6 Hours of Spa, April 28/29

Awful luck for the protoypes, but a good recovery for the #51. Still a lot of job to do to put an end to the Formula Toyota. Good to see a girl winning too.

P.S: down with the tyre warmers ban, how many crashes more for that. It was painful to see the prototypes crawling and being unlapped by GTs.

 

With the ban on tyre warmers, tyre manufacturers will have to come up with different compounds.
There is no way they can keep bringing out the same slick tyres that need to be warmed artificially to give grip
The solution could be some sort of pattern on the tyres allowing them to warm up naturally.
But first, compounds will have to be different too, and slicks be things of the past.
What make a slick tyre is uncured rubber cover, which gives expectional grip, but quick degradation.
I expect a drop in tyre performance, but more durability. Probably NOT what the racers want to hear !!

 

Why a complex solution (different tyres) when there is an easy one (put back the ****ing tyre warmers that every team already has).

 

In an ideal world, the legislators would come back on their decisions once they find the public don't like them.
But how often do you see that ?
I don't expect the WEC (the ACO in fact) to accept they were wrong to please the ecologists in their mist.

 

Renger is the man. It is really rare that he makes a mistake. Same with Bourdais who crashed on his own at Long Beach. I think this new car is a lot harder to drive.

 

I am torn on this. If WEC goes to tire warmers I would like to see IMSA do it as well to to stay in sync.

I can't recall IMSA ever having tire warmers and the only place it was ever an issue was Daytona. But it seems like these new cars have a much harder time getting the tires up to temp with less downforce.

 

Renger pushed to hard trying to keep ahead and cut off the Ferrari from overtaking, I'm glad he's ok. That said the way he was driving before the crash was dangerous. What's crazier was he was trying to stop the Ferrari unlapping its self not even a fight for position.

 

Can't change the past but if that dodgy 1st SC call happened been made. I believe the Ferrari's would have taken the top two spots. Both #50 & #51 were in a league of there own. Even with some bad luck and dodgy calls they still got 3rd on the same lap as the winner that's insane. Gutted #50 didn't get their much deserved 4th place.

Hey lets mix it up and create a Safety hazard to mess with our top class so a few GTs can remove one of the 20 laps on them for 10 mins before its added back on. Stupid to say the least...

 

That maybe from IMSA that WEC got its idea from.

 

Drivers will have to use the first out lap after a tyre change to warm their tyres, instead of going all out immediatly.
They will soon learn, or pay for it ...

 

Let's be fair, there has been over the years a complete change of philosophy about endurance races.
Allowing a tyre change at every refuelling, transforms an endurance race into several consecutive sprints !
I remember a time , when 1000km endurance races at Monza, or the Nurburgring could be done on ONE set of tyres.
Yes, they were hard compound threaded tyres, not slick with quick degradation.
I believe several Le Mans 24 hours races were won on ONE set of tyres, and that was a huge claim for the manufacturer then.
Now, we have tyres that are like marshmallow and melt away in no time, and ultra quick pit stops to change them instead.

 

Reliability exists in endurance nowadays because the power units are not stressed, thanks to BoP and the power limits.
Years ago, there were parameters imposed, like capacity, weight, dimensions, etc ... but no limit on engine development, and some engines broke if overstressed. Looking after your car was part of the skill of an endurance driver, and some excelled at it.
Now drivers do not have to nurse their engines, and their gearboxes to last, the electronics take care of that.
The power limits imposed in WEC and IMSA are really bordering on ridiculous, IMO.
As for the GTP, GTE or GT3 categories, it's plainly stupid: street cars are more powerful than race cars !!!

 

Well, engine power is limited by the rules now !
Before, you could develop any engine as you wanted; you cannot do that anymore.
A team could buy a customer car from Porsche or Ferrari, develop it like many did in the 70s and 80s, and beat the factory.

 

Sorry, van dear Zande is an awesome driver, but even the best make mistakes. No tire warmers needed, most major series other than prima Donna F1 don’t use them inc. IMSA and Indy car. Sorry for van dear Zande and Ferrari, but trying to blame human error on rules gets old real fast. What cheese does the Ferrari team want to go with their whining?

 

I quite agree.
Looking after your tyres from start to finish should be part of a driver's skill panoply, IMO.
That means bringing them to operating temperature yourself, and then nursing them to manage their degradation.
I never understood why tyre warmers were even allowed anyway, but then, I am old school perhaps.

 

I saw somewhere that Renger's crash was due to a failure in the power steering system.