[WEC Race] WEC 6 hours of Fuji- race thread

[EffectiveSprinkles]

That's a bit mean to Fuji, the 2016 WEC race was one of the greatest races I've ever watched. I didn't get to watch this edition but did see some highlights that looked good.

[EffectiveSprinkles]

Also IMSA's BoP-fests dominated by random safety cars are the definition of 'meh' to me.

[bentley speed 8]

Originally Posted by EffectiveSprinkles

That's a bit mean to Fuji, the 2016 WEC race was one of the greatest races I've ever watched. I didn't get to watch this edition but did see some highlights that looked good.

Have to agree on the 2016 race. It was awesome. I didn't follow this edition properly either, but GTE did have some moments, even in the AM category.
I don't know what happened to the Aston Martins, as they've again been nowhere after qualifying on pole. One of the BMWs did have pace, the other I don't know. #92 Porsche extends their comfortable margin in the championship points table by finishing 1st.

[bobec]

WOW, some interest in the series here, with barely two pages in the race thread....

Anyone know why the official WEC site is saying this is the first Porsche GTE PRO victory with the "current model"? I though they won 1-2 at Le Mans with that car.

[airbusA346]

Originally Posted by bobec

WOW, some interest in the series here, with barely two pages in the race thread....

Anyone know why the official WEC site is saying this is the first Porsche GTE PRO victory with the "current model"? I though they won 1-2 at Le Mans with that car.

Probably referring to normal WEC Races.

Proton didn't have a very good race including post race penalties and being investigated for refuelling time irregularities with the car data loggers.

[carbsmith]

LMP1 class balance was hardly relevant in that race anyways. There was only one privateer car with a remotely decent race and I don't think they had the right strategy to ever contend either way. At this point I think we probably need to wait until next year for those cars to have enough development to make equalization even viable. Most interesting thing about LMP1 was watching what a pain it was for the BR1 to pass a slower Toyota early on because of how badly it would lose off of every slow corner.

[Juntos]

Another extremely boring race. It makes F1 looks exciting.

[Bentley03]

Certainly not a classic, but held my interest for it's entirety. Nishy's commentary was again outstanding, which helped. He's in a class of his own at the moment (and I include the team working across the Pond when I say that).

For me, any notion of the privateer P1's actually racing Toyota through EOT is long gone (not that I ever believed it was possible in the first place). What we need is race long reliability from those SMP BR1's, because the potential is there for some epic racing between SMP and Rebellion.

[Bentley03]

More post race penalties:

http://www.dailysportscar.com/2018/1...es-podium.html

Dempsey Proton should be in big trouble for this, but seems a smack on the wrist is all they'll get. Or will this be taken further...?

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Bentley03

The prevalence of post-race penalties affecting finishing results has bee a depressingly common theme in recent months.

Wouldn't be an ACO race without it

[Racer65]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

You can always sign up to the online system and pay for a system that doesn't work. That's always a fun way of doing it.

Worked absolutely perfectly for me and has on every race this season. Same for both my sons and my brother-in-law.

[EffectiveSprinkles]

Yes I've also never had a problem with the WEC app as far as I can remember. Maybe one time a replay didn't work but the live stuff has always worked very well for me. Always HD, no interruptions or buffering.

[Juntos]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Wouldn't be an ACO race without it

Someone needs to show how he gets paid. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by Bentley03

More post race penalties:

http://www.dailysportscar.com/2018/1...es-podium.html

Dempsey Proton should be in big trouble for this, but seems a smack on the wrist is all they'll get. Or will this be taken further...?

Modifying the reading of refuelling time with the implication that this was to cover up another cheat! Sounds really dodgy.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by Adam43

Modifying the reading of refuelling time with the implication that this was to cover up another cheat! Sounds really dodgy.

Yeah, I could understand a timing issue and I understood Land and others with refueling "challenges" this season. But modifying the code so your time reads plus 2 seconds? You'd think they would notice that and surprised there isn't a tougher penalty. The other guys this season were pushing the regs and there was some ambiguity, this seems black letter and I think exclusion from another race could be warranted. Doubt they would but I don't think it would be over the top.

[TF110]

I enjoyed the race. I love the Fuji track and 100r into the hairpin is a great turn. There was a lot of passing in the race, just because lmp1 didn't have a challenge to Toyota didn't mean that it was boring. At least to me that is. Once the rain was there, no one would touch Toyota anyway. Even in 2015 when they had by far the slowest lmp1 they were mighty in the rain thanks to the dual kers. For those that said the weight had no affect, they were slower than 2016. 1:22's in qualifying that year vs 1:23's this year. And we know that the Toyota has been breaking lap records before the weight addition. So it looks like it cost them nearly a second. Private teams are almost there but it doesn't help their cause with their unreliability playing a factor. They'll get there I'm sure of it, one way or another.

[outnumbered]

Originally Posted by Bentley03

Certainly not a classic, but held my interest for it's entirety. Nishy's commentary was again outstanding, which helped. He's in a class of his own at the moment (and I include the team working across the Pond when I say that).

McNish has a great deal of insight... and then has to spend half his time correcting Martin Haven's latest piece of shouty uninformed speculation

[Damian Baldi]

Originally Posted by Bentley03

For me, any notion of the privateer P1's actually racing Toyota through EOT is long gone (not that I ever believed it was possible in the first place). What we need is race long reliability from those SMP BR1's, because the potential is there for some epic racing between SMP and Rebellion.

I agree with that, Rebellion and SMP have the same speed, and ByKolles have their own battle with DragonSpeed. Isn't much, but is what we have right now. It could be a lot more interesting if SMP could get rid of they mechanical issues.

BTW, congratulation to Koba, Mike and Lopez, this time they have had what they needed at Le Mans.

[Deleted]

Toyota domination and (to-be-resumed-for-LM-2019?) built-in mileage advantage might be boring, but even that + Rebellion vs SMP & Kolles vs Dragonspeed is still infinitely more interesting than what spec galore proam LMP2 as whole has to offer - or BoP-DPi-lucky-dog for that matter. I try to watch ELMS and ASLMS from time to time, but I always fall asleep at some point because it just... doesn't seem to matter. You know that the cars are gonna be exactly the same in the final round as it was in the first round (save some possible ACO special performance waivers for non-Orecas) and that a team with best chosen fake silver drivers is gonna take it away

It is worrying though that they've started to make leaps towards bopping the individual nonhybrid cars now, already they've given weight break, more petrol energy, more fuel and bigger refueling restrictors for NA engines in contrast to turbocharged. That was never the case in the past it may still be "just" engines but who knows what'll happen now that EoT is basically synonym to BoP

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Toyota domination and (to-be-resumed-for-LM-2019?) built-in mileage advantage might be boring, but even that + Rebellion vs SMP & Kolles vs Dragonspeed is still infinitely more interesting than what spec galore proam LMP2 as whole has to offer - or BoP-DPi-lucky-dog for that matter. I try to watch ELMS and ASLMS from time to time, but I always fall asleep at some point because it just... doesn't seem to matter. You know that the cars are gonna be exactly the same in the final round as it was in the first round (save some possible ACO special performance waivers for non-Orecas) and that a team with best chosen fake silver drivers is gonna take it away

It is worrying though that they've started to make leaps towards bopping the individual nonhybrid cars now, already they've given weight break, more petrol energy, more fuel and bigger refueling restrictors for NA engines in contrast to turbocharged. That was never the case in the past it may still be "just" engines but who knows what'll happen now that EoT is basically synonym to BoP

It's not ideal, but there's definitely a need to balance turbo and NA engines. Another thing is the EOT is class wide and not individual cars ala DPi. Both turbo and NA non-hybrids were given another break for Fuji. Also it seems the ByKolles lost a turbo and was down over 100hp in the race. They were multiple laps down on Rebellion even, but still a respectable race for them.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by TF110

It's not ideal, but there's definitely a need to balance turbo and NA engines. Another thing is the EOT is class wide and not individual cars ala DPi. Both turbo and NA non-hybrids were given another break for Fuji. Also it seems the ByKolles lost a turbo and was down over 100hp in the race. They were multiple laps down on Rebellion even, but still a respectable race for them.

Is there though? Zytek seems to work just 'fine' on any configuration.

https://www.motorsport.com/wec/news/...-cars/3159042/
This article is from prior Silverstone but the line "this is designed to equalise the stint length of the cars" really bugs me, I don't get why every single category needs to have dead equal fuel stints. It's not like anyone's forcing teams to use specific engine here, they can get whatever they wish from literally any supplier

The idea that it's not chassis-specific balancing a la DPi is comforting, however if we loose say Dragonspeed for next year and the Orecas are only chassis carrying NA engines still, then it will effectively be chassis specific. Just as it is effectively Toyota that's being measured and not "hybrid" because of the lack of other competitors. And the reason it becomes more BoP than Eot is that there aren't really any pre-determined parameters and timetables for possibly changing performance values, but instead they are done in ad hoc fashion

Anyway as I said it's still superior to what else is there, after all it is the only sportscar class out there still allowing actual technology to determine performance, however the signs of change are there similarly to say LMGTE at the turn of the last decade. I think the new hypercar regulations definitely head towards that too, unfortunately