[WEC] New rules. New manufacturers. The 2021 and beyond positivity thread!

[TF110]

motorsport.com reporting on Hyundai as well as dailysportscar.com! An announcement may come soon apparently.

[veeten]

Evidently, interest is on the up.
http://www.dailysportscar.com/2024/0...extension.html

[v8supes]

Redbull RB17 hypercar launch today at 10am - Goodwood.

Given the FORD F1 partnership with Red Bull, do you think we could see this come to WEC at some point in the future?

[broadrun96]

Nope

[TF110]

With Newey leaving Red Bull, I think his creation with them stays as a 'road' car.

[S griffin]

He’ll find something else to do. This car probably will be a road car at best

[J Jay]

Newey makes some wild claims about projected performance in this Top Gear video, but ultimately this will be not be in Hypercar anytime soon. Red Bull are fully on-board with F1 and they won't be diverting any catering resources away from F1 anytime soon.

[GingerPixel]

Originally Posted by J Jay

Newey makes some wild claims about projected performance

They really are wild. Pole at Silverstone? I'm not sure about that

[helgi]

With more power and a way better aero efficiency - why not? Even if it's heavier than F1. With propper tyres (not F1 ones which are made for show) it can be faster.

[GingerPixel]

Yeah I suppose. Maybe it's the long history of claimed lap times for cars that are yet to turn a wheel in anger being equal to F1/LMP1/whatever. A certain level of cynicism is traditional!

They should have launched this with a video of it at full chat around Silverstone and eclipsing the F1 pole time!

[S griffin]

I hate when designers and the like brag about how much faster their cars could go because no one can prove them. It’s really unlikely they’d go faster than the F1 pole time

[veeten]

What you would've ended up with is a CGI-laden video, more suited for gamers, trying to pass itself off as a representation of that lap.

Sorry, but we're not THAT stupid...

[helgi]

Theoretically they still can put Verstappen at the wheel to prove. Sportscars for most part of modern history had and forever will have better aero than "open wheels". From engineering point of view I have no doubt that Newey is not joking or overestimating the potential. But I doubt anybody is going to allow this happen, at least while RB is still in F1. Just to avoid "moral harm" for business as organizers say nowadays.

[TF110]

I'd trust what Newey says since he's been doing Red Bull's f1 cars and knows their performance. So if he says it's as fast as f1 I'd believe it. But will it happen? I would like to see.

[broadrun96]

How dare you trust someone who's seen the car over internet experts, how dare you

[GingerPixel]

This is the same person that said the Valkyrie would be doing LMP1 laptimes

[Adam43]

If it can do F1 lap times it can do LMP1 lap times!

[TF110]

He says weight is around 875kg, which isnt much more than the current bloated f1's of today lol

But I doubt it'll ever 'race' so it's just another toy for multimillionaires

[GT3_Fan]

Remember when they falsely advertised the hypercar class when it first was announced. The reality is that they all have the LMP shark fins and rear wins. Even the Aston Martin Valkyre apparantly.

[Adam43]

It is interesting for that has come about because not having a fin is allowable under the rules.

It’s all down to how the manufacturers chose to pass the safety rules that look to reduce the chance of cars flipping. Which is, of course, a good thing

Still, worth a moan.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by GT3_Fan

Remember when they falsely advertised the hypercar class when it first was announced. The reality is that they all have the LMP shark fins and rear wins. Even the Aston Martin Valkyre apparantly.

Not sure that's falsely advertised as ZERO viewers thought, yup that's a finished race ready car. If the fin didn't provide a benefit it wouldn't be on the car, full stop. It does, so it's there. Don't like it make a new series and/or don't watch but as long as you watch you're giving credence to their decisions

[chernaudi]

The fin is probably somewhere in the ACO's technical regs for the WEC and the LM24 (just like how the front and rear fenders still have the wheel arch cut outs). They're there because of, one, the Mercedes-Benz CLR backflips of '99, and, two, several cars getting airborne in high speed spins in 2008-2010. They're probably not going away, just like how the splitter area of the front diffusers on all LMH/GTP cars still have that 50mm tall/1000mm wide lip in them.



And as to why those cars look like modified LMP1 cars? You don't unlearn what you already know, and we have to be fair: most of the late 1990's GT1 cars were pretty much prototypes that vaguely resembled road legal supercars of the period. Even the 993 and original 996 generation Porsche 911 GT1s only shared the basic production unitbody with the road legal 911s, and were even the precursor to the mid-engine 911 GTE/GTLM cars of a few years ago.


IE, I'm of the opinion of if you want cars that look like road cars, stick to GT racing. Prototypes IMO should look like prototypes. And just because the LMH name has the word "hypercar" in it, it was simply intended to be the successor to the original LMP1 class, just like how LMP1 was originally a re-work of LMP900.


And as to LMH originally catering to "hypercars" that were capable of 1000 hp, well, the fact that the ACO and FIA wanted a unified class with IMSA with their then upcoming GTP class killed that off. And IMO, we don't really need 1000 hp cars racing around Le Mans or anywhere else. LMP900 and LMP1 did fine with cars making 600-700hp. It was (IMO) when the ACO went "go big or go home" with hybrids and making lightweight cars for such things that things got out of control, and a lack of season to season rules stability.

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by Adam43

It is interesting how that has come about because not having a fin is allowable under the rules.

It’s all down to how the manufacturers chose to pass the safety rules that look to reduce the chance of cars flipping. Which is, of course, a good thing.

Originally Posted by chernaudi

The fin is probably somewhere in the ACO's technical regs for the WEC and the LM24…

The fin isn’t in the regulations.
However designing a car that doesn’t flip is and the fin is a good solution to that.

[GT3_Fan]

Originally Posted by Adam43

The fin isn’t in the regulations.
However designing a car that doesn’t flip is and the fin is a good solution to that.

Then how come GT cars (thank goodness) don't have shark fins then?

[chernaudi]

Probably because they're heavier, less aerodynamic, and corner slower?