FXX @ Le Mans?

I don't think so, no... IIRC, there is only 1 Ferrari in the entire show - a 430.

 

I don't think so. Remember when this car was introduced, the factory mentioned (in their press releases) that this was not to be road legal or homoglated for any type of racing (or something along those lines). All Ferrari mentioned was that 29 lucky people would be able to buy and basically run these cars on different tracks as a test session to gather data for their next supercar.

Also, what class would it run in if someone did decide to race it at Le Mans?

GT2? - No, was never a street car - even though it's close to the street Enzo.

GT1? - No, same as above, but the Maseratis from last years ALMS ran in this class at a weight disadvantage and wasn't allowed to score points at the begining of the season because the ACO wouldn't accept it as a GT class type car. So would they do the same for the FXX?

LMP675? - No, it'll get creamed

LMP900? - No, same as above

Anyway, it would be nice for Ferrari to get back to some factory endurance racing, whether it's in GT or Prototype. By the way the 430GT is awesome and I hope it does well at Le Mans.

 

The FXX would be absolutely uncompetitive at LeMans-Take it from me, I am a bit experienced in this area.

 

I think it could be very competitive in GT1 if allowed, but it is far too rare and precious to compete anyway, same as all the Super Ferraris except the F40. It would have been great to see Ferrari really stand behind the F40 and F50 in organized racing instead of half hearted attempts. In the case of the F50, they were too busy concentrating on F1, much like today.

 

The FXX and the Maserati MC12 are very, very comparable cars and the MC12 has not shone very well in ALMS GT1 or FIA GT (Better in GT but poor competition.). It also had a tough time competing just recently in Japan in the Japanese GT series. I should know, I was the one with the car! The sad truth is that both of these cars are based on the enzo, which, as a street car, is pretty cool, but as a race car, has some very fundamental disadvantages to it, such as weight, weight distribution, suspension geometry, chassis stiffness, etc. All of these can be fixed, but it takes more time or money than Ferrari or Maserati is willing to invest into them.

As I have said in the past, one of the ironies of "supercars" is that, historically, they make very marginal race cars. Recent history has not changed that statement.

And this is true of non-Ferrari's also. Ford's current GT, is such a bad canidate for a racecar that Ford is actively discouraging anyone from trying to race it, as they are worried about the bad publiity that would come from such an activity.

As I kinda do this for a living-(Cars I have designed and/or engineered have won LeMans, Sebring, Daytona, Indy, etc.) trust me on this.

 

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but very interested in your views on the f430. I would love to see this car kick some A**, but in the ALMS there is only the Risi car and none in Rolex. It seems to be doing very well in Europe so far but the racing there is very hard for me to fallow from the US. I wish Ferrari would concentrate more on factory or semi efforts in sports or endurance as this is how I always remember them when I was growing up. I remember the 250 GTO-330 P4 etc. Wow that would be great. Thanks for the input. I think what you do is awsome.-Bob

 

There is one Ferrari F430 GTC in GT2 and there are three Prodrive 550s in GT1. In Sunday's test day the F430 was quickest in class. The FXX is not homologated so can't run in GT and for many reasons it will not be able to run in the LMP1 or LMP2 classes.

 

This is a very good car--I do a lot of work on the Panoz Esperante GT program and at Sebring we were very impressed (read: worried) about the pace of that car. For a new car out of the box, it was fast. It had some normal initial problems, such as a screw up in the design of the wheel nut/removal system, which slowed down it's pit times and a slow refuel. Both of these have been addressed for LeMans. The car is also a bit thirsty on fuel (from what we can see), especially relative to the Porsches. But it has good top end speed, with good cornering ability and seemed to ride the bumps well.The Panoz has very good braking-maybe the best in it's class, good acceleration and pretty good cornnering, but we are down in top end (Car is draggy) and have a lack of front end aero, relative to the Ferrari (and maybe Porsche) and some fundamental geometry issues. The Porsches are good at top speed, braking, okay in the corners, good fuel consumption, but tend to need to run the cars pretty stiff, due to geometry issues, so may suffer some in the mechanical grip area, I haven't studied the newest version of the RSR to see if it is better. Porsche also has the best reliability and most teams, so odds are on their side.

From a drivers stand, all the top teams have good talent, Risi has the Ferrari "factory guys now" (Salo!), we have guys like Brabham and Maxwell, and the Porsches have too many to name!

The end result is that ALMS GT racing is very close. We (Panoz) won at Sebring, knew we were going to struggle at Houston (and did!), the Ferrari and Porsches have come on strong so the points race is very close. (6 drivers tied for second place with P1 only a few points ahead.)

The series is too close to call, the Porsches, by numbers have the best shot at MFG's championship, but team/drivers could go to Risi/MTC-Panoz/2 or 3 Porsche Teams, any of which could win. Makes for good racing, however.

 

Of course I am biased by my profession but like you Bob, I am disappointed by Ferrai focusing on F1. For me, the great Ferrari's are the sports endurance cars, whether a 250 GTO or 250P, or 330 or 312 PB. That is a heritage that seems to be forgotten

It is of course, a case of the 800 lb gorilla (F1 racing). It is so massive and powerful that, like a black hole, sucks everything having to do with racing into it's void.

And this gets companies into trouble. Look at Jaguar, no history in F1 racing-but they decide that is where they are going to go--and look at how bad they did! But Jaguar had a great history at LeMans. Now imagine if Jaguar (Ford) spent 20% of the F1 money on an LMP (or GT1) style program. Just imagine a Jaguar LMP closed top car running against the Bentley's! Talk about exposure and history! Now imagine a Ferrari LMP car, a 333SP successor, running against the Audi R8's at he same time. Put in a Toyota LMP car, say the TS-ONE updated (but why would they do that when their F1 program is doing so well?!) and now you have a race that would be the single most talked about/watched race of the year!

Look at what Audi has done with their LMP program. Audi, which never had a good sporting heritage (Save the Auto-Unions form the 30's) has now become the maker of the worlds greatest sports car ever-the R8. It will go down as more famous than the Ford GT40, the Porsche 917, 956/962 cars, Jaguar C/D types, Bentley Blowers, etc. And I think they get better return on expenditures (in terms of exposure/car sales/etc) for what they have done than they could ever have gotten in F1.

Okay, enough of my rant-it is just sad that the manufacturer's have abandoned endurance racing, which was their natural arena for the artificiality of F1.

 

Hi Will - go to www.lemans.org and you can get the entry list and more info on the race - we're out of here next Thursday to LeMans Really looking forward to the event.

Have a great day.

Carol