[WEC] Porsche GTP / Hypercar: factory and customer

[Adam43]

It's not cool to enjoy things you know.

[CTD]

If Porsche and Toyota is gone, we are going to have a massive LMP1 Privateer field fighting for the win. I wouldn't expect an epic Le Mans!

Maybe that is just me, not taking any sides, I'm in for the race, not for a favourite team. I would miss Porsche and Toyota, but Le Mans will continue with a full grid without them.

[chernaudi]

I would hope that would be the case, that we have a significant upsurge in the LMP1 privateer field. But I have a feeling that at least some perspective teams are waiting to see what Porsche and maybe Toyota do. Also, as Bart Hayden from Rebellion said to SC365, he doesn't want to jump back into LMP1 and be basically the only guys there.

And outside of the race being rescheduled to different times of the year (1956 due to track construction and 1968 due to strikes and protests), the only time that LM was canceled was 1940-1948 due to World War II and it's aftermath, and 1936. And that was the year where a combination of economic problems and issues with getting entries and rules sorted out lead to the race being postponed, and later canceled that year.

[Adam43]

Look over there! There is a WEC thread! And what's that next to it? An LMP1 thread! Amazing.

We're all guilty.

[Adam43]

The hd package did its job at Nurburgring. What's so good about it? We only got to see it as the race weekend started.

Does the reported theory that Porsche's hybrid system is more suited to there hold any truth?

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

I would hope that would be the case, that we have a significant upsurge in the LMP1 privateer field. But I have a feeling that at least some perspective teams are waiting to see what Porsche and maybe Toyota do. Also, as Bart Hayden from Rebellion said to SC365, he doesn't want to jump back into LMP1 and be basically the only guys there.

And outside of the race being rescheduled to different times of the year (1956 due to track construction and 1968 due to strikes and protests), the only time that LM was canceled was 1940-1948 due to World War II and it's aftermath, and 1936. And that was the year where a combination of economic problems and issues with getting entries and rules sorted out lead to the race being postponed, and later canceled that year.

Le Mans isn't going to be cancelled - not for Toyota or Porsche.

[Bubak]

This time I am pretty optimistic about Porsche. More to question is what in 2 year, next and 2019. Will they have new power unit, change / optimise a hybrid system? Because, from 2020, expecially in terms plug-in hybrid (because of their Mission-E 800V sportcar) Porsche seems to be pretty interested in this. Well, from last weekend, if I am understand new regs. seems to be pretty open to recharge battery during a pit stop (Look there: last paragraphs under last photo http://www.endurance-info.com/fr/pas...eglement-2020/ ) and this solution seems to welcome well from Porsche. So, endurance way is better for this as Formula E. Keep tradictions and bring some new way. Diesel was a past way. But, if Porsche is looking for a future, it is good way.

Question is what next year. Lost in desert? But nonsens to pull out now and in 2020 come back. right?. :-/ Hitzinger is out from 2015 and how will be brainstormer for new project? This year 919HY lost three engines. It seems it is an issue for long race now. 2L V4 is 4 years old, new regs. (and fast pace) loading this lean-burn engine (look, every car that lose power had oil pressure issue, or cooling issue and those two things are always characteristic for lean-burn racing engine issue and small engine had to had lean-burn to produce well fuel economy) for LM24. Also front axle is pretty fragile for 919HY. I think, only stuff that works well is ERS-H. If I know, It worked well everytime.

BTW Does 919HY ICE (or Toyota's TS050 2017 2,4L V6) use Miller cycle as Audi does?

Do not forget, that next car usually come from old one. That problem had Toyota last year as well (desing of the axle, air flow etc...).

[tigas]

I've been hearing snarky comments that Porsche is in LMP1 very much as a marketing exercise, because it only sells 30% sportscars nowadays (the rest being SUVs and 4-door GTs) but wants to keep a racing image. If that's the case, and Porsche can pull rabbits out the bag like this HD aero kit, why not keep going?

They might even get some tech development out of this marketing exercise

[Spyderman]

Originally Posted by tigas

I've been hearing snarky comments that Porsche is in LMP1 very much as a marketing exercise, because it only sells 30% sportscars nowadays (the rest being SUVs and 4-door GTs) but wants to keep a racing image. If that's the case, and Porsche can pull rabbits out the bag like this HD aero kit, why not keep going?

They might even get some tech development out of this marketing exercise

Well...the issue with the 30% sportscar comments is that they need to define a "sportscar".
Porsche marketing strategy is to have the "sportiest" product in every market segment that it competes in, so from a marketing perspective, the marketing exercise is correct.

Furthermore, exactly what percentage of Toyota's sales are sportscars? What about Audi? Peugeot?

As for the aerokit - Nurburgring is a track that particularly suits the 919, both in terms of the aero and in terms of the hybrid system. We will only see if the new HDF aerokit is really that good once we get to the other tracks.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Spyderman

Well...the issue with the 30% sportscar comments is that they need to define a "sportscar".
Porsche marketing strategy is to have the "sportiest" product in every market segment that it competes in, so from a marketing perspective, the marketing exercise is correct.

Furthermore, exactly what percentage of Toyota's sales are sportscars? What about Audi? Peugeot?

As for the aerokit - Nurburgring is a track that particularly suits the 919, both in terms of the aero and in terms of the hybrid system. We will only see if the new HDF aerokit is really that good once we get to the other tracks.

Toyota is all about dev and marketing of hybrid tech though. You could argue it's still marketing, but whilst Porsche market sportscars, Toyota market hybrid tech. They're big players in that with things like the Prius. Audi's thing was "look at how amazing our diesels are. Even if you buy an Audi road diesel, it's still awesome", and that got shut down.

[Spyderman]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Toyota is all about dev and marketing of hybrid tech though. You could argue it's still marketing, but whilst Porsche market sportscars, Toyota market hybrid tech. They're big players in that with things like the Prius. Audi's thing was "look at how amazing our diesels are. Even if you buy an Audi road diesel, it's still awesome", and that got shut down.

Porsche will soon launch their Mission E car and have budgeted about $1.1 billion for this project that includes a new paint shop and assembly hall under construction near the factory in Stuttgart.
The company says it will hire 1,400 people to design, market, and build the car, with most of those coming on board in 2018 as production tests gear up.
“We want to epitomize the sports car of the future,” -Porsche Chief Executive Officer Oliver Blume.

[Akrapovic]

Yeah, but I'm not really concerned with what Porsche is doing. I was just answering your question about Toyota and Audis sportscars.

Marketing has lots of different routes. You can target your marketing concentrating on different things. So if Porsche is using Le Mans to market the sportscar route, that doesn't mean everyone else has to. It's pretty clear actually that the others are not. Toyota stick big blue hybrid stickers on things, so it's clear what they are marketing. Audi stuck diesel TDI logos on things, so it's clear what they're marketing. Porsche sticks Intelligent Performance on things, so it's clear what they are marketing.

That's the beauty of Le Mans, you can market it in lots of different ways. Unfortunately it's expensive.

[Spyderman]

My point was that Porsche too was using the WEC to market their hybrid tech.....not sports cars.

[Akrapovic]

Not really, the Mission E project is an all-electric car, not hybrid tech. If Porsche want to market Mission E, then it fits with Formula E, or future Electric GT strategies better.

[Spyderman]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Not really, the Mission E project is an all-electric car, not hybrid tech. If Porsche want to market Mission E, then it fits with Formula E, or future Electric GT strategies better.

...and that is why they are moving. Their hybrid tech was marketed whilst they were/are in the WEC.
The point is they were not marketing their sports cars with a LMP1 program. They have the GTE program for that.

[Akrapovic]

Yeah I see where you're coming from the pulling out point of view, but I don't agree that Porsche was primarily marketing their hybrid systems. They don't even have the word Hybrid on the car, it's all about performance. The car being a hybrid doesn't mean that's where the marketing concentration is. It's also 4 wheel drive, but they don't mention that. It's all about Porsche Intelligent Performance, which, according to Porsche themselves is "an engineering code that defines Porsche's commitment to sports car, innovation..."

It's pretty obvious what Porsche was trying to go for, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's the beauty of Le Mans - you can market it in many ways.

Toyota have Hybrid in big blue text, in the Hybrid branding font. It's pretty clear that they're pushing the hybrid marketing. Audi did have TDI, but that got replaced with Quattro, since that's pushed as a big Audi thing. They've changed focus over the years quite a bit.

[Spyderman]

The Porsche Intelligent Performance slogan was introduced when they came up with the 911 GT3R Hybrid .
If you go to the site where you took that quote from, you will find that every car pictured is a Porsche Hybrid http://www.porsche.com/microsite/int...mance/usa.aspx

Porsche are not selling their Hybrid Systems, but rather their cars equipped with their hybrid systems.

BTW - The word Hybrid does in fact appear on the car (look above the door and is also part of the name on the inner front fenders). I do however get what you are saying.

[Akrapovic]

I completely forgot about the inside of the arches (which is silly, because you see it on every onboard!).

https://storage.googleapis.com/gtspi...9-Hybrid-5.jpg

Looks like it's gone on this years car though (still above the door). This is a promo shoot though so it might've been added for the races.

[chernaudi]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Toyota is all about dev and marketing of hybrid tech though. You could argue it's still marketing, but whilst Porsche market sportscars, Toyota market hybrid tech. They're big players in that with things like the Prius. Audi's thing was "look at how amazing our diesels are. Even if you buy an Audi road diesel, it's still awesome", and that got shut down.

Audi haven't even had anything on their cars suggesting that they were running a diesel since 2011, and even then that year the TDI advertising got upstaged by the Audi Ultra lightweight stuff, and then the e-tron quattro hybrid stuff took over. Only time the diesel stuff was brought up was when BOP/EOT was brought up.

And even then it could be argued that they pushed the TDI diesel marketing as far as they could take it years ago. And even with dieselgate, European automakers are having no trouble selling diesels, even when everyone and their brother are being threatened with lawsuits over the issue, not just VAG, but Daimler, Fiat/Chrysler, PSA, GM, and Nissan/Renault.

[deggis]

Gary Watkins: http://www.motorsportmagazine.com/op...pull-plug-lmp1

Nothing new, just an opinion piece.

[Pontlieue]

There have been reports in the last two days about several large German car manufacturers forming cartel-like structures since the 90s. Daimler, BMW, Volkswagen and Porsche are reported to be involved. While Germany is usually lenient towards the car industry this might be too large to ignore. In any case, this adds a lot of insecurity at a time when the future of the LMP1 effort is uncertain.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g...-idUSKBN1A61G9

[chernaudi]

We shouldn't be surprised if that happens/happened. I'm sure that US auto makers, though rivals, have also lobbied or formed groups to lobby on their behalf. And the automotive world is a very protectionist lobbying group in almost every country they're based in. Just like emissions cheating and fuel economy rigging, they're all probably guilty of it to one degree or another.

And like any lobbying group, they want the best deal they can get, no matter who they screw over. It's all about money, and if you think it's bad in a capitalist system, imagine what it would be like in a fascist or communist dictatorship.

To me, this follows the precedent that Ford set with the Pinto, where Ford decided that paying off lawsuits would save them more money than spending $10 a car to fix the fuel filler necks, let alone the $40 or so for a fuel tank bladder.

[AoB Special Stage]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

We shouldn't be surprised if that happens/happened. I'm sure that US auto makers, though rivals, have also lobbied or formed groups to lobby on their behalf.

While this is true to an extent, the American automakers have this irritating idea of blocking the other two from their developments even when it hurts themselves. Just look at the PNGV initiative.

But, back on topic, this is not good for Porsche. Not at all. Is it time to hit the panic button yet?

[chernaudi]

If VAG can sink $25 billion to pay off lawsuits and claims for dieselgate and still make huge profits, this probably isn't a blip on their radar. Especially when one considers that the FIA and FOM reportedly payed the EU hush money to settle a lawsuit they were proposing to file for similar reasons (ie, anti-competitive practices).

I believe that any decision that Porsche makes, especially pulling out, was probably made a while ago and the meeting this week will probably just rubber stamp said decision.

[broadrun96]

I love how 'reportedly' 'probably' 'possibly' are all becoming indications of FACT here lately. It's getting to the point I think some of you would dance in gleeful celebration at no non LMP2s competing at LM for years to go just so you could be proven right. If it bothers you that much, find something else but deriving joy out of people losing jobs is not healthy or what we need to be reveling in here.