[WEC Race] 2012 Six Hours of Fuji

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

Audi also concentrated on long runs in the afternoon. In fact, Lotterer set his fastest lap (1:29.073) during a double stints of 35 + 34 = 69 laps.

It is always interesting to compare the average lap times of the long runs.
Lotterer still seems to suffer from tyre wear in his second stint.

McNish did another long run in the first practice session:

car	driver	laps	average lap time
2	McNish	35	1:30.384

It is unclear whether this was on new or old tires.

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by Purist

Also, how is it possible to run only 311km/h in qualifying at Suzuka, with free reign on DRS, and run 318km/h in the race with no DRS, and 322/323km/h with the limited allotment of DRS? Sorry, those numbers do NOT add up. Also, the number from Spa qualifying is 310km/h, but weren't we seeing 311-313km/h from the Audis last year at Spa?

No, Audi did 300 km/h in Spa this year. See http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Res...Speed_Race.PDF
Last year they did slightly more. See http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Res...Speed_Race.PDF

[TF110]

Going faster now, 28.4 from Audi.

[chernaudi]

That's what, about 5 or so seconds clear of a GT500. It seems that Nakajima is about spot on with saying that an LMP1 should clear a GT500 by about 5-6 seconds once the track rubbers in.

[TF110]

He said race pace. Qualifying for GT500 in the dry this year was in the 33s. But the record is from last year in the low 32s. So far, on ultimate pace it's 4-5 seconds. But if they turn 29s and 30s in race pace, that's 5-6 seconds faster than GT500 as they run in the 35s.

[TF110]

Lapierre still turning in the laps, hovering around the 28's and 29's well into the stint.

[gwyllion]

If it is a long run, I will calculate the average lap time once the timing data becomes available on http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/

[chernaudi]

#1 Audi and #7 Toyota both ran 1:28.4, and it seems that the #2 Audi mostly did long runs as it's fast lap was .7 slower. And it seems late in the session that the factory LMP1s leveled out to running lower 1:30s, but I can't tell if it's a double stint that any of them are on this late.

[TF110]

He's the least experienced one here also. I think Nakajima will be their fastest, but Lapierre got within 4 thousandths of Audi's best.

[chernaudi]

Wurz dropped down almost into the 1:31s for a lap or two--tire fall off or bad traffic? Also, neither Audi was much faster than that late in the session, either, mostly running mostly low to mid 1:30s.

Difference between #1 Audi and Toyota for fast lap was .004 of a second, #2 Audi ran the most laps at 57 laps. Odd to see the #1 Audi making shorter runs and making about 5 stops compared to only 2 or 3 for the #2 and about 4 for the Toyota.

[gwyllion]

The #1 Audi spent quite some time in the garage to fix accident damage. That is why it did less laps than the other cars.

Originally Posted by @audi__sport

#WEC #Fuji No.2 Fässler in garage, change of right rear suspension after contact with Corvette

source: http://twitter.com/Audi__Sport/statu...57368211939328

Audi used an interesting strategy for the #2 car. McNish drove the complete first session and now Kristensen got the complete second session.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

Wurz dropped down almost into the 1:31s for a lap or two--tire fall off or bad traffic? Also, neither Audi was much faster than that late in the session, either, mostly running mostly low to mid 1:30s.

Difference between #1 Audi and Toyota for fast lap was .004 of a second, #2 Audi ran the most laps at 57 laps. Odd to see the #1 Audi making shorter runs and making about 5 stops compared to only 2 or 3 for the #2 and about 4 for the Toyota.

Audi dropped down that low as well towards the end as well.

[gwyllion]

As promised, a calculation of the average lap for the long runs on the second session.

Wednesday testing:

car	driver	laps	average lap time
1	Lotterer	35	1:29.988
1	Lotterer	34	1:31.248
2	Kristensen	36	1:30.782
7	Nakajima	32	1:30.437
7	Wurz	30	1:30.390

Friday practice:

car	driver	laps	average lap time
2	McNish	35	1:30.384
2	Kristensen	36	1:30.113
7	Lapierre	32	1:30.421

Based on the lap times on the live timing, I expected the average lap time of Lapierre to be a bit faster. However, apparently he did two extremely slow laps because of traffic in sector 3: 1:34.838 on lap 10 and 1:35.163 on lap 31. If I exclude these laps, his average lap time would have been 1:30.094.

Note that the long runs of today confirm that Toyota will do 32 lap stints and Audi 35-36 lap stints.

[chernaudi]

Strange at Speed.com that Dagys didn't report on the #1's run-in with a Corvette, but he did report an intra-Toyota incident where the #7 Toyota and the #12 Rebellion Lola made contact near the very end of the session, but without much damage to either car. At least someone is making parts for Lola LMP cars even though the company, for the time being at least, has basically shut down.

That could explain the 2:14 lap time for Wurz--probably a pit out lap, though he was scored as being on track and not on an out lap.

[TF110]

Toyota's twitter says towards the end they were doing pit stop practice.

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by TF110

Toyota's twitter says towards the end they were doing pit stop practice.

It is common to practice a driver change when the car comes in the pits after the session has ended.

Lapierre comments that Audi and Toyota have similar pace at the moment:

I had my first long stint here so it was good to experience
the tyre degradation and feel the difference between full fuel and low fuel. At some point I was running together with an Audi so we could see we are very closely matched; it is very competitive here. Fuji seems to be a track where the gap between cars is smaller than usual so it is going to be a very tight race. We also saw in the last sector that you can make up a lot of time in traffic but it very twisty and tight so you can also have contact.

source: http://www.toyotahybridracing.com/to...fuji-speedway/

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

That could explain the 2:14 lap time for Wurz--probably a pit out lap, though he was scored as being on track and not on an out lap.

In http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Res...actice%202.PDF you can see that Wurz and Jani lost time in sector 1 during their last lap. So this is where they hit each other. Wurz lost more than 30 seconds, so maybe he was turned around or he went off track.

[chernaudi]

I thought it was an out lap from the stop the resulted from the spin, because the time lost was about 45 seconds compared to a normal time of about 1:30, but that depends on how long it would take to get on and off pit road, which at Fuji is moderately long.

It also didn't help that Dagys, aside from reporting no damage on either car, didn't go into detail about the incident, whether it was a spin or just a collision. Either that or Wurz had a puncture and limped the car around to the pits instead of abandoning it or running back and having a delaminated tire destroy a good chunk of the car's bodywork and suspension--after all, the #1 Audi lost several laps worth of time to repair a tweaked suspension earlier in the session, though contact seems to have done the damage as opposed to a resultant puncture.

[Graham Goodwin]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

It also didn't help that Dagys, aside from reporting no damage on either car, didn't go into detail about the incident, whether it was a spin or just a collision. Either that or Wurz had a puncture and limped the car around to the pits instead of abandoning it or running back and having a delaminated tire destroy a good chunk of the car's bodywork and suspension--after all, the #1 Audi lost several laps worth of time to repair a tweaked suspension earlier in the session, though contact seems to have done the damage as opposed to a resultant puncture.

Just a minor point but in my book constantly referring to someone simply by their surname does come across as a bit blunt/ rude

For the record the Toyota/ Rebellion clash was a minor side to side affair - No major damage, no drame, no action from stewards. The Audi Corvette incident impacted on a wheel/ corner - Only sensible that they'd change that corner bearing in mind the forces involved. Again deemed a racing incident - no further action.

[chernaudi]

So it seems that if no damage was done to either car, it does seem that it was a driver change practice, which after all is what TMG reported as happening in the very last minutes of practice (Note, DSC is reporting that Wurz briefly stopped the car before returning to the pit area).

45 seconds is a lot of time lost for a minor spin or contact unless it was a puncture or the car stalled on track, but a driver change practice makes sense, as a driver change takes about 20 seconds for a good one (with no other service), which means at Fuji maybe about a 20 second or so run down pit road?

This does lead to a discussion about strategy, since the ideal situation for a 6 stop race is 34 lap or longer stints it seems depending on race pace. Audi can go 35-36 laps, Toyota it seems can manage 32 when pushed as far as speed. Depending on relative race pace between Audi and Toyota, it seems that Toyota might need a lead of about 35 or so seconds to keep the lead after a late race splash, depending on pit road delta times and how much fuel will need to be brought on board.

One thing about Fuji's pit road is that it has that chicane like entrance, and though it's a long pit road, delta times depend on the speed limit zone length and where it starts and ends. I can't remember where such zones were located for the F1 races there, but the WEC probably have similar in/out zones.

Also strange to note that the #49 Oreca and the #71 Ferrari ran out of fuel on the very last lap, and Toyota ran their car out of fuel at Bahrain during practice. Not only does it beg the question about telemetry, but it doesn't leave any questions about fuel strategy for those teams.

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

Depending on relative race pace between Audi and Toyota, it seems that Toyota might need a lead of about 35 or so seconds to keep the lead after a late race splash, depending on pit road delta times and how much fuel will need to be brought on board.

The race will last 6 hours and the average lap time will be around 1:30. So they will do at most 240 laps (= 1095 km).

In Sao Paulo Toyota had to do a last fuel stop 5 min before the end of the race and this stop toke 36 sec. See http://trussers.blogspot.be/2012/09/...nterlagos.html
In order to make up for that additional time in the pits, Toyota has to be at least 0.15 sec faster per lap than Audi. That is doable because Toyota does no have tyre wear issues during a double stint.

[bella]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

Also strange to note that the #49 Oreca and the #71 Ferrari ran out of fuel on the very last lap, and Toyota ran their car out of fuel at Bahrain during practice. Not only does it beg the question about telemetry, but it doesn't leave any questions about fuel strategy for those teams.

rookie question - i assume fuel starvation doesn't harm these seriously high performance engines they're running?

about testing the limits of a fuel tank - isn't that a good idea? ok, itd be preferable to do it in testing but is this one of those circuits at altitude?

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

In http://www.toyotahybridracing.com/fu...vers-comments/ Nakajima compares the TS030 to GT500 cars:

http://endurance-info.com/version2/n...cus-13829.html Benoit Treluyer also explains the difference between a LMP1 and a Super GT.

It is quite technical, with an extremely long straight that ends with a hairpin before three fast corners and then some slow turns. In our Audi, the braking for turn one is just incredible - I've never braked so late here! In fact, it took several attempts to forget my old marks.

[Trussers]

For the record (and just to show that I'm paying attention, gwyllion), the pit in - pit out distance at Fuji is 467m and at Interlagos is 384m. Therefore an additional 83m at 60kph - adds around 5s to the pit stop time.

[JAG__]

Originally Posted by TF110

He said race pace. Qualifying for GT500 in the dry this year was in the 33s. But the record is from last year in the low 32s. So far, on ultimate pace it's 4-5 seconds. But if they turn 29s and 30s in race pace, that's 5-6 seconds faster than GT500 as they run in the 35s.

When looking at F1 times at WEC venues recently I noticed their race laps are 4 seconds or more down on qualifying, LMP's often better their qualifying time in the race. Also surprised to see the tail enders in F1 can be 4-5 seconds off pole, on race pace this means they are only 4-5 seconds quicker than the LMP's.