2016 Le Mans 24 hours

[Sevach]

This was an unbelievably contested race for all the 24hrs, Toyota superior autonomy was proving too much for Porsche, when they tried to adapt their strategy and save a little Toyota ended up making a huge gap (maybe some cheekyness by Davidson in the slow zones), that Porsche wouldn't have been able to recover.

The ending was nothing short of shocking...

[erlik]

I feel sorry for Toyota, they earned it (to win). Good battle in Lmp1 throughout the whole race. Great battle between Ford and Ferrari also.

[NL_Fer]

Would Toyota ever tell us if the problem was a broken 1€ ring or hose

[henra]

Would Toyota ever tell us if the problem was a broken 1€ ring or hose

First of all: A mixture of congratulations (for building such a quick and efficient car and having an absolutely spotless race 23h 55mins) and condolences (for losing it in the last five Minutes of 24 Hours) to Toyota!!!

Possibly they will (because it would be no secret that would need to be kept) tell us what went T*ts up .
And very possibly it was a cheap part that failed. A car is basically a huge accumulation of individual cheap parts with rather few expensive ones in between. So chances are it was a cheap part that failed

[amho]

I've read somewhere that the car lost the power and they decided to reset the car and it failed.it seems that it was an electrical problem.

[Steven]

It's been more than 6 hours now, and I'm still out of words. I cannot imagine how the team must be feeling. This will take days or weeks to properly swallow this blow. I really can't believe it... such a perfect race, and then, in 4 minutes, from leader to not classified, because they didn't manage to complete their final lap in 6 minutes (which I fail to understand anyway).

Eurosport reported in their post-race coverage it was a turbo failure

[Steven]

IMHO they're decision to stay wedded to diesel is the main thing holding Audi back. They've said themselves the weight of the diesel kept them from being able to join the 8mj class.

I can understand that a 4L diesel is heavier than a 2.4L gasoline turbo engine like Toyota's, but (I know this may sound silly) why don't they downsize that thing? Does a diesel have to have a bigger capacity to be as efficient as a gasoline engine? (road engines seem to suggest differently).

[langwadt]

IMHO they're decision to stay wedded to diesel is the main thing holding Audi back. They've said themselves the weight of the diesel kept them from being able to join the 8mj class.

I can understand that a 4L diesel is heavier than a 2.4L gasoline turbo engine like Toyota's, but (I know this may sound silly) why don't they downsize that thing? Does a diesel have to have a bigger capacity to be as efficient as a gasoline engine? (road engines seem to suggest differently).

you can't make a diesel turn 8000rpm so to make the required power you need bigger capacity

On road diesels you can just run higher turbo pressure, but the race engines are already at the limit

[NL_Fer]

Like roadcar diesels the R18 is limited to 5000rpm, not possible to increased.

Audi has lost their advantage with Diesel, when the others switched to Direct Injection and Turbo's. Just is with road cars around 2000 a Tdi was almost 70% more efficient then a gasonline car, now the difference is much smaller Tdi - tfsi.

But it is so sad for Toyota and why did it fail completely? I theory they could limp around the track running with no turbo's and a single cilinder bank, but it was just dead. But looking at the bright side, first season with a turbo engine, getting so far, not bad at all.

[Steven]

It wasn't completely dead. The last sector was 20s off the pace, and because at that rate they wouldn't keep the lead anyway, they decided to stop the car and reset it, hoping to fix things and keep second. In hindsight, they could have made a 6-minute lap and end up in second place without their attempt at resetting... but I don't think it would have made much of a difference for the team.

[Cold Fussion]

In hindsight it was a bit tactical misplay. If they had decided to to accept they were going to lose the win earlier, they could have stopped well before the checkered flag (maybe right after the Porsche curves despite the danger) and then try to get a sub 6 minute lap in limp mode if the reset failed. I suspect though they were unwilling to give up the ghost until the Porsche went past and unfortunately got unlucky with where they lost the lead.

[Sevach]

http://www.motorsport.com/lemans/news/l ... es-790114/

What a mess.

I wonder if that failed sensor was intentional...


As for Audi, there has been some rebalancing for next year, they'll get a bigger fuel tank.
Still they are disadvantaged while they (corporate side?) insist on Diesel.

And make a sleek looking car please.

[langwadt]

http://www.motorsport.com/lemans/news/l ... es-790114/

What a mess.

I wonder if that failed sensor was intentional...


As for Audi, there has been some rebalancing for next year, they'll get a bigger fuel tank.
Still they are disadvantaged while they (corporate side?) insist on Diesel.

And make a sleek looking car please.

afaiu Ford started the debacle by trying to get Ferrari off second places by complaining about the
unimportant leader light on the side of the car, that is such a dick move that I wouldn't mind if ACO had slapped them with a penalty for being unsportsmanlike.

The guy on radio Le Mans wasn't impressed, https://youtu.be/tIIPAXYIOng?t=9h6m25s

[TzeiTzei]

Politics etc. is never nice in motorsport, but my disliking comes from the way they have approached this whole campaign. They basically built a prototype and said that they would build some road cars aswell. For me, that's the complete opposite of what a GT car should be. And it's the complete opposite of every other car in that class. They then sandbagged through Daytona, Sebring and all the other races this year just to make sure they got favourable BoP. And the ACO let it all happen. Probably because they, like Ford, wanted to see Ford winning on the 50th anniversary and allow everyone to make nice headlines. BoPping the Ferrari to be the only challenger to Ford fit the script quite nicely too. Can't have those Astons, Corvettes and Porsches spoiling the party. But then again, Porsche probably don't care. They won overall.

[Sevach]

Porsche is preparing their own "can hardly be called a 911" for 2017, this was an off year (in GTE) for them.
It's GT1 back when they were essentially a prototype class all over again.

Speaking of politics, F... you Bernie, because of you i missed the celebrations and the aftermath of one of the most shocking auto races in history to watch the first laps of your crappy little race (and how crappy and inane it was).