2008 24 Hours of Le Mans

Drivers are getting soaked - remember, there's no windshield like a regular convertible, either. Formula 1 drivers, will all the wings diverting air around them, still get soaked. A much slower prototype-car driver will be completely wet.

In a closed car, your visor won't fog in the first place - air conditioning - plus, at 200mph in an open car, you don't want your eyes exposed.

 

a nice luxury for prototype drivers

 

If Ferrari were to have another entry, then I think it would likely be the 599 in GT1, similar to the 550/575.

Nice post! I definitely agree that Tom Kristensen would be one of my go to guys in sports cars. Allan McNish would also be in that category. Really, almost any of the factory Audi drivers could be in there. I would also likely lump Porsche factory guys in there too.

 

well, as long as the air is carriered over the car, then, the rain is carried with it.

yes, because the entire windshield will fog up. plus, i didnt say all the way open. motorcycle racers do it in the wet as well.

 

I wonder if that means cars for sale to priveteers. Then again, some idiot is probably think its the end of the world when most of field starts swiching to diesels, which in my opinion will be the only way to keep up with the diesels. And the rumor of a GT1 effort has gone around for quite a bit I think. There was even a rumor that a Factory lamborghini effort was in the works, but no proof has come of that. I like the sound of it, but Hopefully funds and development are suffient to pull it off and with a tema like Reiter Engineering, Pratt & Miller would actually get Prodrive size run for their money on a regular basis.

I think that was before the ACO decided not to implement the rule in due to poor reception from the Manufacterers.

I thinking that as well. If they were to, I wouldn't be surprised to see dallara once again by their side. For now, they seem more focused on GT an in particular, GT2. They may surprise though.

 

I think it will just be like before with the R8 with the "privateers" running the cars and Audi pulling back a bit, but still providing less support for the cars. The "privateers" will likely be teams Audi have worked closely with before, such as Champion Racing (also known as Audi Sport North America as of late).

If Audi were to get into GT1, then I cannot see a factory Lamborghini program being run also. It would not make too much sense for the company to have two of their branches competing against one another in one category. Weirder things have happened as Audi have done it before with Bentley; now though, I cannot see the VAG group running two programs for the same category of racing.

If Audi were to join GT1, then there could be some spectacular racing if Prodrive could find some more funds to race. The battles between Audi, Corvette Racing, and Prodrive would be epic.

It would surprise me a bit to see Ferrari get involved in GT1 right now; at the same time, it would not surprise me that much either. Maybe it will happen, Prodrive will be able to be at more racing, and Audi will produce a GT1 competitor. That would make for an even more awesome battle.

 

Some air is diverted, but much of it isn't. Even in the dry, a an open-top driver's helmet is covered with debris at the end of a race - they have small layers of transparent film which they remove every once in a while to clear their visors. In the wet, a coupe is the better place - temperature and moisture are regulated.

And opening the visor at 200MPH still doesn't sound like the best idea.

Yes, but a coupe's advantages seem far more obvious now, and everyone admitted the coupes had the edge now and, with some work on the logistics of driver-changes, Audi may be interested in building a closed-top car for their own benefit.

 

I wasn't saying both lambo and Audi, I was saying the rumor about audi having a GT1 program under Audi Sport started some time ago with some people saying that they might do a factory Lamborghini effort. And yes, it would be odd. Ford made this same error in the late 80's and pulled out Aston Martin afterwards in favor of Jauguar so I do agree Audi aren't gonna do that, although the Bentleys were the factory effort that time in 03 when there were no works Audis.

I agree Corvette racing would have quite possibly the best competition ever since Team Oreca.

If that were to happen, then GT1 would truly come alive. Ferrari does have a car with much potential for the track, but I think at the moment, Maserati MC12 (if it continues its dominating performance) is indirectly the main weapon in GT1 for Ferrari.

 

The MC12 is very soon outdated, and it isn´t eligible for Le Mans, wich means that Maserati owners Fiat has to have a sayso. About a year ago, it was said that Alfa Romeo would enter the 8C in GT2, but that never happened for some reason. Maserati could make a GT1 effort with the new GranTurismo, unless the proposed rulechanges for engines come into play.
There is also a rumour about a GT1 Ferrari, but it´s supposedly not a factory effort, and built by a private tuner.

 

Eh? Are you by any chance referring to the AMR-1? Which didn't really have much of a chance to show its worth? Given a few more years to develop that car, they may have got some results, like the XJR-9.
I wouldn't call that Aston Martin effort a complete waste or an "error", they did manage to beat the Toyota team in the World Sportscar championship that year and place 6th in it.

They did have plans for an AMR-2 and AMR-3, but Aston pulled out because they weren't in a great financial position at the time and also because Protech went bust.

Lastly, I dont think Ford technically owned the company at the time, they did have a shareholding in the company, but they didn't fully own it till 1991/2? At least I dont think so. So they didn't really have much say on whether Aston competed with Jaguar in the sportscar series or not.

 

I meant that ford made the error having both its brands, Jaguar and Aston Martin, competing against each other, or so thats what I read somewhere

 

I know, thats why I made the point that Ford didn't technically own Aston at the time, so they didnt make such a "mistake" and also that even if they did own them or had some kind of say in whether they could race or not, they didn't have much chance to actually compete anyway because Protech went bust and Aston felt its financial situation wasn't fit for it....which led to them being bought fully out by Ford.
As it turns out, if the AMR-2 and 3 had been built and raced, perhaps we would have seen them replace Jaguar as the winning team after 1991? Because after 1991, Jaguar faded from racing, and the year or so of development might have made the AMR race cars more competitive and they may have won. At most, Aston would have only really competed against Jaguar in 89, 90 and 91 and I reckon they would have only been really competitive at the 91-92 stage, if they had got that far.

Anyway, point is, Aston and Jaguar didn't really compete with each other in 1989, the AMR-1 was way off the XJR-9's pace, it didn't exactly get in the way and it was never going to be a winning car from its first year, although it did show future potential.

 

I know Jaguar actually was at Le Mans this year, checking out the competition. It seems they are interested in an effort. Wich class is of course not known, but a GT1 would be a hot guess I assume, since they already have a testbed in GT3. If GT1 is the case, we can probably see some Jag vs. AM action soon enough!

Other manufacturers present for some scouting this Le Mans was BMW and Nissan, or at least that is what the commentators said.

 

Would Jaguar be allowed to use their Supercharged 4.2?

Not sure what the rules are regarding engine size.

 

Richard Lloyd (Apex Motorsport) was preparing a XKR for GT racing. In fact he was travelling to France with test driver David Leslie to test it when they died in the Biggin Hill air crash. I know they were preparing it to run in GT3, but i'm pretty sure the Eurosport commentators at Le Mans, who David Leslie used to work with, said that they were using it as a test bed for either a GT2 or even a GT1 program.

 

Really? Interesting. I would also guess a GT1 or GT2 effort with the XKR, but I'm not sure, that car is only a GT3 car at the moment. Maybe they'll build a new XKR GT1?
I would love to see them enter LMP1, that would be awesome, especially if they could get TWR on board as well, but its more likely to be Apex that would take care of it, isn't TWR owned by Holden now?

 

According to current rules they can. They are not allowed to keep the SC, though, since the litre capacity is too big (4000cc maximum for a turbo/SC car). Well, they could ofcourse make the displacement smaller to keep the SC, but that would be unusual.

Read the rules here
Engine rules from article 5 and down.

It is? I thought Tom had retired, and that TWR was held on ice.
But it sure would be nice if TWR stepped into the Apex office and said "Let´s do this thing!"

 

Gamer 901 is doing us all a favor, he's uploading the ENTIRE RACE to youtube

http://www.youtube.com/user/Gamer901

Show your thanks to THE MAN

 

i perdict it will be taken off by youtube officials for copyright. the best way to see the whole race would be to download a torrent of it but im sure 24 hours of vidoe is going to take up several gigs of HDD space. so watch it now on youtube while you still can.

 

Jaguar are apparently returning with an LMP1 program.

Aston Martin likewise also have their own LMP1 in the works.

The DBR9 program has now ended for the factory, they'll focus on LMP1 and the GT2 V8 Vantage.

When the 2010 GT1 regulations are ready, they'll likely build a car for that.

 

According to what I heard during the race at Road America, Corvette racing will race at Le mans in GT1 class next year. Maybe they aren't going prototype just yet. And JAGUAR1977, where exactly did you find that info about Jaguar coming back? You sure you not dreaming?

 

Apparently, Jaguar were at Le Mans sizing up the competition.

Id also like to know where the news they were making a LMP1 car comes from though, I thought it was more likely that they would bring in their XKR GT3 car they have right now and bring it up to GT2 or perhaps GT1 spec.

After the deaths of David Leslie, Richard Lloyd and Chris Allarton though, I was wondering whether they might have pulled the plug on the whole thing.

Aston Martin doing an LMP1 car? That sounds likely, as they already backed the Charouz team this year, with the new Lola hard top chassis. Probably just the same again next year, maybe without the Charouz team though.

 

I think he´s dreaming, sort of. There is a rumour going round that basically says that the current Apex run GT3 programme will develop into GT2, and later on GT1, but that Jaguars goal is LMP1.
AFAIK there are no real sources for this rumour, so I wouldn´t hold my breath!

 

Well, to be fair, I think its likely they will bring that XKR GT3 up for GT2 class, theres some potential in that. Im pretty sure someone who was at Le Mans posted here saying they did indeed see Jaguar there, having a look.

Edit: Oh wait, it was you who said that, lol, i just read up the page of our posts several months ago,

Looking at the performance of the Charouz Lola Aston Martin, I think its also pretty likely Aston Martin will come back with that. It did pretty well considering it went off early in the race and still managed to come 7th (?) in class and overall. It seemed to be one of the best non-diesel LMP cars out there, anyway.

 

I don't envy any manufacturer entering either GT1 or GT2 at the moment. The Corvette-Aston and Ferrari-Porsche programs are so well established and advanced that whilst those four are still around no one else will stand a chance. Not even a really well funded effort could match the development battle between these teams.

 

Indeed, I think many people will support a Jaguar team trying to take on either class just because it would upset the balance. But, I dont think they stand much chance of taking a class win really. Apex aren't doing anything really noteworthy in the GT3 championship.

 

Well, the Aston GT1 programme has ended as of now, only privateers will use the car henceforth. This means that only GM now has an offical development programme for a GT1 effort.
Some news: I just read an interview with Dr. Ullrich from Audi, and he states that a GT1 programme is most likely out of the question, at least until the rules are stabilized, but that a GT2 programme actually is considered.

 

Would they enter a car similar to any of their DTM entries? (though I know the rules are quite different) That sounds like a very interesting development indeed.

 

I think only the R8, TT and A5 would qualify under the rules. I doubt the TT or A5 could be made powerful or light enough to be competitive.