24 hours of Le Mans 2010 official thread...

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Just when I thought dear old Nige would never have the chance to ham it up again, along comes Le Mans.

In the few hours that I watched, SPEED coverage failed when it came to showing the incidents of the race... An off track incident replay usually just showed the car coming to rest. It was difficult to see what was the cause except for the Peugeot\Corvette incident.

Speed use the same international feed as everybody else

[boesel]

Hi everybody,
here you can find more than 50 pictures devoted tu usual Friday drivers parade:
http://www.connectingrod.it/LeMans24hours/2010_eng.html

[Rollo]

Completely clueless and missing the point.

LM is not F1.

Aston Martin are not in the business of selling diesels so why bother?

Because they are in the business of Motor Racing. If someone wants to build a better car to beat the Audis, then they should go ahead and build a better car.

Rules are rules and if they think that diesels have a better chance then they should make a diesel race car, period. But will they want to support a development program that costs 150 million / season? I doubt it.
If V12's are their business they should show us that they can make a winner V12 not continue whining and waiting for the organizers to dumb down the other competitors.

I agree with this sentiment entirely.

It was precisely the same reasons why the Porsche 917 had to be banned. It is the same reason why the Mazda 787B had to be banned. Put simply they were the best cars and no-one could be bothered to build a better one.

Motor racing is like a laboratory for automotive development, and although Ioan may disagree with this (because he has said as much in another section of the forums), VAG probably has learnt a lot and those developments will find their way onto the road (VW Polo Bluemotion is a case in point).

Diesel and its related technologies probably are the next major revolution. I expect that possibly someone might develop hybrids or electric cars to go racing in. Whatever the case, if some can can build a better car...

... then BUILD A BETTER CAR.

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Because they are in the business of Motor Racing. If someone wants to build a better car to beat the Audis, then they should go ahead and build a better car.

ACO might as well create a diesel class.

It was precisely the same reasons why the Porsche 917 had to be banned. It is the same reason why the Mazda 787B had to be banned. Put simply they were the best cars and no-one could be bothered to build a better one.

Wrong. The rotary engines weren't banned because they won LM. FIA nee Bernie Ecclestone went for the 3.5l homologated engine rule so that manufacturers could jump into F1.

In fact the Mazdas weren't even the fastest cars! The won because they had better reliability in 1991.

Motor racing is like a laboratory for automotive development, and although Ioan may disagree with this (because he has said as much in another section of the forums), VAG probably has learnt a lot and those developments will find their way onto the road (VW Polo Bluemotion is a case in point).

Diesel and its related technologies probably are the next major revolution. I expect that possibly someone might develop hybrids or electric cars to go racing in. Whatever the case, if some can can build a better car...

... then BUILD A BETTER CAR.

Please tell David Richards that all future Aston Martins should be diesels.

Arguably, the green/eco card is nonsense.

High end sports cars and GTs are less likely to see far less mileage than A4 TDI company car.

[harvick#1]

ACO might as well create a diesel class.

why? only Peugeot will be running diesels next year. Audi have already said the R18 will not be a diesel car, but a new fuel

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why? only Peugeot will be running diesels next year. Audi have already said the R18 will not be a diesel car, but a new fuel

Pointless that ACO don't equalise the cars in P1. It's a class within a class.

I'd be more happy that they get rid of the air restrictors and see who can build the best engine.

[Rollo]

Wrong. The rotary engines weren't banned because they won LM. FIA nee Bernie Ecclestone went for the 3.5l homologated engine rule so that manufacturers could jump into F1.

In fact the Mazdas weren't even the fastest cars! The won because they had better reliability in 1991.

Funny, I always thought that the Mazda won because it completed more laps in 24 hours than the 3 Jaguars which finished behind it. I guess that wasn't the reason then.

The 3.5L engine rule was rather convenient don't you think? In one fell swoop, the only rotary engine ever raced was banned following the year it won. The ACO would have brought pressure to bear considering that these upstart Japanese dared to win their Frenchy motor race, after all the cars which qualified 3rd and 8th magically appeared on the front row in 1991.

Please tell David Richards that all future Aston Martins should be diesels.

Arguably, the green/eco card is nonsense.

High end sports cars and GTs are less likely to see far less mileage than A4 TDI company car.

High end sports cars and GTs which are under racing conditions are also more likely to be put through stresses that an A4 TDI company car is ever likely to go through.

If Dave Richards wants to win, then all future Aston Martins should be built to best exploit the rules which exist, if that means building a diesel, then so be it - Peugeot did.

Arguably a diesel has the highest thermal efficiency of any combustion engine and therefore should use less fuel; real world results should prove that to be right. Oops, they do? Hmmm. Arguably, science is nonsense then.

[I am evil Homer]

But diesels are core to Peugeots product range, they aren't to Aston. So it would be an utterly pointless and expensive exercise for them.

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Funny, I always thought that the Mazda won because it completed more laps in 24 hours than the 3 Jaguars which finished behind it. I guess that wasn't the reason then.

The 3.5L engine rule was rather convenient don't you think? In one fell swoop, the only rotary engine ever raced was banned following the year it won. The ACO would have brought pressure to bear considering that these upstart Japanese dared to win their Frenchy motor race, after all the cars which qualified 3rd and 8th magically appeared on the front row in 1991.

Don't be fooled into looking at race results!

The Germans had the quicker cars.

Peugeot jumped onto the front row because they had 3.5l engines. Jag and Sauber M-B had problems with their 3.5l cars (to this day M-B are too embarrassed to talk about the C291!) so they reverted back to the Group C spec cars.

IIRC the car count was too low so the rules were rejigged so as not lose anymore cars. In effect 1991 was a crossover period for the new engine regs which debunks the urban - correction - the uneducated myth that rotary engines were banned.

High end sports cars and GTs which are under racing conditions are also more likely to be put through stresses that an A4 TDI company car is ever likely to go through.

Arguably a diesel has the highest thermal efficiency of any combustion engine and therefore should use less fuel; real world results should prove that to be right. Oops, they do? Hmmm. Arguably, science is nonsense then.

Errr


What's the chance of a DB9's mileage being the same as a A4 2.0 TDI after 3 years and therefore which car is more eco friendly/efficient?

[Rollo]

Don't be fooled into looking at race results!

Oh sorry. I thought that the whole point of a motor race was to see who can win. Oops.

What's the chance of a DB9's mileage being the same as a A4 2.0 TDI after 3 years and therefore which car is more eco friendly/efficient?

Nil.

A DB9 leaves the factory acheiving, 17.2mpg whilst an Audi A4 will do 55.2mpg (both combined cycles).
Even with a worst case scenario the A4 2.0 TDI would still produce better mileage than a DB9. In fact I would suspect that even a 20 year old A4 2.0 TDI would still produce better mileage than a DB9.
Therefore which car is more eco friendly/efficient? The A4 2.0 TDI.

Warning: Science Ahead.

Grant that the Diesel cycle is in principle less efficient than the Otto cycle, but because Diesel engines don't introduce fuel to the combustion chamber until it is actually ignited, Diesel engines aren't subject to knocking.
Therefore, Diesel engines are not limited in their compression ratios, and as such they pull back their thermal efficiencies so far, that in the real world a turbodiesel with the same capacity as a spark engine is about a third more efficient.
This is one of the reasons why they're use in trucks and generators.