Le Mans Series 2007

[KaspervG]

oh, yeah. I meant P32

[paul-collins]

Originally Posted by The Badger

The Mazda is a B07/10 i think ..... but whats the differance visually anyway apart from the intake arrangement , which looks better imo .

Mazda is not a /10, it's a /40. P2 class. 4 cylinder 2L turbo with direct injection.

I had heard that AER were working on direct injection for the P1 motor, but it had not been installed in Dyson's cars; nevertheless, it was determined that even with it and a better wastegate setup it wouldn't get the engine up to Audi power.

[JAG]

Originally Posted by Mal

Remember this is still only rumour and could be yet be audi putting pressure on the ACO to increase the market profile of the series.

Correct Audi's European program has not been confirmed.

Let's be honest, after all these years of domination, Audi side stepping the Peugeot and privateer competition in the LMS, when they quite clearly have the budget and teams/drivers available, and the P1 non event in the ALMS, would be one of the most baffling decisions in sportscar history!

They would deserve the same contempt currently reserved for Cadillac!

[dj choc ice]

Originally Posted by Flat12-Aircool

I agree, the LMS will be somewhat different, as there are more LMP1 teams and they are fairly strong and should be even stronger this year. But will it be enough to counter Peugeot?

i do agree with you there very much, the question is though how fast will next years courage LC70 mugen's be?

last year they were the fastest atleast in the LMS but reliability was a major problem, i believe much of it stemmed from gearbox problems?

i personally cant wait for this years LMS season its going to be a cracker, every class has good entries and is looking to be an epic scrap.

im geared up for a pesca, courage, pug and zytek battle in LMP1, in LMP2 im geared up for another ASM, RML, barazi battle.

while in GT1 my loyalty strongly remains with the PSI corvette's, will larbre be racing in the LMS next year as well?

and in GT2 well i cant wait to see the ferrari 430's in action and the panoz esperante GTL's.

however though i think it will be quite sad if audi dont race in the LMS, they announced it and all saying they wanted to race.

but if they dont race some people are going to view it as cowardice, me included, but whether audi race or not, like bentley03 said its going to be one hell of a season.

ROLL ON 2007!!!

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by JAG

Let's be honest, after all these years of domination, Audi side stepping the Peugeot and privateer competition in the LMS, when they quite clearly have the budget and teams/drivers available, and the P1 non event in the ALMS, would be one of the most baffling decisions in sportscar history!

They would deserve the same contempt currently reserved for Cadillac!

They are a bunch of coward losers

[courageous]

Originally Posted by JAG

the P1 non event in the ALMS

That's the problem though - if Audi leave ALMS then all they will have is a couple of old MGs & maybe last years Creation & Zytek; LMS doesn't need Audi, they are doing just fine.


Mind you, I would have rather seen Audi & Pug agree to send 1 car to each series!

[The Badger]

I got a question ..... on my last count , i reckon there is up to 64 cars wanting to do the LMS next year , and its not finished yet .

Hows that going to work then ?

[dj choc ice]

god knows but 64 cars is a VERY big number, and i dont think there is a single track in the world that can accomodate 64 cars except for the nurburgring 24 hours VLN event.

ive personally been baffled so far, the amount of new cars and new teams, and teams switching classes is becoming confusing.

then to add the debockle of audi's supposed LMS programme with joest.

and about 64 cars i think some of them will definetely be turned down, or every team will be limited to only being allowed to run 1 car.

or maybe teams will be substituted at each event but that is highly unlikely.

but if 64 teams have applied so far and there is bound to be more teams applying to do the LMS, it only says 1 thing, the series is on the up in a very big way.

now all the LMS needs is a good television package and its on the way to striking down the problem of poor crowd's.

[The Badger]

add 2 Larbre DBP9 to that as well , now about 66 cars .

[mariantic]

Originally Posted by The Badger

I got a question ..... on my last count , i reckon there is up to 64 cars wanting to do the LMS next year , and its not finished yet .

Hows that going to work then ?

64 is looking quite realistic. My current reckoning is 47 pretty certain rising to 62 with possibles and 67+ with "could happens" included. This is my list:-

* means possible, no star means likely or confirmed.

LMP1
Swiss Spirit
Courage x2
Pescarolo
Lavaggi
Rollcentre
Peugeot X2
Racing for Holland
Lister
Chamberlain / Berridge
New Zytek team
New Pescarolo team
*Creation
13 (14)(+maybe Audi x2)


LMP2
Kruse (may be LMP1)
Binnie
Bruneau
Bruchladdich
RML / Newton
ASM Portugal
Barazi Epsilon
T2M
*Indian Project
*Melchester X2
*Zulltec
*New Pilbeam
*Embassy
8 (13)

GT1
Labre
Modena x*2
*MenX
Racing Box
ORECA
Alphand x2
*PSI
*SRT x2
6 (10)(+maybe Phoenix, P&M x2)

GT2
Chad x2
Markland
Red Racing
GG Motorsport
Proton x3
Ice Pol
Perrier
Autorlando x2
Farnbacher
LNT x2
Spyker x2
James Watt x*2
IMSA Performance
*GPC X2
*Villorba Corse
Virgo
20 (25)

47 (62) (67)

How ever you look at it, it's a lot of cars

Mariantic

[mariantic]

Indeed that should have been

Labre x2

add one all round!

Mariantic

[ger80]

The last gt-eins.de list says 39/69/89 (confirmed/not confirmed but probably/perhaps) cars. Think they have to drive Nordschleife all races ...

[Bentley03]

Thanks for the list, Mariantic!

Just to add to the traffic jam, I think you'll find Henri intends to run a two car LMS programme this year!

[JAG]

Originally Posted by courageous

That's the problem though - if Audi leave ALMS then all they will have is a couple of old MGs & maybe last years Creation & Zytek; LMS doesn't need Audi, they are doing just fine.


Mind you, I would have rather seen Audi & Pug agree to send 1 car to each series!

If Audi pulled out there'd be one MG and the focus could be on P2.

[jaysalv]

hi there just joining the thread and what a season the lms looks to be cant wait till the start. the line up is by far the best yet and the pugs are gonna stir it up a bit

[Satorian]

I'm still wondering whether Aston Martin will race in the ALMS and whether their absence would prompt Corvette to join the LMS, perhaps casing Audi to join as well as more eyes focus on the LMS.

10-10s needs vBookie!

[broadrun96]

Damn, wish the ALMS could have half that number consistently.

[Bentley03]

(Source DSC)

Seems we can add another Lola B06/10 to the ever increasing ranks of LMP1. This one will not be AER powered. New team, but both the team and the drivers are apparently 'significant'!


Oh, and it would appear that we can expect a full European season from the guys at Racing for Holland, with some 'very interesting' driving partners for Jan Lammers.

[JAG]

It will be intriguing to see who runs the Zytek, it does appear to be a current sportscar team judging by DSC's comments, whereas the Lola looks as though it will be run by a new team to the sport.

I wonder if Herbert and/or Daives are some of the drivers involved?

[Bentley03]

Something I forgot to mention in my last post, also courtesy of DSC (and please file this one under rumour), reports from France would suggest that the factory Courage's may not be running with naturally aspirated V8's this year. The wording in the article implies to me that we're talking turbocharged V8's rather normally aspirated V10's.

I see three possibilities:
Mugen have reduced the capacity of the engine and bolted on a couple of turbo's (the Mugen deal was supposed to be for three years).

Courage have renewed their association with AER.

Or, having already spent/wasted time working out how to fit their unit into an LC70, a deal has been struck with Cosworth.

[chernaudi]

I wonder how the Cosworth engine would do if it ever sees the light of day. But it reminds me a lot of the Audi R8 engine. Both are 3.6 liter flatplane DOHC V8s with twin Garrett turbos. And both use Bosch direct fuel injection(badged as FSI on the Audi engine). I don't know of the bore/stroke for the Cosworth engine, but the Audi FSI V8's is 85x79.2mm. And they'd probably use the same size air restictor if they were in the back of modern LMP1 cars. Ironically, Cosworth was owned by Audi/VAG from 1998-99 when the sold it to the Ford Motor Company, and helped Audi develop some of their S/RS car engines.

And if it were raced in the US, would it be badged as a Ford, as Ford is still a minority owner of Cosworth? I'd love to see Ford Power go up against Audi-it would be the first time since 2002(Panoz ran a Panoz Elan badged Ford 6 liter OHV V8).

[dj choc ice]

Originally Posted by Bentley03

Something I forgot to mention in my last post, also courtesy of DSC (and please file this one under rumour), reports from France would suggest that the factory Courage's may not be running with naturally aspirated V8's this year. The wording in the article implies to me that we're talking turbocharged V8's rather normally aspirated V10's.

I see three possibilities:
Mugen have reduced the capacity of the engine and bolted on a couple of turbo's (the Mugen deal was supposed to be for three years).

Courage have renewed their association with AER.

Or, having already spent/wasted time working out how to fit their unit into an LC70, a deal has been struck with Cosworth.

cracking open the old chestnut, courage and cosworth lol.

well there might be a possibility that courage have always gone for the zytek 4.0 V8 in their LC70's.

but my money would be on a mugen engine for next year, either last years 4.5 V8 or maybe some kind of new fangled turbo V6 or V8, or a V10 or new naturally aspirated V8 of sorts.

either way ill be rooting for yves courage's team and car's next year, i only hope they have the pace they had last year, but this year have a reliable car.

[Ranald]

Thomas Enges LMS LMP1 drive seems to have been relealed by DSC today. Charouz Racing Systems plans to race a Lola B07/10 for thw LMS season, Le Mans (pending entrey) and the last 2 rounds of the ALMS (PLM and Laguna Seca). Jan Charouz, son of the team manager, will join the team. Jarek Janis could also be part of the line up.

This is really good news, not that the LMS is short of that at the minute. A top class team with some really good drivers.

[ger80]

Yeah, a Lola LMP1 with Judd power. Now we will see if the Lola chassis or the AER engine had been the "Dyson" problem

[dj choc ice]

since when did he say the team would be running the lola with judd power, unless i have dropped the ball completely