Endurance Racing Discussion Thread - WEC, ELMS etcSports Cars 

  • Thread starter Kowhai
  • 825 comments
  • 89,559 views
As nice as the convergence talks were, I think it will hurt the ACO in the short term because who wants to spend close to $60 Million (Or more) developing a car for a set of regulations that -at best- are either going to be grandfathered alongside LMDh cars in two years time or at worst phased out completely when a company could wait until next year, get in touch with one of the LMP2 manufacturers and do a LMDh program for a fraction of that ballpark cost?

As far as Aston Martin dropping the Valkyrie WEC program, I had a gut feeling it was going to happen the day that it was announced that Laurence Stroll had bought a stake in the company and that Racing Point F1 would be renamed as the Aston Martin "Factory" team in 2021.
 
Last night, I saw a live stream of the 2019-2020 season finale of the Asian Le Mans Series. It was a four-hour race around the Buriram Circuit in Thailand. I saw about the race since there was about 3:45:00.000 left in the race. It got pretty good in about the final hour of the event. Overall, it was a very good race.
 
BD9E0163-5693-4B72-B2A8-DEB7DDD6240F.jpeg


FAA63572-0FFB-4A6F-BC9C-EF42724B3A0D.jpeg


7D7D9D6B-E8CD-4A23-9945-14BAFCC36796.jpeg


9BC31D5D-FDD4-45D2-9F21-6B9DBA7DC932.jpeg


FBB5D6DD-937A-4AAA-9D99-CBF0C1425D60.jpeg
 
raven214
Bummer...

https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/magnussen-corvette-c8-r-was-so-far-pegged-back-at-cota/
Click to expand...

Unfortunate that it was so far off, but at least they got data on 6 hours of green flag running. Either way it was cool to see the car up close. The line for autographs on pit lane was by far the longest in front of Corvette Racing and Toyota GR by a long shot. CotA is a very nice place to spend a day and man pictures and TV will never do that hill up to turn one justice.

Anyway, here are some more random shots from my phone:

012.JPG 015.JPG 018.JPG 021.JPG 024.JPG 028.JPG 031.JPG 034.JPG 037.JPG 040.JPG 044.JPG 047.JPG 050.JPG 053.JPG 056.JPG 059.JPG 062.JPG 065.JPG 068.JPG 071.JPG 074.JPG 077.JPG 080.JPG 083.JPG 086.JPG 089.JPG 092.JPG 095.JPG 098.JPG 107.JPG 122.JPG 125.JPG 131.JPG 161.JPG 164.JPG 167.JPG 170.JPG 173.JPG 185.JPG 202.JPG 205.JPG 206.JPG 209.JPG 212.JPG 215.JPG
 
Is this Hypercar class even going to live, let alone survive? I keep hearing of people backing out of these deals and stuff. I am surely intrigued about this whole deal. Thing is, I hear of hypercar classes being either delayed or finished entirely.
 
JohnBM01
Is this Hypercar class even going to live, let alone survive? I keep hearing of people backing out of these deals and stuff. I am surely intrigued about this whole deal. Thing is, I hear of hypercar classes being either delayed or finished entirely.
Click to expand...

Toyota is a confirmed manufacturer, along with glickenhaus and bykolles as possibilities to start this September.
Aston is a no but that now depends on Stroll and Peugeot(https://www.autosport.com/wec/news/148369/peugeot-evaluating-new-lmdh-rules-for-wec-entry) with the possibility joining in next year with a LMDh car.
Alot, but who knows at this point.
 
Yeah, rescheduled for the same weekend that the SRO World Challenge was scheduled for Watkins Glen. Guess my plans for that weekend will be changing.
 
Kingofweasles
As nice as the convergence talks were, I think it will hurt the ACO in the short term because who wants to spend close to $60 Million (Or more) developing a car for a set of regulations that -at best- are either going to be grandfathered alongside LMDh cars in two years time or at worst phased out completely when a company could wait until next year, get in touch with one of the LMP2 manufacturers and do a LMDh program for a fraction of that ballpark cost?

As far as Aston Martin dropping the Valkyrie WEC program, I had a gut feeling it was going to happen the day that it was announced that Laurence Stroll had bought a stake in the company and that Racing Point F1 would be renamed as the Aston Martin "Factory" team in 2021.
Click to expand...

This is true, though I do appreciate that manufacturers have a choice of more than just 1 formula for the top class, even if LMDH would sound like the wisest choice in many aspects. All just sounds like a fun experiment.

Personally LMH had caught my intrigue being a truly new approach and all that. I guess the reality of it's success depends on interest like all race classes and of course revenue. It seemed like ever since LMDH was announced by ACO for the future, LMH was given second thoughts or dropped entirely by those who held interest prior.

Not hard to see why in a logicall sense.

Like many others I just hope that what ever formula 'wins' it works well to uniform itself with the existing classes clearly demonstrating the gaps in performance.
 
I was let go from my job at the end of last year sadly. That explains why I was away from gtplanet for so long. So busy with lots of years of tough hours. One good thing is since I was not able to see much motorsport owing to a 3 shift rota of tough hours I can now watch some great motorsport. Of course now I was let go I was able to see some - but had to wait till the season started but by the time any series (be it Endurance, Single Seater, GT or Touring Cars) could start the virus hit us. It is only now I can finally see some good motorsport but there is a lot I have missed out on.

I don't know whether to add GT's or Sportscars to F1 on my list of motorsport passions. I recently tried to get Sky TV but it was not possible so had to return to Virgin Media and add the Skysports channels (Inc. Skysports F1).

Which is better right now? GT's or Endurance? Which looks to have the best long term future?
 
Diehardracer
I was let go from my job at the end of last year sadly. That explains why I was away from gtplanet for so long. So busy with lots of years of tough hours. One good thing is since I was not able to see much motorsport owing to a 3 shift rota of tough hours I can now watch some great motorsport. Of course now I was let go I was able to see some - but had to wait till the season started but by the time any series (be it Endurance, Single Seater, GT or Touring Cars) could start the virus hit us. It is only now I can finally see some good motorsport but there is a lot I have missed out on.

I don't know whether to add GT's or Sportscars to F1 on my list of motorsport passions. I recently tried to get Sky TV but it was not possible so had to return to Virgin Media and add the Skysports channels (Inc. Skysports F1).

Which is better right now? GT's or Endurance? Which looks to have the best long term future?
Click to expand...

First of all, I'm sorry for you losing your job, I truly hope you get a new one asap (or you already got one).

Sports car racing is a very wide category, it goes from sprint races to 24h enduros and everything in between. You can have prototypes (Radicals, Pragas, LMP3, LMP2, LMP1, DPi or or the Ligier JS P4 as examples) and GT cars (GT3, GTE, GT2, GT4, Ferrari, Lambo, Porsche and Ligier cup cars etc.). A typical sports car race is multiclass, so you often see prototypes and GTs mixed and if you check out NLS, Creventic's 24H Series or IMSA's Michelin Pilot Challenge, you're gonna see touring cars like TCR mixed in, too.

Even before you add any paid subscription, check out YouTube, there's an immense amount of official free content available, including live broadcasts of the GT World Challenge races, ELMS, Michelin Le Mans Cup etc. Sometime last year I created a Google Sheet about this kind of content, feel free to explore it (needs some updates but overall should work):

I believe that sports car racing and endurance are here to stay - which series or events is of course always a question but as format it's not really I'd say.
 
2020 edition of 24h Le Mans is a go, qualifying has just finished, the Toyota whining is again laughable, 4.5 seconds faster than the fastest non-hybrid LMP1. LMP2 and GTE-Am are very close, GTE-Pro is close but a tiny bit bigger gaps.

Hyperpole for the top 6 cars in each category will be tomorrow.
 
Just subbed for the race on the WEC site. 9.99 Euro's. Wasn't going to watch Le Mans this year. I lasted until one day before the race to change my mind.
 
https://www.bykolles.com/news/195-bykolles-confirms-pmc-project-lmh-for-2021.html

ByKolles confirmed LMH entry

ByKOLLES-confirms-PMC-Project-LMH-for-2021-Racecar-03.jpg


ByKOLLES-confirms-PMC-Project-LMH-for-2021-Racecar-04.jpg


ByKOLLES-confirms-PMC-Project-LMH-for-2021-Racecar-05.jpg


ByKOLLES-confirms-PMC-Project-LMH-for-2021-Track-Day-Car-02.jpg


ByKOLLES-confirms-PMC-Project-LMH-for-2021-Roadcar-02.jpg


  • The LMH race version using a normally aspirated 700 hp V8 engine and weighing in race condition with ballast 1040 kg
  • The LMH trackday version with a 650 hp V8 engine and weighing 950 kg
  • The LMH road car will combine a hybrid system with an V8 engine with a total system power of approx. 1000 hp fitted to a chassis weighing approx.1000kg in order to meet the design target of 1 to 1 kg to hp. The engine will be mapped for bio fuel usage.
The innovative PMC Project LMH has been designed entirely in-house at its headquarters in Greding, Germany in about 36 months by a dedicated young team of engineers and designers. The sleek aerodynamic lines are the result of 1000s of runs of CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics).

Inside the cockpit the driver is centrally seated and nothing will distract from the ultimate sporting driving experience. Every component of the car is specifically performance functional while aerodynamic efficiency was the dominant keynote of the overall design.

The ultimate denomination of the car is still to be finalised and it will remain PMC Project LMH until a later date.

The limited edition PMC LMH Hypercar production launch is scheduled for the first quarter of 2021. Orders are being accepted from now.

The LMH race version is on schedule to make its debut in 2021.
Click to expand...
 
Kobayashi's pole lap onboard from yesterday, a 3:15.267, even with a big lift at the end so as to not exceed the fuel flow per lap.

 
Asian Le Mans Series to do their 2020/2021 season on Yas Marina: https://sportscar365.com/lemans/asian-lms/asian-lms-moves-entire-season-to-abu-dhabi/

They plan "to utilize two different configurations of the multi-layout Yas Marina facility and combine night, day and evening conditions".

Certainly interesting prospect and I can understand their reasoning. As AsLMS draws a lot of European teams, they probably are quite happy that they won't have to got to the Far East. and the season will be done in 2 weeks basically with 2 races on the 2 weekends each.
 

Latest Posts

Back