World Endurance Championship 2015

[SilverArrow10]

I have to say I enjoyed watching at least 13 hours of that race.

How refreshing not to see Al Pacino or some other celeb eating salad and clearly not caring during a race. How fantastic to not hear anything about coast and brake, saving fuel, saving tyres and brakes. I loved the variety of technology and engines in the LMP1 class. During the race I found myself delving further and further into regulations, articles about how the cars work etc, it really caught my attention to the point where I had to force myself to go to bed at 3am because I had to be up early on Sunday. Welcome change from F1 where I am slowly losing the will to stay awake during races.

Well done WEC and Porsche =D>

They still had to do all of those things and much more than in F1. We just don't hear as much over the team radio.

[Cold Fussion]

Maybe Timo thinks he had more to prove?

Anyway, you need to provide some proper stats and analysis if you want us to take your claim seriously.

This is my impression after watching the timing screen for 20 hours. I don't have access to the lap time data to do a conclusive analysis.

I have to say I enjoyed watching at least 13 hours of that race.

How refreshing not to see Al Pacino or some other celeb eating salad and clearly not caring during a race. How fantastic to not hear anything about coast and brake, saving fuel, saving tyres and brakes. I loved the variety of technology and engines in the LMP1 class. During the race I found myself delving further and further into regulations, articles about how the cars work etc, it really caught my attention to the point where I had to force myself to go to bed at 3am because I had to be up early on Sunday. Welcome change from F1 where I am slowly losing the will to stay awake during races.

Well done WEC and Porsche =D>

They still had to do all of those things and much more than in F1. We just don't hear as much over the team radio.

You have to wonder sometimes about some of the radio messages FOM include, so many of them pander to the negative views of the sport that you sometimes wonder if there is an agenda at play or whether they view drama of any kind is required.

[machin]

Interesting that the Porsche's were consistently stopped for 3-4 seconds less than the Audis on the fuel-only stops... and generally able to go a lap more per stint. Clearly the Porsches were saving a bit of fuel to eek out a pit-stop advantage which is why they weren't quite achieving their qualifying speed...

Both Porsche and Audi were doing 4 lap stints per set of tyres.... Toyota generally 3 stints per tyre set... Difficult to tell for the Nissan's since pretty much all their pitstops were long enough to refuel and change tyres several times....

[henra]

They still had to do all of those things and much more than in F1. We just don't hear as much over the team radio.

Looking at the Lap times that were achieved over prolonged periods in the race (e.g. Albuquerque, that guy drove sustained 3:18-3:20s in the race which was pretty much identical to their Qualifying pace. That is not exactly fuel saving. What they have to do though to some extent is Lift and Coast in order to recover up to 8MJ over one lap. That is probably also reponsible for Porsche being better in Qualifying but not being able to reproduce that pace Advantage in the race. They could start the lap with 8MJ without recovering besides the regular braking whereas in the race they need to recharge for the next lap. Audi has only to recover 4MJ so they can minimise Lift and Coast compared to the Porsche. Maybe they can achieve the 4MJ even by the normal braking.
All in all the best Motorsports Event I have watched in quite some time. Like some Posters said here I had to force myself to go to bed whereas in F1 I often have to force myself to stay awake....

[machin]

What they have to do though to some extent is Lift and Coast in order to recover up to 8MJ over one lap.

I'm not convinced by that argument... a KERS system only harvests when the car is braking, and a HERS recovers best when the engine is at full throttle... neither really conducive to "coasting to recover energy"... I think they were just partially coasting/not using full throttle to save a bit of fuel, knowing they could still run at close to Audi pace, but achieve an extra lap per stint AND a 3-4 second shorter fuel stop... reducing the time at full throttle would probably help a little with the reliability too....

[langwadt]

Interesting that the Porsche's were consistently stopped for 3-4 seconds less than the Audis on the fuel-only stops... and generally able to go a lap more per stint. Clearly the Porsches were saving a bit of fuel to eek out a pit-stop advantage which is why they weren't quite achieving their qualifying speed...

doubly odd since the Porsche gasoline fuel tank is 25% bigger than the Audio Diesel

[djos]

Maybe Timo thinks he had more to prove?

Anyway, you need to provide some proper stats and analysis if you want us to take your claim seriously.

This is my impression after watching the timing screen for 20 hours. I don't have access to the lap time data to do a conclusive analysis.

This is a Technical forum, bring data or it aint so.

[Juzh]

What they have to do though to some extent is Lift and Coast in order to recover up to 8MJ over one lap.

I'm not convinced by that argument... a KERS system only harvests when the car is braking, and a HERS recovers best when the engine is at full throttle... neither really conducive to "coasting to recover energy"... I think they were just partially coasting/not using full throttle to save a bit of fuel, knowing they could still run at close to Audi pace, but achieve an extra lap per stint AND a 3-4 second shorter fuel stop... reducing the time at full throttle would probably help a little with the reliability too....

I agree with machin. Lifting will slow you down via aero drag instead of hard braking which will recover the most energy possible.

[langwadt]

What they have to do though to some extent is Lift and Coast in order to recover up to 8MJ over one lap.

I'm not convinced by that argument... a KERS system only harvests when the car is braking, and a HERS recovers best when the engine is at full throttle... neither really conducive to "coasting to recover energy"... I think they were just partially coasting/not using full throttle to save a bit of fuel, knowing they could still run at close to Audi pace, but achieve an extra lap per stint AND a 3-4 second shorter fuel stop... reducing the time at full throttle would probably help a little with the reliability too....

I agree with machin. Lifting will slow you down via aero drag instead of hard braking which will recover the most energy possible.

I think that depends, lets say it takes 100ms to stop when you brake hard, but it takes 200ms to fill the battery at the max KERS charging rate

[Juzh]

I agree with machin. Lifting will slow you down via aero drag instead of hard braking which will recover the most energy possible.

I think that depends, lets say it takes 100ms to stop when you brake hard, but it takes 200ms to fill the battery at the max KERS charging rate

Do you have any data to support this? I'm not saying you're completely wrong, just that I'd like to see some information first.

This is from the canadian GP radio transcript (from f1fanatic)

Mark Temple: We need to start doing some fuel saving. Let’s target zero on the dash.
Fernando Alonso: If I save fuel the battery is not going up.

Indicating lift and coast has negative impact on the energy harvesting.

[Vettel Maggot]

Class from Audi

"Porsche won the race. And our respect"
"Audi congratulates Porsche for their victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Since 2000 and our first victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans we've never stopped improving our performance while reducing our emissions. Reinventing challenges and evolving non stop: an attitude Audi Ultra.
We thank them for this new test and we are already at work to challenge for victory next year."

Although I guess they are all under the VW banner.

[Cold Fussion]

What they have to do though to some extent is Lift and Coast in order to recover up to 8MJ over one lap.

I'm not convinced by that argument... a KERS system only harvests when the car is braking, and a HERS recovers best when the engine is at full throttle... neither really conducive to "coasting to recover energy"... I think they were just partially coasting/not using full throttle to save a bit of fuel, knowing they could still run at close to Audi pace, but achieve an extra lap per stint AND a 3-4 second shorter fuel stop... reducing the time at full throttle would probably help a little with the reliability too....

I agree with machin. Lifting will slow you down via aero drag instead of hard braking which will recover the most energy possible.

I don't think when they are lift and coasting they are just slowing down via aero drag, lift and coast is probably just slowing down via the electric motors. They can recover more energy via this mechanism because the normal brakes provide something of the order of 2000 kW of braking power, while the electric motors in the Porsche's case provide around 500 kW of braking power. My guess is that the amount of harvesting while off throttle is selectable from the driver (they may not want harvesting lifting off in a corner for example).

[machin]

lift and coast is probably just slowing down via the electric motors.

.... (they may not want harvesting lifting off in a corner for example).

One thing is for certain; lifting and coasting definitely includes slowing down by aero dag... That's simple laws of physics... Whether there is also some ERS harvesting as well is questionable... Your comment in brackets is the reason I think it would be linked only to use of the brake pedal (in the case of KERS).

It's semantics anyway; we both agree Porsche had the same (almost) performance as Audi whilst doing more laps per fuel fill, regardless of the exact mechanism by which that was achieved.

[Samraj_official]

Awesome attitude Audi...Toyota:all new engine and new battery system...lets see what next year brings!!!! Oh nissan!!!! During the 24 hrs telecast they kept showing GTR-LM Ad about the car being innovative but this slow? Atleas hats off to their concept for being very radical.....awesome stuff for 24 hrs unforgettable!!!! Oh the state of F1!!!!

[ChrisF1]

Class from Audi

"Porsche won the race. And our respect"
"Audi congratulates Porsche for their victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Since 2000 and our first victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans we've never stopped improving our performance while reducing our emissions. Reinventing challenges and evolving non stop: an attitude Audi Ultra.
We thank them for this new test and we are already at work to challenge for victory next year."

Although I guess they are all under the VW banner.

Damn it, I strained my eyes translating that and then scrolled down and saw the text translation below