[WEC] 2018-2019 WEC Super Season

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by canaglia

you know... I just think as happened in 2017, both toyotas will go for a quick time attack as soon Q sessions start. Once got a reasonable safe timelap for 1st and 2nd, guess they will just spend the remaining time for short/long tyres, aero settings, fuel tank simulations. That's why even if SMP and rebellion will get close qualifying laps, it actually won't mean a thing....


Once started the race, guess toyotas will build a safe 10-15 seconds gap in first 20 minutes. Once started GTE overlapping, game over for SMP and rebellion; thanks for playing.

The only ace in the hole for rebellion is their gibson reliability..... soon or later AER will strikes back, while toyotas could however suffer of hybrid hardware issue....

It'll depend whether it rains on Q1 or Q3 me thinks, that's when you want to bump in the lap of the gods in cool air

I think Spa showed there is potential for some fresh hybrid failures, however unless they come at the very last part of the race I doubt it's gonna matter given Toyota can easily come back even multiple laps from behind. The bigger chance of surprise result I reckon comes through potential accidents... there is a larger percentage of GTEs you know. Normally it won't matter on such long track but after SC restarts, with everybody punched up at Porsche curves, you never know.

Anyway with AERs obviously failing and Dragonspeed/Kolles being non-factors, Rebellion once again will be the only even semi-theoretical benefactor of potential Toyota failure. That, or the top LMP2 Oreca

[Damian Baldi]

I only hope that Rebellion's guys make a clean start this time. If you review all the races starts of 2018, there were clashes almost in every race, including Le Mans.

Toyota will win unless they have problems, but we know all that. I want to see the privateers fight.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by Damian Baldi

I only hope that Rebellion's guys make a clean start this time. If you review all the races starts of 2018, there were clashes almost in every race, including Le Mans.

Toyota will win unless they have problems, but we know all that. I want to see the privateers fight.

Yeah if they manage to survive the first couple of laps alright I think Rebellion vs SMP will be great show, at least until the turbos expire. We probably won't see much of it on screen since the cameras will be busy showing either the Toyota pit boxes or the bunched up brand association wrestling match, but I guess we always have timing screens

I remember Rebellion Lola vs Pescarolo in 2011, such good fight

[Maelochs]

Originally Posted by Chiana

In all seriousness, I would like to say that as much as we make fun of the likes of AER, and say ByKolles, these are the _colors_ of the race. The absolute spirits of Le Mans. When you have a field of clone spec cars (LMP2) or performance balanced show machinery (GTE), there isn't really going to be much of "what's going to happen to them" factor... because they're all the same conveyor belt material.

Yes! A little Real racing ... where cars are built to fit the rules and whoever build s the better car and uses it better wins ... where cars are pushed until the (sometimes) break .... The race for third place is going to be authentic racing .... though there is sometimes good competition in P2 as well, even though they are pretty much spec cars.

Makes me long for the next endurance race at Bathurst ... those guys need to institute a 2-liter prototype class.

[Mike E]

Some thoughts on this stint length business. Please correct my maths if necessary.

LMP1H is allowed 35.2kg of petrol per stint.
That is about 47 litres.
A lap of Le Mans is 13.626km.
The hybrids are restricted to a max stint length of 11 laps but we know they can do 12 because that's what Kobayashi did last year when he missed his pit call. OK, he did some of the 12th lap slowly but he didn't run it dry.
12 laps is 163.5km.
47 litres over 163.5km is about 28.7l/100km (about 9.8 imperial mpg for people of a certain age). Terrible by road car standards but pretty amazing considering the performance.

LMP1 non-hybrid is allowed 52.9kg of petrol per stint.
That is about 70.5 litres.
The non-hybrids are restricted to a max stint length of 10 laps but let's say they can do 11.
11 laps is 150km.
70.5 litres over 150km is about 47.1l/100km.
That's about 63% worse than the hybrids.

(I am assuming they use all of their allocation because I don't know any better)

If we say the hybrids should be able to exploit their greater efficiency then we could just give both types of car the same fuel allocation and let them thrash it out.

But a hybrid car, at 28.7l/100km, could do 245km on 70.5 litres, or 18 laps. A hybrid car developed and run by the world's biggest manufacturer of hybrid vehicles is going to stomp all over a bunch of privateers buying off the shelf (non-hybrid) hardware.

The 11 vs 10 lap restrictions, and the related per stint fuel allocations, while utterly repellent to any right minded race fan, are doing the non-hybrids a massive favour.

This is the problem the ACO has in trying to balance such different technologies.

Since the vast majority of the efficiency losses of the non-hybrids come from heat energy lost through braking, maybe another approach is needed. Such as: very light, low powered non-hybrids vs something like what the hybrids are now. We have already seen something like this in the form of the Deltawing. It ran at LM at 475kg with a 40 litre fuel tank, and a 300bhp 4 cylinder engine. The car ran 11 lap stints, which equates to about 26.7l/100km. OK, it wasn't bothering LMP1 (or even most of LMP2), but you get the idea.
The heat losses from slowing a smaller, lighter car are much reduced, so overall efficiency is better. Do you improve efficiency by being small and light, or by recovering otherwise wasted energy? Your choice.

Of course, none of this is going to happen because Aston Martin wants to run a V12 road car at 1200kg or something.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Mike E

The 11 vs 10 lap restrictions, and the related per stint fuel allocations, while utterly repellent to any right minded race fan, are doing the non-hybrids a massive favour.

Yeah, but this is the problem. They're doing them a favour that means nothing. They are keeping them away from the hybrids anyway. So there's a lot of posturing and "balancing" going on, to achieve the exact same result anyway. They are not being honest in what they say they are doing, and actions they take.

If you're balancing them, then balance them. If you're not, then you're not. There are valid arguments for both approaches. The current approach is pretending they are balancing them, pretending it's all fine, and then at the last minute saying "nah just kidding, we'll make sure there's a gap".

It's the same with the new regulations. They were worried nobody was signing up so kept changing it. But now it's changed so much that nobody is signing up because nobody knows what it is anymore. Pick something and commit to it properly.

[Maelochs]

Originally Posted by Mike E

The 11 vs 10 lap restrictions, and the related per stint fuel allocations, while utterly repellent to any right minded race fan, are doing the non-hybrids a massive favour.

No ... it is ensuring a hybrid victory.

The regs allow one car to have twice the hp (approximately,) only some of which uses petrol, so a straight-up equal fuel allocation would effectively ignore that huge advantage ... not a level playing field.

The 11- versus ten-lap stint length Combined with the rest of the regs Still ensures (and is intended to ensure) a P1-H victory ... why else set the limit there? if true parity between the two cars was the intention, maybe fuel allocation should be set by relative total horsepower? Adding weight based on the car's' qualifying speeds?

The fact seems to be, that the two classes are radically different and balancing them would be ridiculously hard ... and FIA-ACO does not Want to balance them anyway.

If the regs allowed each car the same amount of fuel ... that would not be "equal," because of the electric hybrid system. Even trying to match lap times wouldn't work, because the hybrids can get out of corners so quickly ....

That is why the 11-10 ration is so insulting ... the hybrids already have Every possible advantage ... and with no lap limits still. no one would expect anyone except Toyota to take the top two places, barring accidents. Toyota can dial back their engine power in favor of reliability and still pretty much have the guaranteed ability to overtake any car on the track.

The 11-10 ratio gives the hybrids one more advantage on top of every other. If ACO had simply not bothered, Toyota would have pretty much exactlyt he same chance to win, and no one would bother being outraged ... but by e3stablishing the 11/10 ratio, FIA_ACo is jus highlighting exactly how much they are doing to ensure that Toyota is rewarded with another Le Mans win ... and could it, just possibly, just at the outside edge of imagination, be because FIA-ACO Really wants Toyota to come back to support the next set of regs? Just maybe?

The best dirty politics happens behind the scenes. This is blatant, in-your-face favoritism ... but whatever. No matter how much we don't like it, we all know what we will be watching when the green flag waves.

[Mike E]

I essentially agree with all of that. The 11 vs 10 lap thing is driven by the max fuel allocation which is itself pretty arbitrary. I realise the hybrids are being given another stick with which to beat the non-hybrids. What I meant was that without that limit the hybrids would be even further ahead.

[Mike E]

Lotterer's eye view.

https://www.motorsport.com/wec/news/...mpression=true

[Akrapovic]

"It’s difficult to balance performance over multiple hours between us and Toyota because the hybrids have four-wheel drive and they have an enormous advantage in traffic. It’s pretty much mission impossible to try and equalise that.”

Thank you very much.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Chiana

https://www.autosport.com/wec/news/1...-lmp1-equality

"The gap between us and the others will become closer, especially with SMP I think," Toyota team boss Rob Leupen said.
"Also Rebellion, they are not that far away as they have been last year."
"For me last year it was more about reliability, I don't think you can expect to win Le Mans after a few months with a new car.
"We have seen how difficult it was to win after a few years with a car which has been developed."
"The [privateers] can use more fuel per lap.
"They have the potential to have a lot higher downforce, so they are better in traffic and in the corners. We've not seen it at Spa, but they should have [higher top speeds].
"We should be able to be quicker than them on one lap, but [the difference should be] very tiny.
"With all these compromises we have seen on the EoT side, they will have to come closer."

Sssssssssssssssssuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure

I especially like the lines "compromises" (compromises they could veto) and "they will have to come closer". Why will they have to come closer?

Nonhybrids being "better in traffic and corners" also makes no sense to me, other than in PR excuses sense

He's speaking about Le Mans in specific, not the wec races/tracks. At Le Mans, the hybrid Toyota has is the least advantaged of any place they race. 8mj for 13.6+km vs somewhere like Spa where it's over 6mj for 7km.

I think by compromise he means running only 11 laps per stint vs 13 almost 14 laps in 2017. They could have left it like that and the private teams would need a tank 1.5 times the size they have now, which would slow them down even further because of the fuel weight. Also running 880kg while some private cars are 815kg. Smaller front and rear wings/diveplanes. Much less engine power. Finalized bodykits vs updated whenever they homologate for the privateers, the list continues. Toyota already had a huge advantage but they've stopped developing the aero. The only thing they can do is get more familiar with the car and go from there. Yeah they have a hybrid that is much more efficient, but in reality the non-hybrids are lucky to even have only a 1-lap disadvantage.

I don't see anything wrong with his points. I like Toyota, they're my favorite team/manufacturer but I'm not blinded by my like for them. I can see what he's saying and agree with 90% of it. The things I don't like are mandated stint lengths. They need to protect their interests, every manufacturer would even if we don't like it. It's something we'll have to live with until 2021's edition I guess. It makes me wish one of the private teams just used a mild hybrid and argued for more favorable eot in the 2mj or 4mj 'class'.

[Maelochs]

Originally Posted by Mike E

I essentially agree with all of that. The 11 vs 10 lap thing is driven by the max fuel allocation which is itself pretty arbitrary. I realise the hybrids are being given another stick with which to beat the non-hybrids. What I meant was that without that limit the hybrids would be even further ahead.

I agree .... but everything about the regs is arbitrary from min/max dimensions to weight to fuel capacity ..... if Just the fuel tank size were equalized, yeah ... the hybrids would be a lot further ahead.

[Adam43]

Interesting thoughts Mike. So the mandated stint lengths give Toyota 1 lap advantage per stint. The fuel tank size difference gives the privateers a 6 lap advantage (or Toyota a 6 lap disadvantage).

You could do a similar thought process for the minimum weight rule give. It would be slightly different, but you could apply the same principle.

FWIW I am technically against both, but I get why for both.

And another point. 9mpg. Wow. I get 7-8 mpg for my race car, for an average lap speed of 75-80mph depending on circuit. Albeit with pushrods!

[S griffin]

I think fuel rules is easier and fairer at balancing performance than the weight penalty which hasn't gone far enough. It's something for the organisers to think about during the off season

[XtC24]

So maybe they should allow Toyota even less fuel per stint (ca 32kg), so they can only run 10 laps like the non-hybrids. Toyota and ACO reportedly want to show the advantage of the hybrid, and this is only one lap whereas as was pointed here they could do 14 in 2016 and 2017, and could do even more with the same amount of fuel as the NH LMP1. With even less fuel and 10 lap stints Toyota could at least say we use even less to go the same distance as NH.
But we all know that they just want to have as big advantage as they can at LM, so that in case of trouble they have something like 40 min (10 laps) cushion over the race distance to make it up. So we have what we have.

[Mike E]

Yes, that would give Toyota an advantage in refuelling time to reflect the efficiency of the hybrid while not beating the non-hybrids with a big stick.

[GasperG]

As it is, Toyota has the advantage and for all the effort that has put in their car, they should, since it's the fastest thing from raw physics stand point.

Equalising them without any advantage would result in Toyota exit, no other way. Equalising them to a point where a mechanical error and repair of about 30 minutes costs them victory is IMO a fair equalisation.

The only fair way to Equalise further would be even lower weight allowance for privateers.

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by GasperG

The only fair way to Equalise further would be even lower weight allowance for privateers.

How much weight do they carry as ballast though? I'd hate to see the cars get more expensive just to make a slightly lighter chassis, suspension, etc

[TF110]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

How much weight do they carry as ballast though? I'd hate to see the cars get more expensive just to make a slightly lighter chassis, suspension, etc

I think they could get away with another 20-30kg according to what Rebellion's manager was saying in a recent interview. So ~800kg would probably be the limit. I think they have to keep a little ballast for ideal weight distribution but not 100% on that.