Is the Am class a bad idea?

[ubrben]

The original question is ridiculously black and white.

McNish caused his crash last year, lets get rid of P1...

Le Mans would not function without gentlemen drivers and the current P2 and GTE-AM regs are very good IMHO.

Ben

[airbusA346]

Originally Posted by Salamus

More accidents between protos and gts are occurring because the straight line speeds are so close now a days. It is harder to pass on the straights, causing proto drivers to take risks in the corners. It is up to GT drivers to look at their mirrors and be aware of cars around them. Perazzini was not aware of Davidson's presence...thankfully both drivers are fine.

GT cars don't look too hard to pass in a straight line when in a Audi or Toyota.

Tom.

[GT3 RSR]

Originally Posted by ubrben

The original question is ridiculously black and white.

McNish caused his crash last year, lets get rid of P1...

Le Mans would not function without gentlemen drivers and the current P2 and GTE-AM regs are very good IMHO.

Ben

Agreed on all points.

Some people seem to forget two other points:
1) the GTe AM cars are being driven on the limit, not at 50%, so at some point they MUST TURN IN. They can't just drive round the outside of a corner, offline flat out.
2) the vision out of the back of a GT car is almost non existent.

Therefore the it's a case of passing driver beware IMO.

Let them get on with it - end of.

[Rennen]

Originally Posted by Holt

Anthony Davidson has been involved in 3 significant accidents with GT cars.

2010 he tangled with Emanuel Collard's Corvette in the Porsche Curves

2011 he tangled with Jean Alesi's Ferrari in the bend after the Dunlop Chicane

2012 he tangled with Perazzini's Ferrari in the bend right before Mulsanne corner.

That does look like a pattern. I do know that after the Corvette accident he was anything but apologetic.

I think Davidson is willing to take an extra risk other prototype drivers are not, so he has been in more crashes.

Correction...2010 He did NOT touch (OR 'TANGLE') the Corvette at all in the Porsche Curves!...It was only the hysterical commentator who overreacted to a foreshortened side camera angle that made it look like contact had been made...that in turn lead to other journalists sticking microphones under his nose immediatly after he returned to the pits...not interested in his great triple stints that regained an entire lap for his Peugoet team, but the negative non contact to the Corvette!
The reason he was unapologetic at 'that' moment was because he knew nothing about it!
Later he apologised for his attitude 'at that moment' as he was still 'high' on the effort he had put into recovering the cars lost time in the pits.
Fact is that Collard left himself open to an 'LMP attack' by not covering his own his position through the Porsches curves...and didn't use his mirrors a la Parazzini! I shouldn't really have to add that Collard also totalled his Pescarolo last year too!

I have no knowledge of any contact in 2011!

And the accident this year was the first time he's ever damaged an LMP Prototype in 4 seasons of racing them all over the world, and that includes 4 LeMans, and no damages at all in 4 seasons of testing LMPs either, a good record by any drivers standard.

As regards the above accident the G force of the impact was 10 G on hitting the ground and an increadable 35 G into the Barriers! So Toyota built a very strong as well as a very fast car.

I asked Anthony why he didn't flash his lights at the Ferrari, he said because they were asked not to in drivers briefing by the GT drivers, who said they could see them!...clearly one AM didn't!

[Purist]

Thank you very much for clearing that up.

[Simmi]

Finally read through this. Interesting thread to read.

I think there's a few interesting things to take out of this. I like Rennen's 'AM light' idea. How long do you keep the light for as an AM driver? Permanently? Or after a few seasons of competition?

It's a good idea and it backs up what Martin Brundle said about being able to gauge the quality of a car. That said, I don't think a light would have prevented Ant making the move, one I feel was a fairly standard pass. You can't prepare for a driver cutting across on you, nor can you drive in fear of it.


NO ONE wants to see accidents like this occur. But the challenge of negotiating amateur drivers in slower cars, and therefore the unpredictable prospect of errors/accidents/damage, is what makes sportscars so unformulaic and if I'm honest exciting. Anything can happen, nothing is certain.

You could put in measures to say you must run five WEC races before you go to LM or similar. You must hit a certain lap-time. But the fact is Perazzini would have made the grade and it wouldn't have changed anything.

Amateur drivers are such a key aspect of sportscars, Le Mans and its history. I actually think that the general strength of the LM field is getting stronger as of late. It changes nothing in terms of the risks. That said this is Le Mans and it is again part of a world championship. I think due to that the ACO should be able to be more critical of entries like we saw from Gulf Middle East if they aren't impressing. But that doesn't apply to this particular scenario.

What I hope for most is that there isn't an over-reaction. We could easily go 10 years now without a similar incident as before, because I really don't see what is so different in 2012.