[ELMS Race] ELMS Round 5 - Estoril

[bella]

the 4 hour format is absolutely perfect, it's long enough to create storylines and drama but it's not so long that things get stuck in a groove. there's always action and of a good kind.

i think the right team won in the end, but simon dolan had a point in the press conference - where was signatech alpine's silver driver? obviously other teams did the same thing to varying degrees.

[outnumbered]

I saw the last couple of hours on Motors. An enjoyable and interesting race. RLM commentary was good, and surprisingly good on the statistics and possibilities towards the end of the race, even in the absence of Trussers. The driver who cost Signatech Alpine that 3 minute penalty must have been quite unpopular with the team, how good would it have been to win the final race & the championship ?

[bella]

the guy who got in the car as the first penalty was incurred (more than 2 people working on the car at once) and the one who spun the wheels leaving the box during the penalty was oli webb. in his defence it's his first year in sportscars after single seaters and he's a bit green still with the habits from there, and he dealt with it very well in the press conference but he sounded like he was completely gutted about it still!

every race this season has been great. they REALLY need to sort the live timing on the website out though - the one time this year i tried to watch a race just using that and the race unfolding in front of me i was completely lost. it's no wonder radio le mans have such an enthusiastic following for these races. perhaps it's intentional.

i really hope more teams and cars get involved next year. there's good competiton at all levels, and marcvds showed yesterday that the ferrari monopoly can be broken.

i'm 50:50 on the silver driver/amateur rating issue. it's something they need to make a solid move on over the winter, because there's going to be more single seater drivers coming over for next season. chatin was a slightly special case - him and gary hirsch aren't all that different in terms of racing backgrounds, but nobody's throwing their arms up in anguish about him being underrated. chatin's at university full time, and is only competing in elms, and about 50% of the branding on the car is his. i don't really think he qualifies as a professional racing driver or anything, certainly not in the way some of the f1 team aligned drivers are. he's had a go in a big single seater but never raced one. his eurocup results weren't brilliant but if you knew where to look he put in some pretty serious drives. it was just a freakishly good choice by sinault to take him on at the start of last year. i wonder if he's had a word with norman nato about next year, he rather neatly fits their profile.

having a bit more thought about the motorsport tourism side of the elms calendar, if you had too much time on your hands and fancied following a series around then elms is one of the better ones. the only duff venue is silverstone, the rest are a fantastic excuse to go and visit some fantastic parts of europe. the one day meeting nature of it lends itself to a 4 day weekend very well - tourism saturday and monday, motorsport sunday.

[Coach Ep]

Agreed, only watched yesterday's race partially (all ELMS coverage I watched all year long) and thoroughly enjoyed it - especially the ambiance that sportscars create on such a track (if only Estoril could get rid off that crappy chicane...).

A visit to Jerez could be interesting as well, if only for an one-off.

[Mike E]

Originally Posted by Simmi

Bella (or anyone else) - what can we expect from Jimmy Eriksson?

A race win on his sportscar debut, and in a two driver team. Not too shabby.

[EricS]

Anyone have an on-demand link yet to watch the race?

[Jameson]

Originally Posted by carbon_titanium

yeah, even if no martin, no party.

Funny you said that, because it looked to me MVDS isn't missing Martin that much Winning GTC by quite a margin and in Spa24 Werner-Palttala-Luhr were the stronger car finishing close 2nd. I for one was happy to see something else than a Ferrari on the top step.

[Jameson]

Originally Posted by bella

i'm 50:50 on the silver driver/amateur rating issue. it's something they need to make a solid move on over the winter, because there's going to be more single seater drivers coming over for next season. chatin was a slightly special case - him and gary hirsch aren't all that different in terms of racing backgrounds, but nobody's throwing their arms up in anguish about him being underrated. chatin's at university full time, and is only competing in elms, and about 50% of the branding on the car is his. i don't really think he qualifies as a professional racing driver or anything, certainly not in the way some of the f1 team aligned drivers are. he's had a go in a big single seater but never raced one. his eurocup results weren't brilliant but if you knew where to look he put in some pretty serious drives. it was just a freakishly good choice by sinault to take him on at the start of last year. i wonder if he's had a word with norman nato about next year, he rather neatly fits their profile.

It's a tricky question - where do they draw the line? If all young single-seater drivers would automatically go to Pro-status, lots of them would not get the chance to start with. That would make the life easier for rich gentlemen, but would that be the best for the sport? Then again, the best of them clearly perform right away on Pro-level making "real amateurs" look bad. I guess it works better in GTC and GTE where these gents are Bronze and quick kids are Silver.

[bella]

Originally Posted by Jameson

It's a tricky question - where do they draw the line? If all young single-seater drivers would automatically go to Pro-status, lots of them would not get the chance to start with. That would make the life easier for rich gentlemen, but would that be the best for the sport? Then again, the best of them clearly perform right away on Pro-level making "real amateurs" look bad. I guess it works better in GTC and GTE where these gents are Bronze and quick kids are Silver.

i know we've had this discussion before on another thread specifically, but i definitely think there's a case for reinstating some form of incentive for those "real amateurs". i don't think it's unreasonable at all to suggest that without dolan's presence at jota oliver turvey and harry tincknell wouldn't have had such a good... stage for their abilities. and dolan is the exact kind of person that elms needs to encourage and keep in the sport. also he's a bloody good driver, all things considered!

looking at tincknell as another example of the system though. in my opinion he was correctly rated. he has more experience in lmp2-ish cars than chatin, and it's f3 too which is a bit of a different ballgame. he drove as you'd expect for a gold driver. if you look at webb, he's the one who made the mistakes you'd expect to see from a silver driver (thinking of the wheel spinning, and tagging dolan in austria whilst they were dicing which arguably won them the title if you think about it...). hirsch did make that kind of error, had far less experience, and he was a silver. if you go by the guidance in the rating system then webb's not quite a gold but his experience suggests he's more able than a silver. in comparison, chatin's only obvious cockup was that shunt at the start of the pre-season test. yet he still lacks the sheer experience in a particular type of car to be classed as a gold even by the most generous interpretation of the guidelines. and equally as much as you want to encourage teams to be open to the quick amateurs like dolan, you want to make sure that guys like chatin don't get "priced" out purely by way of their rating.

[GT-Eins]

Here some detailed Insights in the LMP2-driver-performances:



An additional Analysis (in german only):
http://www.gt-eins.at/cms/index.php?...=9648&Itemid=1

And our race-report:
http://www.gt-eins.de/Berichte2014/elms/elms_esto.html

[Mike E]

Good work! Keep it up.

[bella]

seconded, cheers for the stats! really adds another angle to the race after watching it and seeing it progress

it's interesting viewing, particularly when it comes to some of the non-pro drivers like capillaire.

[DistortedSmile]

Originally Posted by EricS

Anyone have an on-demand link yet to watch the race?

Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMDDeOuJg-0

Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7Umz...78ldgqnltaJlZQ

It's missing the first 20 minutes though.

[Giba]

5 different overall winners in 4 different chassis/engine combinations (if you count the alpine as an oreca) and Different winner in GTC in each race. Sounds like a great season to me!

[pach233]

Viele dank GT-Eins fur deine Anlyse. Jetzt lerne ich Deutsch in Arbeit und mit deine Seite kann ich hobby and lernen combinieren.

Thank you very much GT-Eins for your analysis. I am currently learning German at work and with your site I can combine hobby and learning.

As for ELMS, I thought it was a very enjoyable season. Perfect for what a regional series should be. Good tracks and good grids with variety make the racing interesting. The free streaming and RLM coverage make it accessible to fans worldwide. Certainly hope the series continues with its current momentum.