Le Mans 24 hours 2010

[freedom_honda]

--- Davidson needs to be parked. What a goddamn moron. Couldn't hack it in Formula 1 and obviously can't race in sports cars.

What the heck are you talking about? The Corvette let him go on the inside, Ther 908 passed cleanly while The Vette lost it on the marbles. There was no contact according to Corvette Racing.

All endurance commentators were saying that Davidson was behaving a bit like a maniac. The slower drivers are told that they should not change their lines and everybody assumes that the faster cars do not take the risks that Davidson took in that pass. I think that swearing on Davidson is a bit over the top, but Ray has a point that it was a pretty rude move for a 24 h race. Obviously loosing one or two seconds for a safer pass will not change the result of your race but it would have helped poor Olivier Beretta who stuffed it into the armco out of shock.

I honestly don't think Davidson was the one to blame. They were side by side at the corner entry. The corvette could have just eased off the throttle and it wouldn't have crashed.

[timbo]

Thrilling race! Pity that I had slept all the exciting moments (except from Peugeot disaster near the end) and when I was watching things were on the slow side))

Was great to see Jean Alesi again so much!
I hope one day he gets LeMans victory!

[Tomba]

M'The engine must not produce visible exhaust emissions under race conditions.'

And all the diesels in the race have.

We must have watched a different race. The catalytic soot converters work 99.9% perfect. If you ever see a wiff of smoke it surely is not more than the smoke and flames you see from petrol engined cars when they downshift. Usually it only happens when they jump over a hill. I believe that they loose some oil through a vent in that case.

Audi now in formation flight. This has been the fastest race for more than 40 years.

Actually you must have been looking at another race than everybody else here. Dust was clearly visible at acceleration, especially when looking at Peugeots because the position of their exhausts. It was repeatedly visible on the Audis too. If there would be a complaint, it simply cannot be denied.

[Ray]

--- Davidson needs to be parked. What a goddamn moron. Couldn't hack it in Formula 1 and obviously can't race in sports cars.

What the heck are you talking about? The Corvette let him go on the inside, Ther 908 passed cleanly while The Vette lost it on the marbles. There was no contact according to Corvette Racing.

Uh, no. Obviously you don't understand exactly what Davidson did. First he was going out of bounds consistently and was warned for it, good thing he was in a Pug huh? Wouldn't want to upset the home team. Second the Corvette didn't 'let' him do anything. The closing rate between the two should make it obvious to you. Davidson came up on him in a set of corners where the GT2 cars are COMPLETELY committed and will not be looking in their mirrors for faster cars. Davidson came up too fast in a set of corners he had no business passing slower cars like that in. And you must not have actually done any real racing because you would know that contact wasn't needed, he took away the Corvettes ability to let him past, gave him no choice but to move into the marbles in a corner where they are on the limit of adhesion anyway, and he crashed him for no reason. Corvette got forced over there unexpectedly and he didn't 'lose' the car due to lack of skill or a mistake, he was forced. HUGE difference.

Like I said. Couldn't hack it in Formula 1, and now we see that when he is desperate to do anything, not even win, he can't keep a level head and he can't treat other competitors with respect. He wouldn't have lost anything by not passing the Corvette in a corner like that, and has instead probably lost some cred for such a stupid and dangerous move. Everyone on SpeedTV and RadioLeMans were dumbfounded why he did something that stupid. And the ACO should have parked his ass for multiple infractions on going outside the boundary and then causing an accident.

[WhiteBlue]

I would agree that I have not really watched the Peugeot's much. My comment was more based on observing the Audis and they had this occasionally when they came over a crest.

Perhaps the diesels are trading performance for a more relaxed soot filtering in 2010 compared to previous years. It would correlate with the huge increase in pace they made. So perhaps I was a bit hasty in the defense of the diesels.

I would think that total soot filtering is possible if it were policed correctly? This was shown in previous years before they started to tweak this parameter?

[Ray]

I honestly don't think Davidson was the one to blame. They were side by side at the corner entry. The corvette could have just eased off the throttle and it wouldn't have crashed.

No he couldn't. He was on the limit in those corners and Davidson forced him into the marbles, for no reason other than stupidity, and caused the Vette to crash. You can't "ease" of the throttle in those corners in a GT2 car under the best of conditions, and certainly not when railroaded unexpectedly by a car that's a good 20-25 mph faster that you and comes out of nowhere.

[Pandamasque]

On the smoke issue.
Yes the smoke was always obvious from all the diesels. If ACO wanted to do something about it they would do it long before the race.

On the Corvette accident.
The slower cars don't have to pull off under the blue like in F1, they can and should be overtaken like it's for position, except they can't deliberately block a faster car.

Be it for position or under the blue flags if 2 cars are side by side they should give each other enough room and not turn into each other.
There's absolutely no theoretical possibility for a car hugging the white line all the way through the corner to be the one at fault in case the other car touches it or runs off the road.

We could debate if #1 took a wider line through the corner, but it was on the very line all the way. #1 was allowed the minimum amount of space to pass and didn't use an inch more than that. And it was completely safe as the two cars were already side by side on the short straight between the corners, and there was plenty of time for the Vette to ease off.


PS:

[ggajic]

Too bad Peugeots proved so unreliable. Anyway, here are some videos on youtube for all who missed action:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MT89Motorsp ... VAobf8_pgE

[Ray]

We could debate if #1 took a wider line through the corner, but it was on the very line all the way. #1 was allowed the minimum amount of space to pass and didn't use an inch more than that. And it was completely safe as the two cars were already side by side on the short straight between the corners, and there was plenty of time for the Vette to ease off.

Collard said that he didn't see him coming and that he wasn't expecting him. How could he have plenty of time to avoid something he didn't see?

I guess you know more about racing at Le Mans, you know more about endurance racing, and more about how 4 classes of cars should/do/and have raced each other than every driver/reporter/commentator/past champions and other involved in this race combined. Because every single one of them has said that Davidson pulled a stupid move there, had been pulling stupid moves, had been running out of bounds and chopping people off before that accident and it was only a matter of time before he did something like that to another driver. I'm so glad to hear from someone that is more versed in the nuances of endurance racing at Le Mans that the people that actually do it for a living.

[RacingManiac]

Outstanging LMP2 win for Strakka Racing (Nick Wirth designed chassis as it is the old Acura chassis with a HPD engine)

Technically the tub is STILL a Courage LC75....Wirth did pretty much everything else though. Acura = HPD, just rebadged since Honda is not using the Acura name in racing anymore for whatever reason....The car AFAIK is the ex-Fernandez car last year, with the 2010 bodywork to make it the "ARX-01c".

[ggajic]

More eyecandy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4xt7AYRp28

I wish I could see something like this for F1 car..

[Pandamasque]

@ Ray - I guess Vettel should have said that he didn't see Webber, so that crash wasn't his fault.

Also MS didn't see neither Kubica nor Massa. As well as he didn't see Villeneuve and Hill and whole bunch of other people. That's a universal excuse.

The fact is that the video shows that the overtaking car got alongside exiting the previous corner, as of that moment it was the responsibility of both drivers to give each other enough room. And they did.

[ggajic]

And here are some facts from this fantastic race:

http://bit.ly/dpEoEc

[vyselegend]

I'm back since a few days, but had so much work to overcome I couldn't post anything substantial earlier, sorry.

As far as I'm concerned, I had a very good time at LM, once more. (glad I don't work for Peugeot!) The four days were very good off the track, lots of fun, awsome barbecue etc.
But to be honest the race itself wasn't one I'll remember for ages. For several reasons, it nearly always seemed to be spoilt in some way:

-First, the safety car, at lap 4, for which created an artificial gap of half a lap between the Pugs and the Audis
-Secondly, the Audis, being once more slower, despite the new car, which, combined to the first point, made it look like the race was already done at lap four.
-Third, the high level of attrition, making it an elimination race (so not much fights on track, bar GT2).
-And Four, some discutables actions on the track, plus some hard time for some teams, and the lack of hapiness in the Audi clan depite the triple, meant the overall mood wasn't great.

Anyway, congratulations to the winners. You never win Le Mans by luck, although some is needed obviously.

Also, it's quite funny when you look back at it, we were all expecting Audi's new R15 to be the new performance benchmark, and Peugeot to have awsome reliability. What unfolded was exactly the opposite! Le Mans is definitly a very hard to predict race.

This time I couldn't manage to get any good pic of the action during any sessions, but I tried hard to take the best possible shots during my pit walk, hope you will enjoy...

gallery

[Pandamasque]

Thanks for the shots. Is that you wearing a kilt?


Here's beautiful video I found today