What is Aston Martin up to?

[TWK]

One could ask all the same questions about the Aston Martin V12 in the Le Mans racer.

[cmk]

Originally Posted by NightStalk3r

Becasue the Sebah car is a Standard Lola B08/60 with an Aston Martin engine, the new Aston Martin LMP1 isn't.

And its internal Lola designation has not been released yet afaik.

[deggis]

http://www.dailysportscar.com/headlines.cfm

"Behind The Scenes As The Lola Aston Martin LMP1 is Assembled
More Tomorrow"

...pics?

[WMUCarGuy]

Originally Posted by deggis

http://www.dailysportscar.com/headlines.cfm

"Behind The Scenes As The Lola Aston Martin LMP1 is Assembled
More Tomorrow"

...pics?

There are pics on DSC. They won't be posted here though.

[cmk]

Seriously, if you want to see them, buy a subscription. I'm a student and I have one, so I don't think any whinging about the price is reasonable!

[WMUCarGuy]

Originally Posted by cmk

Seriously, if you want to see them, buy a subscription. I'm a student and I have one, so I don't think any whinging about the price is reasonable!

I definitely don't think a DSC subscription is cheap, but considering the amount of coverage you get, almost everyday, it's well worth it.

[Hugewally]

Originally Posted by WMUCarGuy

I definitely don't think a DSC subscription is cheap, but considering the amount of coverage you get, almost everyday, it's well worth it.

13 fricken cents a day in the States. That equals one date night out. That isn't cheap enough?

[cmk]

There's a difference between cheap and reasonable.

Ironically, this may also apply to the Aston effort's low-key nature compared to its rivals. It remains to be seen which!

[whitec21]

With the pound falling relative to the dollar it's getting cheaper all the time.(for us Americans anyway ) When I first subscribed it was over $60, but when I renewed last month it was just of $50. Totally worth it either way.

[deggis]

It's not about the price for me, two fridays less at the bar and it's covered, but the price/value ratio is not good enough for me when there are only few really exclusive stories per year that I absolutely had to see. Then again I'd pay 1€ per a single news story for these few "must see/read" news if there was such option.

On more on-topic: Autosport has visited the factory too...



http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/73472

The last paragraph, "a third car had yet to be set in stone" - in this context should mean only the Paul Richard test, right...?

And shakedown likely next week. Hopefully with some paparazzies!

[Graham Goodwin]

Originally Posted by deggis

It's not about the price for me, two fridays less at the bar and it's covered, but the price/value ratio is not good enough for me when there are only few really exclusive stories per year that I absolutely wanted to see. Then again I'd pay 1€ per a single news story for these few "must see/read" if there was such option.

On more on-topic: Autosport has visited the factory too...



http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/73472

The last paragraph, "a third car had yet to be set in stone". A bit confusing, does it mean only the Paul Ricard test in this context...?

Happily dsc readers will be seeing that in context! Full interviews with David Richards and George Howard-Chappell coming up today/ tomorrow together with a further feature on Prodrive's CFD facility.

Ref the pay per story idea - A total non-starter - different people want different things - And to give you a or instance - If dsc charged a Euro per story then the last seven days content would have cost readers about 40 Euros!

Another quick observation - without reading the content - particularly our race weekend content - you really can't have any real idea what is 'exclusive' or not - suffice to say that most of the people in the paddock seem happy with the level of exclusivity and information. Our race reporting teams generally bring enough news back from a major meeting to keep them busy writing for a further week!

Exclusivity and news last only until someone publishes it - After that we get into the issue of attribution and sourcing.

I'll say this finally - There were several journalists at Prodrive yesterday - (The photos are Prodrives btw) - I'm prepared to bet a substantial amount that dsc readers will see more detail of what was said, discussed and revealed than reaers of any other journal present. Not in any way decrying the efforts of others - just fact!

[deggis]

Originally Posted by Graham Goodwin

Happily dsc readers will be seeing that in context! Full interviews with David Richards and George Howard-Chappell coming up today/ tomorrow together with a further feature on Prodrive's CFD facility.

Soon you will force me to subscribe...

Ref the pay per story idea - A total non-starter - different people want different things - And to give you a or instance - If dsc charged a Euro per story then the last seven days content would have cost readers about 40 Euros!

40 euros? That wasn't a serious or well-thought suggestion especially regarding the price but I meant it as an alternative option to the annual subscription. Just saying that if there was option something like that, I might by "a right" to read that story and few other stories during the year but I'm not feeling the need for annual subscription. A bit like buying a single copy of a newspaper instead of ordering it.

Another quick observation - without reading the content - particularly our race weekend content - you really can't have any real idea what is 'exclusive' or not - suffice to say that most of the people in the paddock seem happy with the level of exclusivity and information. Our race reporting teams generally bring enough news back from a major meeting to keep them busy writing for a further week!

Sorry if I was confusing, I was NOT commenting the exclusiveness of all the stories. Maybe wrong choice of word because I was just referring to those stories that I'm interested in, stories that I felt were 'must see' for me because of subject, not merely because of exclusiveness.

[Graham Goodwin]

My point was that simply reading the title often doesn't give an indication of the level of information, interest or detail contained within.

Not in any way offended by the debate btw - Happy to explain why we do it the way we do it anytime.

GG

[ss_collins]

I'm prepared to bet a substantial amount that dsc readers will see more detail of what was said, discussed and revealed than reaers of any other journal present. Not in any way decrying the efforts of others - just fact!

You sure you wanna make that bet...? We were present and you know well that all we do is depth - much more I'd hope than anyone else out there.

On the cost element - what you are pying for with DSC is really the costs of getting the guys to the races etc. Thats a big cost when you are a pure digital brand. So I don't believe it to be too high or unfair - thats just what it costs them to deliver the content they do I suspect

We offer Racecar digitally as a complete monthly mag for around half that but we have a lot more advertising revenue - copy sales etc, which pay our (frankly massive) costs, and our website is always free because we are a much bigger and profit driven firm and funded differently.

Mods is it worth merging this with the is DSC worth it thread?

[Graham Goodwin]

Fair point Sam - I'll see your word count and raise you................................;-)

[Graham Goodwin]

Originally Posted by ss_collins

On the cost element - what you are pying for with DSC is really the costs of getting the guys to the races etc. Thats a big cost when you are a pure digital brand. So I don't believe it to be too high or unfair - thats just what it costs them to deliver the content they do I suspect

Still a fair point but it did occur to me this morning that it misses something fundamental - dsc is a daily news service as well as a race reporting service - that means we have people providing content every day.

Getting a team of reporters and photographers to race meetings does cost a chunk of cash but lets not go down the road of believing that they are any less deserving of a pay cheque when they get there than anyone else in the press room (and lets be blunt they are rather more deserving of it measured by effort and results than many others!)

There are unavoidabe overheads AND value-related overheads (such as fees and salaries) in the latter regard we are no different than non-digital media.

Very concious that this is precious little to do with Aston Martin!

Full interviews with DR and GH-C were posted at midnight.

[Mal]

Originally Posted by Graham Goodwin

Full interviews with DR and GH-C were posted at midnight.

A very neat link there Graham between justifying the DSC costs and efforts of its staff and this AM thread

I for one am happy with the costs - I prefer to pay for DSC than a subscription to Autosport of any other Motorsport subscription media.

The interviews with DR and GHC are very detailed and very insightful and well worth a read. They really bring accross the attention to detail, the extent of the changes that AM are making to the Lola chassis and the time constraints all at Prodrive are under from pushing the button to getting a competitive car to HTTT next week and ready for LM in June.

[ss_collins]

Graham does DSC have any full time journalists / full time staff? I thought it was all done in spare time / holidays or by freelancers?

(mods split n merge perhaps?)

[Graham Goodwin]

Yup - we have full timers (always have done) - FWIW as well there are several others (myself included) that do all but full time hours in addition to a day job!

[prototype]

I love DSC Graham. I will glady pay it's subscription fee, even if some of the news can be found on Auto Sport or EI.

I am also jealous that DSC staff does what they love to do, and they get paid for it.

[JayBMS]

i joined DSC in december and love it, well worth the £! keep up the work

[Dyson20]

I don't know if any of you guys read road and track, they say that Jaguar could be in the series by St. Pete. This may already have been discussed, but does anyone think if the new Bio-Butonal fuel that Dyson will be running this year has more energy than E-10?

[Dyson20]

woops wrong thread

[Aslak Vind]

Normally I dont drop presslaunches on bloggs, cause it is against the clause with Lola.

But this one has to be know, due to its nature:

"LOLA STATEMENT 2nd March 2009 LOLA SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT WITH ASTON MARTIN

Following a number of inaccurate and misleading quotes given by the Aston Martin Chairman David Richards, regarding the supply of the Lola LMP1 chassis to Aston Martin Racing for this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours and Le Mans Series programme, Lola has decided to set the record straight. The Lola Aston Martin is a Lola designed and built car. It is not a ‘radical re-design’ as stated by Aston Martin Racing.

Aston Martin has undertaken some body styling cues that required some CFD work to try to reinstate the Lola Aero performance and minor bespoke mechanical changes to accommodate the styling changes. Lola has spent over two and a half years in the research and development of this state of the art car costing several millions of pounds. Aston Martin contracted with Lola in December 2008 to buy our cars because they knew that as a result of the 2008 performance that we had the leading LMP1 customer car and Aston Martin didn’t have the time to develop their own car.

When Aston first mooted rehomologation of the Lola car and was given the cost of their contribution to IPR and R&D the negotiations broke down. It is completely inappropriate that Aston Martin should now attempt to achieve “ownership” through misrepresentation in the media. Lola’s binding contract with Aston Martin is for two cars the nomenclature of which under the contract is that the cars must remain Lola Aston Martin."

Lola

[deggis]

AMR and Lola, please have a group hug before this gets out of hands...