[WEC] LMP Future Regulations (was Le Mans EVO rules - now hypercar rules)

[GasperG]

The real cost problem are not the fuel flow sensors by them selves, but engine developement to get max power out of it with engine efficiency. Why bother with air restrictors, just cap the max output, they already have torque sensors in the cars. Efficiency would then gain you only stint lenght. Going with air restrictors basicly means no lean burn = low efficiency - this will not happen.

[chernaudi]

Try telling Audi that--why did they run DFI on the R8 and diesel engines before the hybrid era? If you can't make more power, you have to increase stint length to get an advantage. Not to mention that those solutions did give power and torque increases.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

They'd dial it back because the costs are out of control. Even a 2mj system that you've got to design and build yourself is still significantly more expensive than the £20m a year budget that McLaren is after.

Moving back to a GT300 style hybrid system is most definitely a dialed back set of technical regulations from what we have now. When I used the term dialed back, it wasn't about going back to an ICE only, but reeling in the hybrid system development costs, which is basically what you're suggesting too. Since hybrids were converging on the same systems bit by bit anyway, then a standardised system could be used. That way it would also stop these silly deals that all 3 had in place, restricting the suppliers from supplying the other teams, which pushes costs up further.

IMO (which means nothing, I'm just a dude on the internet): slightly less powerful hybrid systems, that are standard parts that you purchase from the ACO, developed by a third party. It includes everything you need to run it, and an API for the ECU developers.

The only thing about the GT300 cars is that they use a street derived system and it works. The ACO is all about being related to the street, so imo, what's the big deal? The Zytek kers lmp1 was back in 2009. 8 years ago. There's no way that a kers system is a huge expense now when they ran with one that long ago. Toyota ran one on a Supra before that and it was using a capacitor instead of a battery for storage. Hybrids are commonplace now. Imo, that's not why the costs skyrocketed. It was because VAG had two teams trying to win 'at all costs' and didn't mind putting up huge sums. I doubt Toyota would have a hard time spending less money than they do now. They'd prefer it. And the technology they have being used goes to their street cars so it's a win-win for manufacturers. There's no other series that gets the headlines for hybrid cars except F1 and that's at least 4 times as much money

[Akrapovic]

You might well be right, but IMO that's too simplified. You can use the same logic on internal combustion engines and how they're common place, dirt cheap etc. But teams will still spend an insane amount of money on them at times - like Mercedes in F1, even in the 90s with the exotic materials. Just because it can be done cheaply, doesn't mean it is being done cheaply. It didn't help that all the manufacturers had agreements with battery suppliers for exclusive deals. That alone forces budgets higher because there's no knowledge sharing and everybody has to do their own development work on systems where big gains can be made.

I do agree that you can have simple hybrid systems that are much cheaper (hence why I think there should be an off-the-shelf system you buy), but open development hybrids are a money pit at this level.

[hondafan37]

John Dagys in sportscar365: The concept of a “LMP2-plus” car with DPi-like bodywork and more powerful engines, is rumored.

http://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/m...sday-notebook/

[chernaudi]

And on the ICE front, you have to remember that in LMP900 that Panoz ran an EFI equipped, aluminum block, pushrod V8 based on the Ford 351 Windsor NASCAR engine. BMW even ran a stock block engine in the LMR (basically a 6 liter version of the 6.1 liter V12 out of the McLaren F1). But undoubtedly the BMW engine was more expensive than the Panoz Ford based engine.

And of course Audi ran an engine in the R8 that Audi Sport designed from scratch to be mated in unit with the cars it was designed for. Not a stock block engine, a dedicated racing engine that would later be adapted for DFI.

I personally think that unless someone goes way out there, the ICE in race cars will be based on proven concepts and I don't see that changing soon. I think that stock block engines should be given a chance to do something. There should be the option to do either a production based high performance engine, or a full racing engine.

I don't want to get back into the long drawn out debate on costs. Fact is that race teams will spend what they feel like spending if it gets them podiums or wins. The issue is make it less effective that if you spend the most you're automatically going to leave everyone out there for dead.

Am I saying that privateer teams should automatically be able to win heads up against a factory team? No, but they should at least be within a certain performance percentage. We have to remember that not all factory teams are equal, nor are all privateers equal.

And when you introduce a relatively new technology as far as racing goes, you're going to drive up costs because teams will always go to get the max out of it as quick as they can, especially when there's no or a high performance cap (3.5MJ 2012/2013 vs 8MJ currently).

But some more freedom and incentives to do different things on the engine end would be nice. However, I don't know of any OEMs or anyone else who'd spend the time and energy on a concept like turbines or rotary engines.

[AoB Special Stage]

Originally Posted by GasperG

I would go in the opposite direction, IMO engine development is a bigger part of costs than hybrid system and it's all because of fuel flow formula and by engine part I also mean ERS-H.

I was for fuel flow regulation in the last years because it makes a lot to road relevance, I mean do we have petrol engines with 45% efficiency? We do not, so this development was great.

We have a winner. The electric bits aren't that expensive (partially because the road car side eats that cost), but developing these complicated turbulent ignition pre-combustion blah-blah-blah etc. systems in the ICE are insanely expensive, not to mention the reliability isn't there for road car use as this point.

On a side note, are these components finding their way into the NRE mills in Japan? I haven't heard one way or the other.

[HORNDAWG]

Originally Posted by hondafan37

John Dagys in sportscar365: The concept of a “LMP2-plus” car with DPi-like bodywork and more powerful engines, is rumored.

http://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/m...sday-notebook/

LMPi ...







L.P.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

You might well be right, but IMO that's too simplified. You can use the same logic on internal combustion engines and how they're common place, dirt cheap etc. But teams will still spend an insane amount of money on them at times - like Mercedes in F1, even in the 90s with the exotic materials. Just because it can be done cheaply, doesn't mean it is being done cheaply. It didn't help that all the manufacturers had agreements with battery suppliers for exclusive deals. That alone forces budgets higher because there's no knowledge sharing and everybody has to do their own development work on systems where big gains can be made.

I do agree that you can have simple hybrid systems that are much cheaper (hence why I think there should be an off-the-shelf system you buy), but open development hybrids are a money pit at this level.

I don't know what you mean by "too simplified". There's hybrids on the road cars that're no less technologically innovative than what you see on these race cars. KERS was common on street cars before race cars.

Things like solar roof panels (aston GTE has them), cylinder deactivation, VVT, torque vectoring etc. all exist on road cars but not on lmps. There's a lot of things left to open up that would be easy to implement on these cars that are restricted. Opening up the rule book doesn't drive up costs, restricting it does. F1 has that problem. They quit in-season testing, limit to 4 engines per year, limit only two chassis per team per race instead of a spare... all that raised costs when they were supposed to lower them

The Acura NSX, Porsche 919 have in-wheel e-motors but lmps are limited to using them on the axle. There's lots of things that can be done but the rule book is so tight that you don't get much variation.

On topic of the 'future'; it looks like an old lmp1 player wants back in- Wirth Research

[carbsmith]

Originally Posted by hondafan37

John Dagys in sportscar365: The concept of a “LMP2-plus” car with DPi-like bodywork and more powerful engines, is rumored.

http://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/m...sday-notebook/

It's Dagys.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by TF110

I don't know what you mean by "too simplified". There's hybrids on the road cars that're no less technologically innovative than what you see on these race cars. KERS was common on street cars before race cars.

Things like solar roof panels (aston GTE has them), cylinder deactivation, VVT, torque vectoring etc. all exist on road cars but not on lmps. There's a lot of things left to open up that would be easy to implement on these cars that are restricted. Opening up the rule book doesn't drive up costs, restricting it does. F1 has that problem. They quit in-season testing, limit to 4 engines per year, limit only two chassis per team per race instead of a spare... all that raised costs when they were supposed to lower them

The Acura NSX, Porsche 919 have in-wheel e-motors but lmps are limited to using them on the axle. There's lots of things that can be done but the rule book is so tight that you don't get much variation.

On topic of the 'future'; it looks like an old lmp1 player wants back in- Wirth Research

It's too simplified in that the logic is too simple. You can't say "it's on a road car, therefore it can be cheap". Yeah, so are internal combustion engines and they can be extremely expensive on racing cars.

Some examples you have there are great, but solar panels? I'm all for electric cars and what not, but the solar roof on the Aston GTE only has enough power to partially run the air conditioning. If you cover the roof of a car in solar panels, then you can get approximately 6 miles of charge put into the battery of an hour for a road car, which would be about 1 extra mile in a racing car. The Nissan Leaf btw, does have a solar panel - which Nissan say it's purely for marketing. It can power not much more than a USB port and the stereo.

And again, I think the idea of open rule books brings down costs, or closing a rule book brings up costs is far too simplified. LMP2 is a super closed off rule book, and is cheaper. DPi is allowing performance upgrades, and still doesn't have homologation, but that's cheaper. It really isn't as simple as "closed rules = higher costs". You could lock the entire hybrid system down to an off the shelf system and massively reduce the cost (see the old Zytek system, which was ahead of its time and had a lot of issues). Yes there are obviously examples which don't work, like you say, with limiting engines, limiting chassis etc. But there are examples were it does work - stock parts, limited bodykits, etc.

Wirth looking at returning is nice, but it'll be a tough market for them. They haven't showered themselves in glory in recent years, so hopefully they nail it this time.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

It's too simplified in that the logic is too simple. You can't say "it's on a road car, therefore it can be cheap". Yeah, so are internal combustion engines and they can be extremely expensive on racing cars.

Some examples you have there are great, but solar panels? I'm all for electric cars and what not, but the solar roof on the Aston GTE only has enough power to partially run the air conditioning. If you cover the roof of a car in solar panels, then you can get approximately 6 miles of charge put into the battery of an hour for a road car, which would be about 1 extra mile in a racing car. The Nissan Leaf btw, does have a solar panel - which Nissan say it's purely for marketing. It can power not much more than a USB port and the stereo.

And again, I think the idea of open rule books brings down costs, or closing a rule book brings up costs is far too simplified. LMP2 is a super closed off rule book, and is cheaper. DPi is allowing performance upgrades, and still doesn't have homologation, but that's cheaper. It really isn't as simple as "closed rules = higher costs". You could lock the entire hybrid system down to an off the shelf system and massively reduce the cost (see the old Zytek system, which was ahead of its time and had a lot of issues). Yes there are obviously examples which don't work, like you say, with limiting engines, limiting chassis etc. But there are examples were it does work - stock parts, limited bodykits, etc.

Wirth looking at returning is nice, but it'll be a tough market for them. They haven't showered themselves in glory in recent years, so hopefully they nail it this time.

Last post of this subject for me. I just don't see why you insist that hybrids need or are so expensive. I cited that road cars have had hybrids for over a decade and you say road car hybrids shouldn't be used. You don't give an answer as to why they shouldn't be used, or how they'll be too much, just confusing wording like 'too simplified' as if it's a straight forward conversion.

I find it off putting that you're shooting down my thoughts when I basically said the same thing you are saying. You're shrugging off my suggestions as if it's not good enough, like when I said use a road derived hybrid system like the Prius GT300 does.

Also, your statements don't make sense to me. How would that come to be more than this made up arbitrary 20 million dollar number that McLaren spoke of? You're suggesting an off the shelf hybrid system. So am I. One of which could be from a manufacturer's street car that costs 40, 50k on the road. Modifying it for use in a race car will take money and some work, it always does. But it should not costs tens of millions. Zytek was just one example. I gave the GT300 cars as another. And how about the flywheel Porsche 911 that the original R18 used? Or the capacitor that Toyota TS030 used that was on a modified Lexus GS430 and Toyota Supra?

[AoB Special Stage]

First, I'd like to thank everyone for actually having a debate instead of a shouting match. That's refreshing.

Second, Wirth is an interesting one. We all know they partner Honda/Acura/HPD, and Penske/Honda to LM rumors etc., but they also did that dev work for Nissan for their aborted LMP car from 2012/2013. Frankly, they could be going in with either one (I don't feel Wirth is liable to go it alone in this). Nissan certainly needs a redemption story after the GT-R LM NISMO.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by AoB Special Stage

First, I'd like to thank everyone for actually having a debate instead of a shouting match. That's refreshing.

Second, Wirth is an interesting one. We all know they partner Honda/Acura/HPD, and Penske/Honda to LM rumors etc., but they also did that dev work for Nissan for their aborted LMP car from 2012/2013. Frankly, they could be going in with either one (I don't feel Wirth is liable to go it alone in this). Nissan certainly needs a redemption story after the GT-R LM NISMO.

Seems Wirth is no longer affiliated with Honda/Acura. So they're looking for a new partnership.

[Akrapovic]

Well you don't have to reply if you don't want to, and that's fair enough, but there appears to be some crossed wires as you've said a few things which I never claimed.

I never said hybrids need to be expensive. But they are expensive right now. The budgets were under control in LMP1 and only sky rocketed out of hand when hybrids came along. That isn't a coincidence. You could build a cheaper one, but it won't be as good as the expensive ones. So you'll need to spend money to improve it anyway. Nissan tried to do it on the cheap and it never even worked, at any point. F1 has the same problem - never in the history of the sport have engine manufacturers had to come to an agreement to reduce the cost of sale of engines to customer teams. It wasn't an issue when anyone could buy one of the thousands of specs of Cosworth V8. Now we've moved to hybrids, and F1 engine costs are out of hand. It really isn't a coincidence that the open development series moved to hybrids, and costs got out of hand.

I explained the 'too simple' comment. The logic being used here is far too simple. I don't think you can say "it can be done cheap, so it will be" and then cite examples that are completely different. The road derived system in the Prius GT300 is a great system. But GT300 is a BoP class, so of course it's going to be cheaper. It's senseless developing it to high levels as you'll lose it in a BoP adjustment.

You're suggesting an off the shelf hybrid system. So am I.

We're not suggesting the same thing. I'm suggesting a single, stock, spec hybrid system that you buy from the one ACO approved supplier, at a cost cap. Same concept as LMP2 chassis, Gibson engines, LMP3 chassis, and I assume the LMP3 engine as there's only one, but I don't actually know that. My suggestion is a single spec hybrid system at a cost gap.

Your suggestion is a more open set of technical regulations to allow them to take advantage of road car systems as a base and modified for racing use, citing the GT300 as a proof of concept. But with open development all you'll get is more money spent, which is exactly what happened with the current regulations. You might get some teams move in different directions at the start, but eventually they all converge on one or two solutions when you find that that solution works best. And that's exactly why the original R18 flywheel and the Toyota super capacitor are part of the history books - because they simply weren't as good as the Porsche battery solution. So in the end, we seen hundreds of millions of dollars spent, for everyone to end up going to the same solution anyway - so what was achieved? That is why I don't see the point in opening up those regulations more - fine you might get a cheaper base model, but it'll be out spent by those who want to and you end up at the same destination anyway.

Another unforeseen problem with the open development was exclusive contracts in place, which (IMO) should not be allowed. I believe all 3 manufacturers had exclusive deals with battery providers, but Porsche was provided by A123. That means that all 3 teams have to go to separate companies for the batteries, which means higher prices all round as all 3 have their own overheads, which means higher costs for everybody to get the same thing in the end anyway.

You want a more open formula, which will allow potentially a cheaper system to be introduced. I personally think that will simply be outspend and become obsolete in record time (like the flywheels and super capacitors), and that the only way to cost cap the hybrid system is a single spec system, and you have to utilise that one.

In an ideal world I would prefer your system because it's an awesome concept. I loved when we had petrol, diesel, turbo, NA, V4, V6, V8, battery, flywheel and super capacitor. But we were already losing that anyway, and I can see the hybrid systems going away completely if it's left open, or opened more. If you don't want to reply that's fine - for the record I'd prefer your system for both technology development and racing, I just don't see it working because they'll outspend each other.

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

Originally Posted by AoB Special Stage

Second, Wirth is an interesting one. We all know they partner Honda/Acura/HPD, and Penske/Honda to LM rumors etc., but they also did that dev work for Nissan for their aborted LMP car from 2012/2013. Frankly, they could be going in with either one (I don't feel Wirth is liable to go it alone in this). Nissan certainly needs a redemption story after the GT-R LM NISMO.

No more Acura/Honda for Wirth. The AXR-04 was a bit of a lemon unfortunately.

My worry with LMP1-P is that we'll end up with more manufacturers that are teams, leading to some problems for suppliers. We have Ginetta, SMP/Dallara and Wirth all looking at it. There's probably more I missed with that list. But are we going to see enough customer teams to make this a viable option for those who can't build LMP2 chassis anymore? Hope so, but I'm a bit worried there won't be an uptake on these cars.

[AoB Special Stage]

Originally Posted by TF110

Seems Wirth is no longer affiliated with Honda/Acura. So they're looking for a new partnership.

They are/were HPD's IndyCar aerokit partner and HPD remains listed among the clients on their website.

Which has reminded me that Alpine suggested they'd have a car that competed for overall wins in the next few years. Guess who else is listed on Wirth's clients list? Renault Sport. Why I had to write it in that style, I do not know.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by AoB Special Stage

They are/were HPD's IndyCar aerokit partner and HPD remains listed among the clients on their website.

Which has reminded me that Alpine suggested they'd have a car that competed for overall wins in the next few years. Guess who else is listed on Wirth's clients list? Renault Sport. Why I had to write it in that style, I do not know.

I'd like to see Alpine do something that isn't stick a chassis plate to an Oreca. That'd be a nice LMP1-P. But at this rate we'll have 25 LMP1-P cars confirmed for next year, and then a single ByKolles will show up.

[AoB Special Stage]

You're probably not wrong. But P1 looks less dead than a few weeks ago, indeed. If someone could find that quote from Alpine, please: I failed.

[carbsmith]

Wirth isn't for next year, and Alpine can be in the current LMP1-P if they only badge the engine.

http://www.dailysportscar.com/2017/0...or-201819.html

[chernaudi]

Now the ACO have come to their senses and are doing what they should've done (and reportedly originally said they were going to do) in 2014:

http://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/f...ons-from-2018/

That might have reduced budgets as far as hybrid and engine tech and been more privateer friendly.

[YZFrider]

Here is my take on the whole balancing of non hybrid with hybrid. As we saw with hybrid it's recovering wasted energy and turning back into either more speed on the same fuel burned or to go longer stints with the same speed. Even if the non hybrids had 24 hour-reliable 800-900 horsepower engines they are going to be gulping more fuel to make that horsepower. That's more refueling stops.. Some might say give them massive fuel tanks. Ok you but then they are saddled with a burdensome weight.... fuel is heavy! The challenge of balancing is enormous...maybe futile?

[AoB Special Stage]

I always wished they'd let the efficiency advantage be the advantage of the hybrids instead of the hideously complicated incentive they'd come up with.

[chernaudi]

Personally, I think that these cars should never have been more complex than the 2003 Bentley Speed 8 or a 2011-13 Audi R18 with a gasoline engine and a small hybrid system.

Or, if you prefer, a DPI car with more development freedom, no spec chassis, and the ability to run a 2-3.5MJ hybrid if one wanted to primarily as a range extender rather than a go faster button.

Also, such cars could be run by privateers fairly easily and even factory teams for pennies on the dollar.

[carbsmith]

Dangerously high levels of old man telling people to get off his lawn.

[TF110]

Just as I thought. Sensible regs imo. Keeping hybrids to make those types of manufacturers interested, but allowing non-hybrid manufacturers in the factory class as well and it's all under one class. No subclasses, you run what you brung. There's nothing stopping DPi from joining in if the rules go as they look. But it's on them to make a powerful engine and fast car.