't correct Column A when they adjusted Column B as part of an adjustment they felt the car needed. I think it's a better system of letting the teams meet an output goal rather than here's the settings, BUT needs oversight by both manufacturers and IMSA and CAREFUL oversight

But again, the teams were using cars that were deemed to be cheating, so why should they benefit by keeping their finishing positions/wins and the points.

[tomcug]

I agree with broadrun here. The manufacturers declare performance numbers (whatever that exactly means), the teams don't do that. So it wouldn't be exactly fair for team x to be penalised solely because they run car y. Teams doing shady things like Shank last year, that's a different story of course

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by airbusA346

But again, the teams were using cars that were deemed to be cheating, so why should they benefit by keeping their finishing positions/wins and the points.

If they had said the teams lost out I wouldn't be upset there either. But I could understand the position of it was across the board for the car so no single team benefits.

Now I could see them say the next time everyone gets excluded saying you saw what happened before and thought you would risk it? Well now you've screwed your teams too. Yes it's a change in the decision BUT they've already shown there's a punishment and nothing says they can't increase each violation to put teeth to it and everyone is aware they're tracking it

[airbusA346]

Originally Posted by tomcug

I agree with broadrun here. The manufacturers declare performance numbers (whatever that exactly means), the teams don't do that. So it wouldn't be exactly fair for team x to be penalised solely because they run car y. Teams doing shady things like Shank last year, that's a different story of course

Originally Posted by broadrun96

If they had said the teams lost out I wouldn't be upset there either. But I could understand the position of it was across the board for the car so no single team benefits.

Now I could see them say the next time everyone gets excluded saying you saw what happened before and thought you would risk it? Well now you've screwed your teams too. Yes it's a change in the decision BUT they've already shown there's a punishment and nothing says they can't increase each violation to put teeth to it and everyone is aware they're tracking it

Isn't there a saying that you win and lose as a team (inc the manufacturer).


So back at the 2016 Spa 24H, should the teams/drivers have been punished by the SRO?

https://www.dailysportscar.com/2016/...superpole.html

[v8supes]

Its a good question Mr Airbus, one that i dont have an answer on.

I just think that its a terrible look for IMSA. How can we believe that what we are seeing on track is genuine, now?

As for the teams, Did they know? Didnt they know? How can we & IMSA ever really know?

TBH BOP is a necessary evil but im always left wondering if teams are manipulating it. For example, was the Mustang performance at Daytona down to sandbagging to get a good BOP for Le Mans?

[Adam43]

If they’d disqualified them after the race that wouldn’t have helped the perception of “can we believe that what we see on track is genuine” at all.

They’ve sent a shot across the bows of the manufacture hard. That helps.

I get the everyone should have been disqualified! Everyone understands that situation it doesn’t need repeating again. I’m probably in that camp. However I also understand it isn’t black and white here and there is a general approach that what happens on Sunday is the result.

Looked at this way this you can believe what you saw on the track for that race. The result stayed the result.

IMSA and WEC use different BoP and are very different methods for GT. IMSA’s method is simpler for cost reasons. While they do share data I doubt it will make any difference to Le Mans.

There was a very good article in Racecar Engineering that went through the GT3 BoP a couple of months back. Sorry to be repetitive and say that again, I sound like a broken record here.

[tomcug]

Originally Posted by airbusA346

So back at the 2016 Spa 24H, should the teams/drivers have been punished by the SRO?

https://www.dailysportscar.com/2016/...superpole.html

Different situation in my opinion. At Spa in 2016 these cars were disqualified because they were running illegal parts. Here it's only about cars being outside of performance window declared by their manufacturers. There was no illegal equipment on those cars.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by airbusA346

Isn't there a saying that you win and lose as a team (inc the manufacturer).





So back at the 2016 Spa 24H, should the teams/drivers have been punished by the SRO?



https://www.dailysportscar.com/2016/...superpole.html

Well they aren't truly manufacturer teams so no, not equivalent there I don't think. They might be the aligned program but aren't the old GTE factory team levels.

And IMSA rules and SRO rules aren't the same thing. I have no idea what SRO procedure would be so again not equivalent comparison there

[KlBD]

I was looking over the green flag averages for the Rolex 24 over the past few weeks and sure enough, it seems like all examples of the 296 GT3 and the Paul Miller M4 were noticeably stronger than the bulk of the GTD/Pro field at the Rolex.

Curiously however, the GTD winning Winward AMG also had a noticeably better average pace than the other GTD cars. But the difference between Winward, Lone Star, and KPM did not seem as big as Paul Miller vs Turner Motorsport in comparison to the rest of their classes (I'm not including the Sunenergy1 car because of their issues during the race), or again, the fact that all examples of the 296 seemed to be on top of the field pace-wise.

[joeb]

Originally Posted by KlBD

I was looking over the green flag averages for the Rolex 24 over the past few weeks and sure enough, it seems like all examples of the 296 GT3 and the Paul Miller M4 were noticeably stronger than the bulk of the GTD/Pro field at the Rolex.

Curiously however, the GTD winning Winward AMG also had a noticeably better average pace than the other GTD cars. But the difference between Winward, Lone Star, and KPM did not seem as big as Paul Miller vs Turner Motorsport in comparison to the rest of their classes (I'm not including the Sunenergy1 car because of their issues during the race), or again, the fact that all examples of the 296 seemed to be on top of the field pace-wise.

BMW doesn't seem to know why they are getting this penalty either:

https://sportscar365.com/imsa/iwsc/b...ytona-penalty/

I would be interested to hear the series explanation on what variables they looked at to determine the penalty. For that matter, it would be interesting to see how all the cars not receiving penalties fared with these variables as well.

[Coach Ep]

Excellent behind-the-scenes piece about HoR's AM Valkyrie GTP/HY project, targeted to debut in 2025 (next season).

Fingers crossed the car will be well balanced against the fleet of LMDh cars and will be the forerunner of additional LMH manufacturers (Buongorgnio Ferrari!) joining IMSA.

[Coach Ep]

Forgot the link: https://www.dailysportscar.com/2024/...lmh-debut.html

[joeb]

I had actually sort of forgotten about this project with all the buildup to season starting!

[broadrun96]

Sebring list out

https://www.imsa.com/wp-content/uplo...Entry-List.pdf

11 GTP, 13 LMP2, 12 GTD Pros, 22 GTDs

[PhilipR]

Cannot wait for the race and the entry list is still top notch

What gets me though is in 2 years we only have 1 extra LMDH in IMSA - whilst WEC is at 19 hypercars at the moment. LMDH is IMSAs regulations but still seems there are not as many as maybe predicted racing in IMSA yet. Also with exception of Porsche no privateers either

[broadrun96]

Well take out the Hypercar and WEC would be more IMSA like. And it appears the Hypercar folks aren't too keen on moving to IMSA and instead can sell a series where they appear at least once on home soil.

Alpine is rumored consistently to be MSR's return to IMSA in 25 and it's not like having 11 cars is a slouch and terrible event. Rather 11 cars who can truly fund it for years than we have 22 but all the money is gone this year series. Plus it means teams can create and run their programs in each series and we effectively get 30 Hypercars/GTPs running and twice as much racing

[Simmi]

Originally Posted by PhilipR

What gets me though is in 2 years we only have 1 extra LMDH in IMSA - whilst WEC is at 19 hypercars at the moment.

It doesn't seem like any OEM, other than Porsche, have the resources to really put a customer programme into action. You can look at it and say - do others not want to sell cars? But in order to do that you need a large amount of infrastructure to be able to service customers. That's a lot of new hires, facilities, resource - I just don't think the desire is truly there.

Cadillac look pretty spread thin to be honest. The funding isn't there for two cars in WEC. Ganassi only running a single car in IMSA. They can't even get the works side optimised. No surprise they aren't trying to roll out more customer chassis - and instead look to be prioritising Corvette GT3.

From the outside looking in, BMW programmes have never looked to be flush with cash in the same way others were. You only need to look at how relatively little they've had a presence in WEC/Europe in ACO rules racing.

Lambo have obviously missed deadlines and are stretched themselves on the works side.

So I don't really see room for a tonne of growth on the customer side. The hope is that when manufacturers inevitably do start to leave, teams are able to pick up their equipment and still run it to a high level.

[veeten]

Then there's the main difference between IMSA and WEC when it comes to those car counts: LMP2 & LMP3. WEC decided that they would remove from the championship and put them over at ELMS, leaving more room for Hypercar (LMH and LMDh) entries.

There's only a couple of races that IMSA will be running just the GTPs and GT3s, while the P2s and P3s have their own races, occasionally. I believe, eventually, they just might move P2/3 to their own series and keep the GTP and GT3 together for the big races, and have Daytona and PLM for when everyone will run together.

But that's just me...