Friday 23 May 2014

Worst kept secret of 2014? Nissan announce LM P1 programme.

Nissan announce LM P1 programme for 2015.

After weeks of speculation, hints and leaks, Nissan finally owned-up to their plans to race an LM P1 prototype in 2015 for the first time since their R391 in 1999. Although it appears that it will take the name "GT-R LM", the chances of it being a recognisable evolution of its road-going namesake are pretty slim. Of course Nissan will be at Le Mans in 2014 with their Garage 56 entry the ZEOD RC.

Friday 16 May 2014

OAK Ligier JS P2 is ready for Test Day


After a test programme with drivers Olivier Pla and Alex Brundle covering 8300km, the Nissan powered Ligier JS P2 developed by Onroak Automotive is ready just in time for Le Mans Test Day.

Image : Onroak Automotive / DPPI
On Monday an FIA team paid a visit to the Onroak premises at Le Mans to homologate the Ligier JS P2, the final step in the development programme.

Alex Brundle : “Working with OAK Racing on this project has been a pleasure as always. We have really racked up the miles and the debut at the Le Mans test will be my 14th day behind the wheel. The team has been incredibly professional and flawless preparation means there have been very few issues with the car. I really can't complement the work of the design team at Onroak Automotive enough in the initial conception and continued development. I can't wait to get out there and show what the JS P2 can do!”. 

The #35 Oak Racing Ligier JS P2-Nissan will be driven at Test Day by Alex Brundle, who will be joined by Nissan driving academy alumni Jann Mardenborough and Mark Schulzhitskiy.

Tuesday 13 May 2014

Audi's most efficient R18 yet.

Audi say that they will field the slipperiest and least thirsty R18 to date at Test Day in under three weeks from now on the 1st of June. They proclaim that R18 e-tron quattro uses less fuel than any of its predecessors. They have developed two variants of the R18, a low drag one for Le Mans and another for the remainder of the WEC. The two body versions can be easily distinguished by the position of the openings above the front wheels. The low down-force variant having them on the inside of the front wing rather than on top. 
The Le Mans 24 version of the R18 e-tron quattro. 

Picture : Audi Motorsport

Jan Monchaux, who is the head of Aerodynamics at Audi Sport said: “We analyse its performance potential by means of CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics)...  this eliminates the need for considerably more complex wind tunnel tests. We then continue to elaborate the strengths of the initial design step by step and reduce potential deficits in the process,”

Although appearing to be slightly off the pace at Spa WEC they still went away with a respectable 2nd place finish, and of course the 24 hours of Le Mans favours the long game rather than outright speed. After Toyota's win and Porsche's pole position in Belgium, it has been a long time since three works teams so well matched have measured up to each other in La Sarthe. We have the prospect of a real battle of titans for the 82nd running of the 24 hours of Le Mans on 14th and 15th of June 2014.

Source: Audi Motorsport press information.

Tuesday 6 May 2014

The heir of the 917 is the 919, but what of the Porsche 918?

We all know about the fabulous Porsche 917 and we now know a fair bit about the Porsche 919, (even if we are not nuclear scientists and don’t fully understand how on earth it works). So what happened to the Porsche 918?

At least amongst their more esoteric machinery Porsche don’t cop out by simply calling them a ‘911’, regardless of how it might have evolved since the ‘60’s, instead they give them numbers which are the factory reference codes. The 2014 Le Mans entries are listed as 911RSR despite the Manthey cars being different from the Team Proton 911RSR. If you are 'of a certain age' you will recall various other 911RSR models over the years. So why not call this a Porsche 991RSR too?  Porsche did pop back to Le Mans in 2008 to win LM P2 with the Penske Porsche RS Spyder, and hardly broke sweat! 

Anyway, back to the sensibly described Porsche 918. We saw the emergence of the  Porsche 918 Spyder ‘plug-in’ hybrid at the 2010 Geneva Show. It came as a bit of a surprise but Porsche didn’t hide the fact that they planned to put the car, in some shape or form, into production. As a result of some serious customer interest official production plans were confirmed last summer. In the US the price on the screen was a mere $845,000. But if you want one hurry up because there will only be 918 built.

Image: Porsche AG
The 918 Spyder is of course a hybrid, Porsche wouldn't be spending all this money on promoting hybrid technology if they thought they were wasting their time. The engine is a 4.6 V8 that traces its ancestry back to the 2008 Spyder RS racers. It has been house trained to make it more durable and user friendly and it pushes out over 600 bhp at a modest 8,000 rpm ( the red-line.. if you are feeling bold.. is at 9,150 rpm.) Add to that the two hybrid electric motors ( 270 bhp) and you will find that you have about 875 bhp on tap for your trip to Sainsburys.  If it snows you can rely on the fact that like the 919 it is a 4 x 4 with the petrol engine chugging away doing the back wheels and the washing machine engines looking after the front end. Getting this lot organised and getting all wheels turning to order is Porsche’s very own  7 speed Doppelkupplung PDK gearbox. 

What will she do Mister?  Various figures have been published and there is every indication that the figures are ever so slightly awesome. In optional ‘ Weissach’ trim, which sheds 41kg from the 1,674kg kerb weight due to titanium bolts and magnesium wheels, the 918 will hit 60mph in 2.5 seconds, reach 186mph in just under 20 seconds. 

 The cherry on the cake though is always  a lap of the Nurburgring and Porsche tell us that the car was recently confirmed as the world’s fastest globally road homologated car to the lap the Nurburgring! The record was achieved on September 4th, and saw the 887hp German hypercar sprint around the track in just 6 minutes and 57 seconds! Porsche factory race driver Marc Lieb was at the wheel and the final 6:57secs time shaved a full 14 seconds off the Porsche 918 Spyder’s Nurburgring lap time set last year before Porsche embarked on giving it significantly more power.


For some reason McLaren were a bit cagey about what the P1 has achieved as are Ferrari with their ‘LaFerrari’ . What is even more impressive is that the 918 can achieve astounding fuel efficiency with CO2 emissions of 72g/km and fuel efficiency never seen before in a hypercar. Oh yes and they tell us that it stuffed the fabulous Carrera GT’s time by about two seconds ! 

OK, Porsche are back building ‘proper’ cars so we can forgive them for the Porsche Cayenne and maybe even for the diesel powered  Panamera!

Jock Simpson

Sunday 4 May 2014

WEC 6 HOURS OF SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS THE MAIN EVENT


What a difference a year makes… last year the place was deserted with a smattering of hard core endurance racing fans, this year it was simply heaving!  We are told that 46,000 spectators have been here over the two days.  Helped maybe by a glimpse of the sun plus Mr Webber and Porsche being on parade. We gather that even with a few minutes to go to the start there were still people queuing to get onto the circuit. For all its benefits Spa-Francorchamps is not an easy place to get into. What it must be like for F1 GP is hard to imagine.. and thinking back there was Bernie E giving Silverstone a hard time about access !! However we believe  the ‘Bambino Trust‘ may have a financial interest here at Spa !! 

As always we like making unreliable predictions based on little else but a frank exchange of views over a beer or two, followed by  a moist finger in the wind, but this time we have a bit more feel for things after Silverstone.  During qualifying Porsche found some the raw pace they seemed to be lacking at Silverstone and were looking to challenge Toyota if things went according to plan. However Toyota do look very strong and are not short of speed or talent. Audi may well be playing the ‘long game’ and while they are off the pace they may have to fall back on their  legendary reliability as back up if they want  a podium place. We can’t see them on the top step  of the podium but by attrition they could be there or thereabouts. 

In GT the Porsches shone at Silverstone and picked up some extra ballast for their efforts. Normally they are rather more canny than that and would probably have done a wee bit of sand-bagging leading up to Le Mans. They do have another chance to seek a change prior to Le Mans so maybe there is wisdom at work here. Aston Martin on the other hand under-performed at Silverstone and lost 25 kgs of ballast and as you may recall they came alive during qualifying so were powerful during the race. Ferrari are of course a force to be reckoned with here.

As the pace car pulled off we held our breath expecting the wild west performance that we had at Silverstone. Maybe the team managers had suggested that destroying the car in the first few laps of a six hour race was a bad policy and the start was by previous standards quite sensible. They were joined by the new #13 Rebellion R-One which we thought was starting from the pit lane as a result of not completing enough laps during qualifying. Another surprise was the return of the #37 SMP Racing Oreca 03 that had that hefty thump yesterday. Anyway it emerged with a wheel at each corner and looking fine .

The #20 Porsche was heading the field until it had to pit with a serious suspension problem on the front right and lost the lead. Repairing it wasn't exactly a ‘rapid service ‘ item and it lost 22 laps.. From that point on it became a test session for Le Mans.  It was running way back down the field but still putting in laps on the pace of the front runners.

Marc Lieb lost the lead in the #14 Porsche when it ‘stuttered’ getting away from the pits.. we are not sure if you can stall one these things but anyway the long lap of stutter lost Porsche the lead. Much later in the race the same car, this time driven by Dumas suddenly slowed but didn't pit, then speeded up, slowed and then managed a complete recovery and was back bang on the pace. The problem? Nobody seemed to know or tell us!  But like a computer it appeared that switching it on and off a few times seemed to cure it.. very hi-tech!

Whoever makes the tricky technical decisions about performance in LMGT have done a superb job. There was a race long battle going on involving Ferrari, Aston Martin and Porsche on what seems to be a splendidly level playing field all of them clocking in around 2:20 second laps.

The #92 Porsche left the equation after a long stop (by today’s standards at any rate) when  it needed its power steering and hydraulic fluid topped up. The entire race in LMP and LMGT has been rather like a game of 3D chess! It all came down a slight stutter from the Porsche.. and a last minute stop for tyres when they didn’t quite make it into top three at the flag. There were the  usual canny tactics as always from Audi, but could not match the very strong showing from the Toyotas who seemed far quicker all round than the rest of the Hybrids. When the #20 Porsche rejoined the race, way out of contention. Webber set about putting in lap times around the 2:02.682 sec which was right up with the Audis and Toyotas. It was just fractionally slower than his team mate Jani. 

Much the same applied to LMGT Pro where first the Aston Martins looked very impressive and leading the class but then the ever experienced AF Corse Ferraris came into the mix. Remember they were nowhere at Silverstone! Then #91 Porsche entered the fray, also having worked its way tactically up the field as did the #92 Porsche until it fell away with that stop for hydraulic fluid. It was tremendous stuff and so well matched on performance that it all came down to drivers and tactics. Just what endurance racing is all about.  

There were so many twists and turns it would need a book to cover them all. The new #12 Rebellion car made it to the flag and is all set for Le Mans, a great effort.  Let’s be clear and emphasise that any doubts anybody had about Hybrids have proved to have been unfounded.. the general equalisation and balance of performance throughout were all spot on. There were no safety car interventions, no accidents (except the odd harmless nudge and occasional spin), plus a huge crowd and excellent weather.. what more could we want?

Mind you it was a very convincing win for #08 Toyota .. they didn't put a foot wrong and above all the Toyotas are very quick and must be looking for a podium at Le Mans. The only flaw could be that that like Porsche their tactical options are limited by have just two cars.

You remember we thought that maybe Audi would pull something out of the hat and they did! The #1 Audi never appeared to be quick enough to pull off the second step on the podium but as we often said you simply can’t ignore Audi! It is quite hard to work out how they brought a car home in 2nd place! Audi won’t be over confident and Porsche might still prove to be ‘work in progress’.

Porsche will be unhappy to lose out when pit stop went wrong and the weird electrical gremlin that struck the #14 car. The #20 car had a nightmare event with two broken drive shafts and other problems that kept it out of contention and in the pits for far too many laps.

In LMP2 the #26 G-Drive Morgan-Nissan was a class act and Pla in particular drove superbly.  Gene did his best but simply couldn't crack it. LMP2 is alive and well and with more time and space available we will do a better job covering it at Le Mans.

Whatever you do try and catch up with this race on TV it was a cracker! One thing is certain that if we can carry all this through to Le Mans it should be a classic.. assuming of course all this incredible technology holds together for 24 hours! Club Arnage will be there keep an eye on things as always. 

As always the full results can be found at www.fiawec.com 



Saturday 3 May 2014

The Porsche 919 Hybrid for Dummies.

Image: Dave Davies
No disrespect to our knowledgeable readers  but we have just received a press release from Porsche that is verging on comprehensible, even to this Muppet !

The Porsche 919 has two different energy recovery systems (ERS), and they  tell us that it is the most complex race car they have ever built. No surprise there then! They also describe it as their fastest mobile research laboratory for their future road cars . So expect to see this technology in the not too distant future in your shopping Porsche. The 919 is trimmed right down for extreme performance and above all efficiency.

It has two energy recovery  systems: a kinetic energy recovery system that works under braking (MGU-K) and the second one that recovers energy via the exhaust (MGU-H) when accelerating. This is all very new to Porsche themselves and of course ‘interesting’ territory for the drivers!

The energy from the MGU-K ( pay attention at the back.. that is the braking energy one) is stored in liquid cooled lithium-ion battery packs and when the driver wants to use this power he calls upon the electric motor that drives the front wheels. In the meantime the MGU-H power comes via the ‘internal combustion engine’ which is a 2.0 litres V4 direct injection jobbie putting out an impressive 500 bhp and that drives the back wheels so bingo you have four wheel drive.

One final mind boggling statistic is that the 919 is allowed to use 4.78 megajoules per lap here at Spa. If you convert this into kilowatt hours (kWh), which is the common unit of measurement for normal households, you get 1.33 kWh, stick with me.. the punchline is coming.  The Six Hours of Spa is run over approximately 170 laps, during this time each of the 919 Hybrids will produce 226.1 kWh and this would be the same amount of electrical energy that a German household uses during an entire month during the summer.  To use the immortal  words of the late David Coleman “ Quite remarkable”! 

Jock Simpson

Friday 2 May 2014

FIA/WEC Spa - Qualifying

Lieb snatched pole in the final seconds of the session on a drying track.
This is Spa in its most awkward mode! After a dry, rather rapid second free practice the track has now been declared wet again.. all these rumours about Spa having its own ‘micro climate’ are true. To make things even more indecisive it is still raining but there is strong breeze which will hopefully dry out the track, but probably only in places. Who would want a team managers job! We wonder if Audi have got to grips with their dodgy tyre choices at Silverstone. There is much talk of these magic Michelin wets with no grooves . It is a tricky concept to grasp but they seem fit in somewhere between traditional ‘intermediates' and ‘slicks'… confused? You will be ! 

GT Qualifying

The session has been declared ‘wet’ which may seem a bit blindingly obvious but under the regulations teams can’t use wet tyres unless the race has been officially declared wet by the Race Director. 

The way this works is that the LM GTE Pro and Am go out on their own then the LMP1 and LMP2 go out after them in their own session . This session only lasts 30 mins so there is no time to dawdle. 

After about 15 mins it interesting to note that after a bit of lacklustre day so far the two of the Astons..#99 and #97 are tucking in behind the leading Porsche #91. Ferrari are back in 4th. The top ten are all on the same second.. it is close. But don’t forget the grid position will be down to the average time set over the four fastest laps set by two drivers. So the actual grid doesn’t take shape until the end of the session. All of a sudden the #71 AF Corse Ferrari sprang into life and with around 8 mins to go is at the top of the times on average, only to be bounced down the order by both the Porsches, and now Aston Martin are nowhere! Until that is, Darren Turner hauls the #97 Aston into a very respectable 4th. Then as the flag went out Darren Turner heaved the #97 Aston Martin into 2nd. This puts the factory Porsches on the 2nd row.

At the flag the first five cars are separated by less than a second..

#51 Ferrari 458 Italia

#97 Aston Martin Vantage V8

#92 Porsche 911 RSR

#91 Porsche 911 RSR

#99 Aston Martin V8 Vantage

With all this going on it was easy to miss that in LM GT Am it was the #61 Ferrari that took pole ahead of #75 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR and #81 Ferrari 458 Italia.

Suddenly Bruni and Ferrari are back.. this is great stuff. 

Full results on www.fiawec.com.


LMP1 and LMP2 Qualifying

The track is still ‘wet’ but a dry line is beginning to show. Once again the times are mighty close with the front four all on the same second. But a stonking lap from Buemi in the #8 Toyota put a stop to all that.. 1.3 secs ahead of the #20 Porsche driven by Hartley.

LMP2 was initially led by #47 Oreca 03 about half a second ahead of the #26 G-Force Morgan Nissan. The #37 Oreca 03 Nissan that crashed out earlier today has not made it out.. rather as we had expected.

With half the session gone teams are now put their second drivers out on the track. This method of qualifying makes any sort of predictions very tricky because while you wait for the drivers to bank their four quick laps we don’t get the averages that give us the grid.. With five minutes to go Toyota looked strong with Buemi in the #8 car.. just behind him the two Porsches but we needed to wait for Audi’s last blast ! And as if to order, Lotterer puts the #2 Audi onto the provisional front row beside the Toyota and then takes pole with two minutes to go.. but Buemi responds.. and takes it back. But nobody told Lieb who does a superb job as the chequered flag came out he swept to a rather surprising pole. Wow .. that was amazing! Audi wont be all that happy with that result and it is good to see that Porsche do have the raw pace to take the fight to Toyota.

#14 Porsche

#8 Toyota

#2 Audi

#7 Toyota

#20 Porsche

#6 Audi

The LMP2 pole stayed with the #47 Oreca 03 with #27 Oreca 03 second.

Full results can be found on www.fiawec.com 

Jock Simpson - Image by Romain Scholer

Second Free Practice - Porsche give a hint of their potential pace


Image: Romain Scholer
There were a couple of red flags .. the first was when #37 SMP Racing 03-Nissan had a big and damaging accident at Raidillon when Viktor Shaitar lost it. He was fine but it looked as if the floor pan of the Oreca 03 Nissan might have been damaged. This brought out the red flags. Then some laps later Simon Dolan in the #38 Zytek Z11 Nissan brought out the red flags again when he had a lurid spin in almost exactly the same place. However he missed the scenery and the marshals sorted him out, he rejoined and the flags came in.

Image: Romain Scholer
The weather dried out nicely so the front runners began to get stuck in and put in some serious laps. In fact Jani’s lap in the #14 Porsche was quicker than the fastest lap in last year’s race with a 1:59.887 sec. Team tactics were a bit hard to fathom all round since we don’t know what the teams are actually up to.. it  might be they were running in race specification, or maybe qualifying specification. One thing we thought was certain was that nobody would show what sort of pace they could run at. So Porsche’s fastest lap came as a surprise. 

After that honours were pretty even between Audi and Toyota. There was one slightly curious anomaly with the #3 Audi which we were led to believe was running in Le Mans specification which meant the long fast Spa Circuit would rather suit it. But it didn’t show at this stage. Mind you Audi have had a busy week shuffling tubs and building cars so maybe this was more of a shake down all round

Rebellion's new R-One Toyota eventually finished a fairly modest 12th behind a couple of LM P2 cars but we think they will be happy that it went well and is all in one piece ready for 
the serious business of qualifying..

Image: Romain Scholer
LMP2 went well for #26 Morgan Nissan , the rest of the pack are on the pace despite various excitements so let’s wait and see what occurs in qualifying ‘proper’. The balance of performance adjustments seem to have been rather effective and nobbled the factory Porsches rather successfully! They were ‘awarded’ an additional 25 kgs of ballast. They probably won’t be happy lying way behind the #88 Proton Porsche which is last year’s un-penalised) model. The #88 heads the GT grid ahead of a flurry of Ferrari F458’s.

The factory Aston Martins have either lost their way or are being a bit canny because they do appear to be off the pace. After all they have ‘lost’ 15 kgs of ballast since Silverstone. As we said before this is ‘free practice’ so lets wait until the main event before drawing too many conclusions.

Full results on www.fiawec.com

Jock Simpson

Competitors of Spa FIA/WEC face the uncertain climate of the Belgian Ardennes.


Your faithful team of scribblers is alive and well and Tony and Jock are at Spa. You will find Tony’s input under live text on the WEC website (live.fiawec.com) and Jock’s stuff here on the pages of Club Arnage.

There are certain ‘givens’ at Spa.. beer, chips, mayonnaise, waffles and unpredictable weather. You will be pleased to know that all these are safely in place. It rained so hard on the way down that the several huge dollops of bird droppings have been washed off the car ! So, we are watching ‘Free Practice’ which, as a rule, doesn't prove too much. The good news is that Audi have raided their parts bins and are here with three cars. Quite an achievement after the carnage at Silverstone where you recall they destroyed at least one and possibly two tubs.  We are told that the #3 Audi  is running in ‘Le Mans’ aero spec so may not be as quick as the other two.

Toyota are carrying on where they left off at Silverstone and have sat in 1st and 2nd all the way through the session right up to the last few minutes when #1Audi with Duval at the wheel went fastest. 

Porsche LMP1... nothing to report..

The two new examples of the Toyota powered Rebellion R-One made their first and rather cautious appearances and we need to point out the entry list you may have seen is wrong.. the #13 Rebellion Racing is in fact an R-One not the old Lola B12/60 Toyota.

Interestingly the ‘old’ Prospeed Porsche GT3 RSR was ahead of the new factory 991 RSR. Rumour has it that they have been calmed down a bit after their stellar performance at Silverstone.

We went a news conference held by the WEC/FIA/ACO to explain more about the intricacies of the new breed of hybrid and how they are trying to ‘level the playing field’ regarding big Joules, little Joules and petrol vs diesel. Sadly your scribes are nowhere near clever enough to a) understand it all and b) explain it. However we may get to see a paper copy later and can then perhaps put some meat on the bone. 

Incidentally the rain has stopped and the mist is lifting .. 

Jock Simpson
 

Thursday 1 May 2014

Start of a new era for Rebellion at Spa

We are used to seeing the Rebellion colours embellishing the skin of a Lola B12/60 but it is all change at Spa when the Swiss flag flies on the new R-One developed in partnership with Oreca. The R-One LM P1 has been in an intensive test programme at Paul Ricard HTTT since early April, and makes its racing debut after just over a year of development.

Group ORECA, president Hugues de Chaunac, is proud of his new baby; "It’s a mix of emotion and stress because it’s a colossal project, very important, and realised in a very short time span. There is a lot of pressure because under normal conditions, we would have needed three or four more months. But this timing was also part of the challenge and I’m proud to say that our teams designed the Rebellion R-One and built two complete examples in 12 months."

Bart Hayden, REBELLION Team Manager ; "Just getting to Spa with two new cars is already a massive achievement for the team.  Everyone has given everything that they have to get these cars ready and I'm very proud of the work ethic and professionalism of everyone that has been involved.  Our expectations for the race are quite modest, we anticipate new car teething problems, but we considered it to be crucial to be at Spa to give ourselves the very best preparation for Le Mans.  We start a new chapter for the team this weekend and we hope that it will be a great continuation of what has already been a fantastic story for REBELLION Racing.?

Image: Rebellion Racing

Image: Oreca Technology

Source: Oreca press information and REBELLION Racing press release