[WEC] Ferrari Hypercar Discussion

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by J Jay

They have every right to pursue this, and they should be rejected every time; the right decision was taken for most overall benefit (teams and fans).

But let's not pretend that Ferrari are uniquely odious. Any other team on-course for a victory would be doing the same - the points they would have gained if the race was not resumed would have made a big difference to the championship result.

(And before anyone mentions Imola, that was entirely Ferrari's fault, but it is not relevant to this protest).

Exactly right.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by flatlandsman

My point remains, does anyone really care about winning the WEC title as MUCH as winning LM, that is all that matters to the drivers, teams, media and fans in many ways.

Yes it look and sounds great, but when you look at the big picture of what happened at Spa a decision was made for fans, and now this team are trying to undo that decision and also probably put in place a rule that prevents this type of decision ever being made again.

Look at the bigger picture folks, this is a very poor read of the room by Ferrari and is one of the most selfish things I have seen for years in racing, I know that IS the sport to these people, but look at the bigger picture, surely.

What happens next time, Porsche are leading, the race is stopped for hours, and the team work their knackers off to fix the track, then make the utterly fabulous decision to restart the race but this time Ferrari benefits.

Is that so hard to take? Read the room, see the bigger picture you selfish ignorant idiots. Or is this just a ruse to back down at the last bloody minute and make themselves look magnanimous!!

I think a chill pill is probably in order....

[Gingers4Justice]

If the argument is that WEC rounds are simply insignificant, why do we care about the fact they're appealing? I think it proves that both us, the fans, and the teams taking part in the WEC see each round as a race worth winning. I think that's great for the whole series, including Le Mans.

There's no way that the FIA are going to declare them the winners or reverse what happened but if there's one good thing that could come from this appeal, it would be that the regulations are changed. It has to be said, it would have been fairer if every team had a change to refuel and change tires under the red flag conditions.

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

There's no way that the FIA are going to declare them the winners or reverse what happened but if there's one good thing that could come from this appeal, it would be that the regulations are changed. It has to be said, it would have been fairer if every team had a change to refuel and change tires under the red flag conditions.

This seems to be the most likely outcome, after the Ferrari appeal is dealt with. Teams were allowed to change tyres, but that was due to the risk of tyre failures from running left over debris left from the Bamber/Galeal crash.

[PhilipR]

Question is what are the regs saying?

I guess it is about consistency sometimes they red flag and end the race there and then and this one time they allowed it to run with the remaining time. And I get it depending on conditions, time of day, contract with track sometimes it might be possible to extend a race like Spa (held on a Saturday, probably track was not in use next day) and other times they cannot - example is N24 last weekend as the track was needed for another even late on Sunday evening

I do wonder if the regs give the organisers the opportunity to decide a race can continue and be expaneded by the remaining time, expanded by a time less than remaining time or not expanded at all.

For the record, I am glad the organisers have decided to continue tha race and give us the last 1 hour and 44 minutes but to Ferrari this could be a case of following the regs as written by the FIA and ACO

[deggis]

Originally Posted by PhilipR

Question is what are the regs saying?

14.3.1.
If the circumstances so require, the Stewards may take the decision to stop and/or modify the race time set. This may not exceed the time of the Competition provided for in Appendix 1 of the Competition.

Has been in the rulebook at least since 2022.

[PhilipR]

Originally Posted by deggis

Has been in the rulebook at least since 2022.

So no issues then. Ferrari's appeal should not stand unless we are missing something

[flatlandsman]

My fear is not that the regs are changed, it is that a races will not be restarted in this way again, the only positive thing to come out of this is a small change to rules that allow something to be done under a red flag, but even then, teams are pushing the limits all the time to find an advantage, if Jota and Porsche took a decisive decision how can that also be penalised just because they in effect got lucky.

It is the same as trying to find an advantage just as a yellow comes out, that is based on track position often times, not pace or strategy, it is pure luck and Ferrari seem unwilling to accept they were unlucky. Thousands of race teams are unlucky every weekend get over it.

I loath foot stamping from people like this, it smacks of wanting to be more important than you are, WEC was fine before you came along, and it will be fine after.

[Toyotats03OUS]

Originally Posted by flatlandsman

My point remains, does anyone really care about winning the WEC title as MUCH as winning LM, that is all that matters to the drivers, teams, media and fans in many ways.

Yes it look and sounds great, but when you look at the big picture of what happened at Spa a decision was made for fans, and now this team are trying to undo that decision and also probably put in place a rule that prevents this type of decision ever being made again.

Look at the bigger picture folks, this is a very poor read of the room by Ferrari and is one of the most selfish things I have seen for years in racing, I know that IS the sport to these people, but look at the bigger picture, surely.

What happens next time, Porsche are leading, the race is stopped for hours, and the team work their knackers off to fix the track, then make the utterly fabulous decision to restart the race but this time Ferrari benefits.

Is that so hard to take? Read the room, see the bigger picture you selfish ignorant idiots. Or is this just a ruse to back down at the last bloody minute and make themselves look magnanimous!!

I agree! if it was the other way around and Ferrari had won the race, they would've never complained, in fact they would absolutely credit the WEC for the great decision!

but even though WEC title is not as meaningful for these teams, I think for Ferrari getting a win other than their handed over le man victory is what matters to them, I think the fact that have not and can not win a race might had fuel their crying!

as a diehard Toyota fan, if Toyota was in the position that Ferrari was in and the wec made the same choice I would've been happy as well. nobody wants to see a 6 hour race end in 3 hours and nobody wants to see a team to get a free win, the battle on the track was the right choice for the series and the fans!

[Toyotats03OUS]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

If the argument is that WEC rounds are simply insignificant, why do we care about the fact they're appealing? I think it proves that both us, the fans, and the teams taking part in the WEC see each round as a race worth winning. I think that's great for the whole series, including Le Mans.

There's no way that the FIA are going to declare them the winners or reverse what happened but if there's one good thing that could come from this appeal, it would be that the regulations are changed. It has to be said, it would have been fairer if every team had a change to refuel and change tires under the red flag conditions.

Ferrari cares the most because they have not won a race other then le mans (BOP handed to the them) they have failed miserably at winning when in 90 percent of the races they have the fastest more favorable BOP, so to them winning a race means at lot, and from what we are seeing, them appealing, looks like winning at all cost lol

[flatlandsman]

As an aside, was watching some great amateur test day footage earlier and it seems certainly the red cars are using quite aggressive ALS on overrun, I did not get as much of it from the yellow car.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by Toyotats03OUS

Ferrari cares the most because they have not won a race other then le mans (BOP handed to the them) they have failed miserably at winning when in 90 percent of the races they have the fastest more favorable BOP, so to them winning a race means at lot, and from what we are seeing, them appealing, looks like winning at all cost lol

If you had ever bothered to look at the BoP tables instead of just imagining the numbers you might have realized that Ferrari has cosntantly had the worst or second worst power-to-weight ratio, including '23 LM.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by Toyotats03OUS

Ferrari cares the most because they have not won a race other then le mans (BOP handed to the them) they have failed miserably at winning when in 90 percent of the races they have the fastest more favorable BOP, so to them winning a race means at lot, and from what we are seeing, them appealing, looks like winning at all cost lol

The difference between power to weight of Toyota and Ferrari is very similar this year’s Le Mans as it was last year.

Toyota gets some back this year over 250km/h, but Ferrari are one more year developed. 2nd year rather than 1st. Toyota 4th not 3rd. They are doomed! if you believe in that kind of thing.

[tomcug]

Originally Posted by deggis

If you had ever bothered to look at the BoP tables instead of just imagining the numbers you might have realized that Ferrari has cosntantly had the worst or second worst power-to-weight ratio, including '23 LM.

Toyotats03OUS meant actual on-track performance, not purely theoretical P/W ratio. And on-track performance of the 499P was always at least good, usually great.

[Articus]

Originally Posted by flatlandsman

As an aside, was watching some great amateur test day footage earlier and it seems certainly the red cars are using quite aggressive ALS on overrun, I did not get as much of it from the yellow car.

Are you sure it is anti-lag? Could it also be harvesting?

[deggis]

Originally Posted by tomcug

Toyotats03OUS meant actual on-track performance, not purely theoretical P/W ratio. And on-track performance of the 499P was always at least good, usually great.

Weight and power limits set by BoP aren't theoretical.

[tomcug]

Sure cars run with values set by BOP but if you looked at P/W alone ignoring car characteristics at all, you'd come to a conclusion that the 499P should be one of the slowest cars. You said it yourself, worst or 2nd worst P/W ratio.
But the goal of BOP is to balance the perfomance of different cars so it's expected for some to have one of the most favorable P/W ratios and for some to be on the other extremum. What matters is an actual on-track performance and you can't say that it's something that the 499P ever lacked.

[Toyotats03OUS]

Originally Posted by deggis

If you had ever bothered to look at the BoP tables instead of just imagining the numbers you might have realized that Ferrari has cosntantly had the worst or second worst power-to-weight ratio, including '23 LM.

I have. I think I should’ve been more clear, I am talking in reference to Toyota, yes Ferrari has one of the worst bop of you compared to a GTE car lol but not worst than Toyota. But you said it yourself, they have the second worst bop.


Toyota has managed to win races with the worst BOP. Ferrari has failed continually and not because of the lock of pace. I think they have a very strong car, if not the strongest car, they have managed to be competitive since day one while teams like peouget, bmw, Porsche and Lamborghini struggle to stay in the lead lap when they first started the series (Peugeot still struggles) and as all these team get better, it is just going to get harder and harder for them to win. Ferrari just has a terrible team! Until recently i actually liked Ferrari over Porsche, but after seeing what a soar loser Ferrari is that has changed. Not only because of this issue at spa, they just cry for every little thing even tho they have the fastest car on every single race.

[Articus]

Originally Posted by deggis

If you had ever bothered to look at the BoP tables instead of just imagining the numbers you might have realized that Ferrari has cosntantly had the worst or second worst power-to-weight ratio, including '23 LM.

To discuss Ferrari's BOP as "worst or second worst" is in my opinion not the correct framing of the BOP figures. The BOP is an intentional balancing system. "Worst or best" has no meaning. No one car is "better" than another because the manufacturers did not design cars under an assumption that there would not be any BOP. They have simply been built to a performance window in an arbitrary fashion. Some manufacturers used this opportunity to include brand styling cues which may not be conducive to outright performance, but help marketing. That was the point of the category.

So first you should not compare LMDh to LMH. The LMH cars have advantages in the influence of the front MGU-K on the handling of the car under braking into corners, as well as more design freedom since they do not have to have a common spine from one of 4 designated constructors.

The comparison is meaningless since each circuit has different a different sensitivity to power and weight, but here is Ferrari vs Toyota:



But again it's meaningless because this is not a competition to receive the highest power-to-weight ratio and cry foul if one has not received it. Power-to-weight is also not the end all be all because different circuits have different sensitivities to power and weight. It is a formula designed to balance the cars at each circuit based on the homologation data, a process that every manufacturer agreed to. No one has "worse" BOP. Everyone has a BOP that balances their theoretical performance with that of the others on a track to track basis.

[flatlandsman]

Articus, you may be right similar to the Acura in IMSA, but it is noticeable and the other turbo cars do not do it, someone has uploaded some great footage from Arnage on YT and you can really hear it there, sounds exactly like ALS.

[veeten]

Then, there's the retirement of #83, and the very smoky end to the hybrid battery and most of the onboard electronic systems. Kinda similar to what some of those driving hybrid and EV cars deal with...

[FIRE]

With two Le Mans victories and maybe even a third Ferari will leave sportscar racing after next season?

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by veeten

Then, there's the retirement of #83, and the very smoky end to the hybrid battery and most of the onboard electronic systems. Kinda similar to what some of those driving hybrid and EV cars deal with...

Never ever happens in ICE cars before has it

[PhilipR]

Laurens on his podcast did refer to the Ferraris losing a lot of oil and it dirties the windscreen of the cars behind. ALso mention that if it is intentional then that is smart XD

[Aysedasi]

There was certainly discussion of it very early in the race, but I don't recall any later on, but I didn't have my ears on continually....