24 Heures du Mans 2016

Right now Ferrari has really pissed me off allowing their idiot to say they were going to have an lmp1 in hopes of trolling the whole internet.

They oughta be fired, you are an idiot Efrain Olivares. Time to find new PR, preferably someone familiar with being a grown up.

 

I'm new here. Where was that announcement?

(Don't you know; everything you read on the internet has to be true. )

 

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There is still GTE - Am or they could up it to 1000 productions minimum as it once was. Either way homologation specials include the 288GTO and 959 and they are wonderful cars so keep them coming I say. Ferrari, Aston, Porsche and however will have to do better next time.

 

Perhaps pedantic, but the 959's "contemporary" was the Gruppe B 288 GTO and not the F40. If you're suggesting that the F40 was Ferrari's response to the 959, I've never heard that.

CW

 

The F40 competed against the McLaren F1.

 

Hmm... correct me if I'm wrong but... I recall reading about the then-new 959 and F40 at around the same time... they can't have been all that far apart time-wise?

it did but they were a generation apart. Hardly contemporaries. But at the time the GTR series was started the F40 was simply the best suited Ferrari available. Gentlemens racing... then of course a few years later the F1 appeared and just blew everyone away and at some point FIA took over the GTR series and suddenly the manufacturers got a lot more involved, leading to abominations such as the Porsche GT1 and Mercedes CLK-GTR (or whatever it was called) being created... The F40 competed against the F1 simply because there wasn't a newer Ferrari available.

 

959s were produced, I believe, from ~1986 to ~1993.

Wiki says that 288s were 1984 to 1987, but my memory is that they were only offered in 1984 & 1985. Has anyone ever seen a 1986 or 1987 MY 288? I've not, but I'm not the end-all on the subject.

F40s overlapped the 959s from ~1987 to ~1992.

However, the 288 and 959 were originally the "peer" cars, as they were developed for the didn't-get-off-the-ground Group B effort. Along with the Renault R5, Ford RS200 and others (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Group_B_cars).

"Porsche 959 is a sports car manufactured by Porsche from 1986 to 1993, first as a Group B rally car and later as a legal production car designed to satisfy FIA homologation regulations requiring at least 200 street legal units be built."

"Ferrari GTO was built to compete in the new Group B Race series and a minimum of 200 cars were required for homologation."

One bit of "confusion" may be because the cars were homologated on the mere promise that the 200 road going versions would be produced. So, that may account for why there's overlap with the F40, which was NOT a Group B car.

CW

 

An interesting time for sporty-cars, but I don't recall they were eyeing each other intentionally. Both companies developed for different reasons, I seem to remember. F40 to celebrate Ferrari's 40th Anniversary. The F1 to dip a toe in the road car market, which, heretofore, they never had legitimately as a manufacturer, if at all (McLarenASC comes to mind).

They certainly crossed paths in the BPR and at Le Mans, though. Possibly other series (Asia, in particular).

Clearly competitors in F1, and clearly wanting to beat all comers, but I'm just not sure they were specifically focused on the other guy's design. Again, possibly just a coincidence in time, as opposed to a intentional match-up. But, historically, I agree that I'd line these two up, as opposed to the F40 and 959.

CW

 

Pretty much all of the 288GTO were built in 1984 or 1985 but the GTO Evoluzione was a full race car evolved for Group B circuit racing that should have debuted in 1986 or early 1987 but the FIA cancelled the series and they were produced, well there were 5 or 6 of them, thru early 1987. One was used to create the prototipo F40 in 1987. The Porsche 959 was announced in very late 1983 but production took three years to begin and they weren't easy to produce. Porsche also decided to produce another 72 cars which lengthened the run somewhat.......... They were contemporaries but Porsche race car based on the 959 was the 961 and it ran at Le Mans in 1987 under IMSA GTX rules and it finished 7th at the '86 Le Mans but caught fire at the '87. 959s did finish 1st and 2nd at the Paris-Dakar in 1986. Pretty confident the 288 GTO never raced.

 

Fair enough, as I wasn't really counting the Evo. Your comment makes me wonder about the Evo version of the GTO, though.

The Evo given the "look" seemed to be more of a stylistic predecessor of the F40. Was it the basis for the F40 testing mules? Was it an stepping-stone exercise, or was the Evo really intended as the Group B entrant (as opposed to the street cars)? I'm actually not sure on this. The RS200 and Renault R5, among others, didn't seem to have their designs "stretched" as far as the Evo went, though.

This is all really just fodder, I suppose, because I agree that the GTO never raced. Evo or otherwise, AFAIK. Seemed to be an interesting "experimentale" car, not unlike the F50GT. Which didn't go anywhere, either. Both Michelotto done, IIRC.

As you state, the 959s did race in the Paris to Dakar with Rothmann's livery.

CW

 

Started in 1981 first drawings Group B Ferrari, 308 GT/M
After that the 288 GTO Evo that quickly "evolved" in the F40

 

The Renault and RS200 along with the Audi's and Lancia's were rally cars whereas the Ferrari and Porsche were intended for circuit racing where the Group B rules about production were the same but the circuit racing requirements demanded spec built cars with huge power vs rally cars which need acceleration and grip. I note that the first 288GTO Evo was the only car actually built on a GTO chassis whereas the others were spec built, maybe by Michelotti?, and a spec built car was used as the F40 prototipo in early/ mid 1987. I can only imagine that Ferrari built the engines & parts for 6 or 7 cars and they were built up Michelotti like they built most of the F40 LM and F333SP........... I have read the Evo had 650bhp and weighed 940kg, jeesh it must have been FAST......

 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/misfortune-controversy-84th-running-24-hours-le-mans-f1-johansson?trk=prof-post

 

BoP https://twitter.com/toni_vilander/status/750477231852515328

 

lmfao Le Mans/WEC - WEC: No BoP penalties for Ford after Le Mans

 

That must have been part of the deal to keep FORD onboard at Le Mans until 2019/20 probably.

In the same manner, the ACO gave a big break to AUDI in the early 2000 to make sure it would come back for several years too.

With all these shenanigans, I have bad vibes that the ACO is slowly ruining endurance racing somehow ...

 

Off topic but BoP news imsa
IMSA - IMSA: Porsche receives long-awaited BoP break

 

The topic being 2016 LeMans, it looks on topic to me. Quite a bit more on topic than the gestation of the F 40 in the early 1990s!

 

Crazy story from Le Mans has it that a local police officer flashing his badge insisted on
driving on the course moments before the start of the race, driving the wrong way up
Hunaudieres (and was allowed to do so not once but twice by gendarmes) in order to
"ensure that safety measures were fully implemented".

Story link complete with pic of Inspector Clouseau seems appropriate.

"There is a time to laugh and a time not to laugh, and this is not one of them."

Ouest France Reveal Details Of Potential Catastrophe At 2016 Le Mans 24 Hours ? dailysportscar.com

BHW

 

LOL

 

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can a moderator tilt these pics in correct position please?