Tired Tyres
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#26 LMP2 winner and #28 TDS sister car excluded for refueling restricter infringement. #36 now provisional winner.
It's on Sportscar365.
It's on Sportscar365.
Finishing the 24 hours of Le Mans is always going to be a massive accolade but, as much as I admire Toyota for their persistence, it is a slightly hollow victory. I was hoping they might push to try and do something to really define their win (i.e. beat the distance record), but they were just heading for the flag.
Right, I think I missed that part. Sorry, I had a hard time watching the race earlier on from being on the road.
So, could Porsche have been sandbagging or something?
Ruh roh...
If Porsche, Audi or Peugeot didn't want Toyota to win they should have entered the race and tried to beat them.
Did you know that Kobayashi refused to take the podium in Spa as the team would not allow his car to win? Alonso is world class, no argument there, but you don't take two and a half minutes out of an identical car with no weak link in it other than Lopez (who I don't personally think is good enough) unless there is an amateur in the car. This was set up for Alonso to win from the start. You don't agree I know, but that's that as far as I'm concerned. It's not a slight on Alonso, he is almost as good as he thinks he is.
Yeah, it was an impressive drive and it needed an experienced driver to pull it off, but it wasn't a pressured performance, was it? The only competition was from his team mate. Versus some of the drives in recent years where you had the lead pack separated by a handful of seconds and chasing each other through the night. A good performance? Yes. A classic? Not even close.
Toyota had a win at Le Mans. Yes, the 919 rolled past the flag before the Toyota did, but as far as I'm concerned, that was Toyota's Le Mans. But to finish first, first you have to finish. That's the name of the game. I spoke to Wolfgang about it and even he told me the victory was bitter sweet.
This year, however, it's different. It was the perfect race for Alonso to take part in as it's good PR for both parties. I'm excited to see what will happen with Porsche's Formula-E program. Lots of talent to draw from for sure.
But it was a good year for Le Mans this year, apart from the odd stint regulations we had to abide by. I wasn't a fan of it at all, neither was the rest of the team or anyone else I spoke to. The battle between the RSR and the GT would have been way different if the FIA didn't implement those silly stint regs on us - but those teams suffered most, for sure.
Yes it was a great fight back but don't forget, a leader is going to be conservative in traffic but the chaser is taking more risks so it always looks better than it really is.I didn't follow the Spa WEC race at the time so I don't know what happened there (assuming it was a team orders situation? I don't like that).
Regardless, I don't think Lopez was being slow, it was Alonso being fast. And being fast lap after lap, for almost 3 hours. And during the night.
I have seen, in the past, some amazing night drives of recoveries that would take hours (Tom Kristensen was famous for one of them, can't recall the year), and this one is right up there with those.
I've never seen such post-race shenanigans in an event's classification, for real.Looks like the #67 Ford got hit with a post-race penalty due to a drive-time infraction: turns out Kanaan only did 5 hours 16 minutes behind the wheel instead of the 6-hour minimum. The result was an addition of 11 laps plus 1:23.499 that drops them to a 12th place class finish.
Its sister, #69, got 2 laps plus 1:42 added due to Dixon also not doing the minimum drive time, though the car is still classified 14th in GTE Pro.
The #5 Ginetta got penalised too: it had 6 laps deleted plus 2:45 added courtesy of Roussel not doing more than 6 hours. It therefore ends up classified 43rd and last behind the #86 Gulf Racing Porsche.
The #28 TDS Racing Oreca was also penalised: Perrodo had exceeded the 4-hour maximum drive time in a consecutive 6-hour period by four minutes, therefore 1 lap plus 1:18 was added. The car is still classified 4th in LMP2, because its overall race time was 6.113 seconds less than the fifth-placed #32 United Autosports Ligier.
The penalties were worked out by taking what time was "missing" from the drivers stints, and then converting them into laps.
http://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/no-67-ford-penalized-for-drive-time-infraction/
http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Results/08_2018/02_LE MANS/231_FIA WEC/201806161500_Race/Hour 24/05_Classification_Race_Hour 24.PDF
It's pointless silly penalties for the Pro cars. What does it matter if a driver doesn't do 6 hours apart from not at all? This regulation should be to ensure the AM driver does a proper minimum amount of driving so all the time isn't taken up by the Pro's in the car.I've never seen such post-race shenanigans in an event's classification, for real.
It's pointless silly penalties for the Pro cars. What does it matter if a driver doesn't do 6 hours apart from not at all? This regulation should be to ensure the AM driver does a proper minimum amount of driving so all the time isn't taken up by the Pro's in the car.
True but then again a driver can do 14 hours in total. Doesn't exactly leave two others 6 hours each though.3x6 =18. If you can't get all drivers in with 6 hours to spare that's pretty poor management by the team.
True but then again a driver can do 14 hours in total. Doesn't exactly leave two others 6 hours each though.
I also presume stint time includes time in the pits?
True but then again a driver can do 14 hours in total. Doesn't exactly leave two others 6 hours each though.
Ruh roh...
First half of the race they were called on track limits a lot. Wouldn't call it lenient at all, memory tells me they were given the most. I could be thinking of the Am Porsches but I'm pretty sure the Pink Pig was called out twice?
Speeding up refueling to save time? Mistake maybe? Or an ELMS part that isn't in the WEC regs. Something like that. Either way they are not in the WEC series anyway so they've nothing to lose.What did they, G-Drive, try to achieve? To win a few seconds that they didn't need. I think they won't come back on this dicision and Alpine is the winner!
Le mans is the ultimate you got to finish to win race.. One race over 24 hours 364 days before you can try again..Could you maybe explain the stint/bop a bit more. I was out of the loop and though I watched the game I never really understood what the problem was. Just that there was a problem :-)
Perhaps to allow for extra drive time in case one of the drivers becomes sick or injured? I don't quite understand how one car is penalized 11 laps and the other 2 for the same infraction, unless it is a formula based on how short of the minimum they were. Still, it's a simple enough rule and the team had no excuse for not taking care of it.
What really bugs me is the lap limits per stint. Who really thought that was a good idea for an endurance race!? Why not also set rules for how many stints you can run a single set of tires, or require all driver changes to occur on a set cycle of stints? Sounds silly? Yeah, exactly.
You should be rewarded for pushing your equipment and getting extra distance out of a stint. I sincerely hope this rule is done away with before next year.
Even more shocking that it was the honorable G-Drive/Rusinov team who was never caught before* for doing anything like that**.A Russian team cheated? I am shocked...SHOCKED I tell you that a Russian would cheat at any form of sporting event. It'd be like taking PEDs for curling....oh wait.