Huracán "not suitable for race track"

I do not know if this has been discussed or not but I just got these images today, the story is this, there was this "Lamborghini luxury track" in Mexico City last September 2017 at the "autódromo hermanos Rodríguez" which is where the F1 Grand Prix takes place.
Supposedly Three Huracanes crashed because of brake failure, at least one of them was inspected by Lamborghini in October, in November 2017 Lamborghini issued a statement that reads
"Such conditions were not suitable for the use of the vehicle,since the vehicle was designed and manufactured for sport driving, BUT IN A NORMAL URBAN TRACK"
But they were kind enough to offer 30% in parts
Very disappointing response

 

I found this video after posting, I believe the car discussed on the letter is the green huracán that is overtaken in this video and later crashes

I am not sure if the other three cars crashed on the same event, but the way Lamborghini handled it is bad.

 

Its the same as with Ferrari: at first they tell you to drive your car on a cicuit and if something happens like a crash etc they deny any warranty because "you crashed on a circuit!" Oh, I love the Italians....

 

The salutation of the letter says it all: Dear Mr. (fill in the blank)

 

1. Buy car from Dealer;

2. Dealer: come to our track event;

3. Go to dealer's track event;

4. Brakes fail;

5. Crash;

6. Lamborghini: we are not responsible for brake failure because you should not be using this car for a track event.

Did I miss anything?
In California, you might have a good case because they use a customer expectation standard for product defects. You would sue both Lambo and the dealership. Mexico, I doubt it.

 

Looks like lambo denied coverage due to ‘type’ of track
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How bad was the damage? Someone you know or is it your car?

 

Its the same with Ferrari:

1. Buy car from Dealer;

2. Dealer: come to our track event;

3. Go to dealer's track event;

4. Brakes fail;

5. Crash;

6. Ferrari: we are not responsible for brake failure because you should not be using this car for a track event.

 

“Stressful driving conditions”

“But in a normal urban track”

CYA.

 

Do a Google search on "Lambo Unfall".......

 

What's a "normal urban track", public roads and highways?

Parts discount is nice, but that's a lot of parts needed on the green car, if it's even repairable.

 

"brake oil boiling" means to me that this vehicle was in a condition that was absolutely not suiteble for this racing event.

Lamborghini has a point here imo.

Too many owners go to a track and do nothing preventive ... and all think they are Michael Schumacher ...

If the driver had asked the mechanics that were there to put in another brake oil that should prevent boiling.

Lamborghini then had a problem imo.

We had some serious postings here about 458 (almost)crashes which had no boiling brake oil problems ....

Ferrari just stated that nothing ever was reported to them and that their brakesystem allways work adequate ...

 

I think there is at least 1 issue with using this track for the Lamborghini dealer(?) event. The circuit is 4.304 km long (2.786 mi) and has a very long straightaway before turn 1. This is what Wikipedia commented about it... F1 cars used to regularly clock 330 kph on that stretch.

"...The circuit has an extremely fast final corner (the peraltada, turn 17) before a long start/finish straight,... ...After the Peraltada comes the long 1.2 km front straight. During the original turbo era in Formula One the faster cars were regularly clocking speeds of up to 330 km/h (205 mph) on the straight..."​

I have driven the Huracan and IMO it would have been capable of running up to 330 kph by turn 1 especially after a fast turn 17. Unfortunately, while cars like the Huracan can attain F1 speeds, they do not have F1 suspensions, brakes or tires. So stopping and turning like an F1 car at F1 circuit speeds would pose a problem. The Huracan is not set up for that. It looks to me the straightaway is too long for a safe road car event. It's so long that these road cars probably managed to attain max speed by the time they reached their brake points. The wicked 90 degrees right turn at Turn 1 would have been too much for amateur drivers on regular road setups to handle safely. The drivers may also not have learned the track beforehand by performing slow laps to gauge their limits before trying to do a hot lap.

IMO, event organizers should always force drivers to tour multiple laps on these circuits behind speed-controlled pace cars driven by experienced drivers with no overtaking permitted ... and gradually build up to higher safe speeds and hard braking to give them a sufficient scare... before letting drivers try anything on their own. That's how my local dealer in Toronto does their track day events.

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image By Pitlane02 (Own work, based on [1] (archived link)) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons​

 

A lot more to this story. Many people intimate with the incident are pointing it back to the driver/owner for not doing the track inspections, and other issues.

The red huracan incident was in South Africa and unrelated to the mexican incident.

Seems there is a concerted campaign to shame lamborghini by the person in the green huracan.

 

The Peraltada has been chopped in half , where it used to be is where the stadium is now (watch the Mansell overtake of Berger at the original fast Peraltada

And you can actually see the new stadium (shown on your image) on the new video at second 14
But still you can get a lot of speed on the long straightaway


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Thanks for pointing that out Fernando.

All the same though, the circuit layout I posted is the current one. Here's another view of it from the official F1 website. Also notice from the elevation profile that it is a slight downhill from the finish line to Turn 1. I measured the distance indicated between Turn 17 and Turn 1 and it is 1.2km. If the car is already going fast around the fast Turn 17, the Huracan is quite capable of reaching 330 kph before Turn 1.

Just for argument sake, quarter mile performance of the Huracan is 11.1 sec at 125 mph(201 kph). A quarter mile is 0.4 km. So there is another 0.7 km to a likely brake point (say 100 meters from the corner), almost half a mile. How long does the Huracan take to accelerate from 201 to 330 kph? This actually assumes the Huracan is starting from stopped at the finish line.

From the video of the lead car, it was, as expected, going fast through Turn 17, ~120 kph by the finish line?

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I have driven the Mexico circuit and it is impossible to achieve 330 Kms/hr on a sports car, due to elevation the car will go faster but not as fast (max aprox 260), but still you can go fast enough to get in trouble
But Lamborghini should not “wash their hands” by saying the car is manufactured for the street and not the track.


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I hope they checked their insurance.. mine is " void for ANY incident that occurs on a track even if not 'racing'.. " period. So if i did a photo shoot on a track and a kid on a moped ran into me bringing coffee .. VOID!

 

I see you own a 360 Spider and have owned some past generation sports cars but the Huracan is a supercar with hypercar speed. It's nothing like a sports car in the traditional sense. You literally just hang on when you wring it out.

Car and Driver did 0-100kph in 2.3 sec in a 610-4, half the time of a 360. I probably came close to doing that when I test drove the 610-4. It is an extremely fast car. If you've driven one you'll know it's more than capable of doing 330 in that distance. Officially it will reach 272 kph in 1 km from a dead stop so there goes your 260 kph and the guy with the camera was already doing 100-120 kph in Turn 17. It's then another 1.1 km to the brake point for Turn 1.

The drop in altitude along that stretch is also significant and appears to be at least 100 meters (330 feet).

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Here's what Wikipedia states...

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At any rate, my point is that those cars were going too fast for that course. Even braking from 260 kph to 60-80 kph for that 90° right turn would have been risky.

I think the Lambo rep was right - these cars are not track cars. Of course, the event organizers should also have made sure the drivers knew that before they let the drivers on the track. There should have been some classroom instructions before they took to the track.

 

True. Of course, you could probably try to make a case that you were not there for a track event or even driving the track at the time. Very unfortunate if you have a track accident and did not have special coverage. People do not point this out often enough.

There was another track day on the same track I was at last year, a few days after I was there and apparently someone in an F430 crashed his car. Some event organizers also provide cars along with instructors. Those are great but tend to cost more.

 

I have driven the Mexico circuit in different cars of friends (The fastest of them a Koenigsegg), my Spider is not even in Mexico.
There is NO way to achieve 330km/hr at the end of the straight in a Huracan.
A F1 can achieve 370 there, a hyper car is not a F1 (not even close)

You must remember that eventhough air is thinner at 2,200 mts, the Huracan is a normal aspirated V10 and at that altitude you are losing aprox 22% power.

 

Fernando, given what you say you certainly have important experience to share re the circuit and I agree the thinner air would matter. Thank you for pointing out some important factors. But test drive the 610-4 some time; its traction may well surprise you. Koenigsegg and F1 cars are not AWD. BTW, the F1 cars had already reached 300 kph by the start of the straightaway, not at the end.

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Back to my original point, I think the Huracan was simply going too fast for the driver to handle and the long straight on this circuit is IMO not appropriate for maximum effort with road cars. Even with an expert driving, these car would simply be trashed.

 

And I was not arguing with you, I completely agree with you about drivers fault, still Lambo should not have said the car is not suited for a track.


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Why is a long straight not suitable for road cars? When you drive it you need to know where and when the next corner comes. Its a question where (!) you set your brake point. I drove the most dangerous circuit on this planet, the old Nuerburgring (with 172 corners in 1 (!!) lap most of them blind ones) with various GT- and race cars. And the only thing you need to learn here is where is the brake point. Some have this talent - the majority maybee not. And -sorry to say- most of the drivers crash their car because of lac of talent).

And, btw, the Huracan held for a short time the lap record on the ol`Ring (without any technical or mechanical problems). I am pretty sure that 99.9% of all drivers who tried to match that record would crash the car here (me included!)!
To get a Lamborghini the only thing you need is --- money! To drive a Lamborghini (Ferrari, Porsche, Bugatti etc., etc.) on the edge you need talend and skills. But that you can`t get for any money...

The issue is different when the car has brake issues etc.! Then for sure you need to blaim the manufacturer for this, no matter when on circuits or open roads (where the hell is written by the manufacturers of those cars that their product can archive 300 km/h only on public roads? A road is a road..!)

 

Walter, I appreciate your comments. I actually agree with most of what you say.

If you read my posts again you will see I said I felt the Huracan driver simply couldn't handle his car. I further pointed out these cars are quite capable of achieving F1 high speeds, especially if you give them a long run-up to the corner. I also pointed out the altitude profile of the course (from official F1 website) shows 100+ meters (330 feet) altitude drop over the 1.1 km stretch (horizontal and vertical scales are different in diagram). So at least 1 in 10 incline (decline) or 10% grade or 5.71° angle of deviation from horizontal. It's like speeding down a moderate slope.

On your point that "a road is a road", I would argue that's not quite true. On a road, Lamborghini assumes you will obey traffic laws that forbid you to drive 300 kph down a hill, into a hard 90° turn at the end and then make 17 turns at speeds that all exceed traffic laws. So the Mexico F1 track is not a road, it is a track. Lamborghini also makes track cars, the Huracan is a road car, not a track car. If the Huracan were the same as a track car, Lamborghini would not be making track cars. You can definitely drive road cars on a tracks the F1 courses but you cannot safely take corners as fast as track cars and your brakes will wear out faster than they normally would. Your road car suspension will also experience sustained loads they were not designed to routinely experience and the weaker points of failure like ball joints will experience accelerated wear. The road car will get costly to maintain if you do a lot of hard laps on a track. Road car suspensions need to provide some level of comfort, be able to handle crappy roads and cannot be as stiff as track car suspensions. So they are going to lean a bit and affect the road car driver's ability to take corners - he has to slow the car earlier and to a lower cornering speed than the track car driver would.

The factory will also immediately void your warranty if you track your road car... for the reasons I mentioned.

However, I agree with you that the Huracan is quite capable of stopping from 340 kph, but not necessary at the same rate as an F1 race car. For one thing, the Huracan is a lot heavier it weighs 1,553 kg with fuel vs. for example the Ferrari SF70H at 662 kg with fuel (no driver). The Huracan is 2.35X the weight of a race car designed to tackle the braking and cornering on an F1 track going at F1 speeds. The F1 car also has much better brakes. Here's the Huracan brake rotor. It's a normal CCM rotor with holes on the rotor surface to assist ventilation

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Here is a contemporary F1 braking system shown in detail. First of all, the rotors are much lighter and have many more holes.

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The cooling for the brakes are provided by special ducts and channels.

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Finally, the cool air from the ducts are internally vented THROUGH the rotors and channeled out of the hub.

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All this means the F1 car can brake much more efficiently, harder, for much longer, without any brake fade and with less brake wear. This translates into consistently shorter braking distances than a road car, even a Huracan.

Supercars and hypercars allow for incredible acceleration, even faster than F1 cars (before F1 aero downforce kicks in) but they cannot handle or brake as well or for as long duration as race cars. Supercars/hypercars are mainly for the odd occasions when the owner wants to get a taste of F1 experience. That's just the facts of race cars being design for sustained high speeds for very long durations tracks.

I will comment on the Nürburgring circuit in another message but while you are obviously a good fast driver, having driven the Ring in fast company, I think you will agree with me that for novice drivers taking corners safely, it is more than just figuring out the brake points. The biggest problem novice drivers have is that they do not brake hard enough, early enough.

Driving a road car, you have the added issue of the brakes, suspension and tires not being as efficient as those in a track car when it comes to braking. So even if a road car driver picks the "correct brake point" (for a track car), they can still get in trouble if their road car is going too fast at that point for its braking system to slow the car for the corner if they do not have the experience of a track driver or the better braking performance of a track car. Keep in mind that the track car can also take the corner safely at a higher speed than a road car, so it does not have to slow down as much.

There is no way a road car can work like a track car on a race track at race speeds.

OK, I have errands to run.