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10-06-2020 | 07:06 AM

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senor honda

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TF Sport victorious in incident-filled GTE Am battle at Le Mans

TF Sport victorious in incident-filled GTE Am battle at Le Mans

JEP/Motorsport Images
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emailBy Stephen Kilbey | September 20, 2020 6:38 AM

TF Sport made it a double win for Aston Martin this year at Le Mans. Tom Ferrier’s plucky British outfit put together a dominant victory in the GTE Am class with its No. 90 Vantage AMR, becoming the first Aston customer team in the modern era to claim a Le Mans win in the process.

Jonny Adam (who won GTE Pro with the factory team in 2017), Charlie Eastwood and Bronze-rated Salih Yoluc emerged as the strongest trio in the field as the sun set on Saturday night, setting up TF Sport’s biggest ever victory as a team.

Aston Martin triumphs over AF Corse in GTE Pro at Le Mans

United Autosports wins LMP2 race of attrition at Le Mans

Three in a row for Toyota at Le Mans

GTE Am was entertaining throughout and in the first half of the race looked near impossible to predict. The constant cycle of pros and ams all taking turns behind the wheel shuffled the order hour after hour.

But TF Sport’s strategy of burning most of Yoluc’s drive time early in the race worked perfectly. With the threat of rain removed as time wore on it allowed them to run only Eastwood and Adam throughout the night and build a comfortable lead.

Once the sun rose on Sunday, with no other contenders within shouting distance, they needed only three more stints out of Yoluc before they could go back to Adam and Eastwood and take the win by almost a minute.

It has become normal at Le Mans to see class podium places decided in the final laps, and 2020 was no exception. The race for second place after the final safety car in the final hour ended with Dempsey Proton’s No. 77 Porsche taking second, AF Corse’s No. 83 Ferrari completing the podium and the No. 56 Project 1 911 missing out on silverware. It was a titanic scrap, and saw three young, bright stars — Matt Campbell, Nicklass Nielsen and Matteo Cairoli — do battle on the biggest of stages in sports car racing.

A special mention must be given to Gulf Racing, which completed the top five. Mike Wainwright enjoyed one of the best drives in his career along with Ben Barker and Andrew Watson en route to the flag.

Behind the Gulf Porsche, Corvette Racing stalwart Jan Magnussen in the JMW Motorsport Ferrari 488 GTE came home in sixth alongside Richard Heistand and Maxwell Root.

A few contenders hit trouble in this one, the main one being the No. 98 Aston Martin Racing Vantage, which could have made it a double win for the British factory had a suspension failure not put an end to Paul Dalla Lana, Ross Gunn and Augusto Farfus’ hopes of a big win just as the sun rose on Sunday morning.

It was another heartbreak for Dalla Lana to add multiple near misses in recent years. His search for a Le Mans win continues….

RESULTS

Aston Martin, Le Mans, TF Sport, Le Mans/WEC

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10-06-2020 | 07:08 AM

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senor honda

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LM24 Hour 24: Toyota, Aston triumphant

LM24 Hour 24: Toyota, Aston triumphant

Sam Bloxham/Motorsport Images
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emailBy Stephen Kilbey | September 20, 2020 5:49 AM

Toyota Gazoo Racing has done it again. Another incredible run by its No. 8 TS050 HYBRID has secured a third straight win at Le Mans for the Japanese marque, after a valiant effort from rival team Rebellion Racing ended with a second-place finish for its No. 1 R-13 Gibson.

Kazuki Nakajima, Sebastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley were pretty much faultless for the entire 24 hours, while only a brake duct issue early in the race cost them time in the garage. That issue looked to set up the No. 7 sister Toyota for its first Le Mans win, but a turbocharger failure would cost Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez dearly. Overnight the No. 7 lost multiple laps in the garage and dropped outside the top three.

This left the two Rebellions to take the fight to the No. 8. The Swiss-flagged team, in its final Le Mans start, put up a valiant effort to keep the pressure on. But ultimately neither R-13 could consistently keep tabs with the lead Toyota over the course of the race, despite the cars being quicker over a single lap, the No. 1 finishing with the race’s fastest lap.

All Rebellion’s drivers were told to preserve the cars throughout, in the hope they could pick up the pieces should the lead Toyota suffer any mechanical issues or fall foul to an incident in the run to the flag. The No. 8 had a steady run to the finish, though, and would win by a margin of six laps.

Unfortunately Rebellion couldn’t make it a double podium either, as late drama for the No. 3 R-13 promoted the No. 7 Toyota to the final podium spot in the penultimate hour.

Louis Deletraz had a costly off at Indianapolis, brushing the barriers, forcing the car in for an unscheduled stop. The team had to replace the nose and rear, before battling with getting the car fired up after the stop. The car suffered a recurring starter issue, unable to fire up after its hourly services in the final hours of the race. It would limp home fourth.

GTE Pro was down on numbers but certainly not excitement this year, and featured a sublime performance from Aston Martin Racing’s No. 97 Vantage AMR, which outlasted a race-long challenge from the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari.

This one was an Aston vs Ferrari battle for the entire race, Porsche’s pair of 911 RSR 19s lacking pace in their Le Mans debut. It didn’t make for a dull affair, though, as the pendulum swung between the two leading marques throughout the race.

But ultimately the day belonged to Alex Lynn, Maxime Martin and Harry Tincknell. All three pushed hard, had a clean run and didn’t even need to undergo a brake change en route to victory, finishing a lap ahead of the No. 51. It was a double podium too for Aston, as the No. 95 of Nicki Thiim, Marco Sorensen and Richard Westbrook took a well-earned third.

GTE Am and LMP2, meanwhile, saw drama all the way to the flag.

LMP2 was dominated by United Autosports’ No. 22 ORECA. Arguably the favourites going in, Paul di Resta, Phil Hanson and Filipe Albuquerque showed exactly why during this race. The No. 22 spent the entire second half of this one in the lead, edging away as the other contenders either faltered or struggled to stay consistent.

A late safety car in the final hour bunched up the field, and a late splash of fuel for Hanson meant JOTA’s Goodyear-shod ORECA looked in with a shout at snatching the victory. There were just a few seconds between Hanson and Davidson after he took fuel, but Hanson stayed calm and JOTA bluffed — it too needed a splash, relieving the pressure with five minutes to go.

JOTA had to settle for second, with Panis Racing taking a surprise third after G-Drive Racing’s No. 26 Aurus had a suspension failure in the penultimate hour.

In GTE Am, TF Sport made it a double win for Aston Martin this year. Tom Ferrier’s team scored a dominant victory with the Vantage AMR, becoming the first Aston customer team to claim a Le Mans win in the process. Jonny Adam, Charlie Eastwood and Salih Yoluc emerged as clearly the strongest trio in the field as the sun set on Saturday night, and scored TF Sport’s biggest ever victory.

GTE Am saw late dramas too, a three-way battle for second place after the final safety car which ended with Dempsey Proton’s No. 77 Porsche taking second, AF Corse’s No. 83 Ferrari completing the podium and the No. 56 Project 1 911 missing out on silverware.

Full stories to follow.

Aston Martin, Toyota, Le Mans/WEC

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10-06-2020 | 07:09 AM

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senor honda

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LM24 Hour 23: Crunch time

LM24 Hour 23: Crunch time

JEP/Motorsport Images
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emailBy Ryan Kish | September 20, 2020 5:07 AM

The hours have wound down to the final 60 minutes of racing in the Le Mans 24 Hours and Toyota looks well on its way to a win with the No. 8 TS050. This team knows better than anyone, of course, the cruelties that can occur in the final hour of this race, though.

Rebellion is finding out now. The No. 3 R13 of Louis Deletraz went wide at Indianapolis and needed to pit. The team completed the pit stop, but the car would not fire. They placed the car on the dollies to push it into the garage only for the engine to finally fire and the wheels spin while the car was in the air.

The No. 7 Toyota, meanwhile, overtook the No. 3 Rebellion for the final podium spot. A penalty is likely for the No. 3 Rebellion for its wheels spinning while the car was in the air.

Unlike in LMP1, the win in LMP2, and GTE Pro is still up for grabs in the final hour of the race. For now, the No. 22 United Autosports ORECA has control of the LMP2 race with Paul Di Resta on board. The No. 22 ORECA and the No. 38 JOTA Sport ORECA have been in a separate realm from their competitors and the winner in class will likely be one of those two runners.

For GTE Pro, it’s still the No. 97 Aston Martin Vantage and the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari, a sentence we could’ve just copied and pasted from any of the previous 18 reports. The No. 97 Vantage has not done a brake change, which has contributed to the lead it has on the No. 51 Ferrari. Alex Lynn is carefully nursing the brakes home and trying to manage his roughly one-minute lead.

The No. 90 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage looks set to take its first Le Mans win. It is still running with a sizeable gap that was built up during the night. The No. 90 TF Sport frontloaded the drive time of Salih Yoluc and ran their two more experienced drivers through the night while other teams used their Am-rated drivers.

The No. 56 Team Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR of Matteo Cairoli is chasing the No. 90 Aston Martin but his efforts are fleeting as time runs down.

HOUR 23 STANDINGS

Le Mans, Toyota, Le Mans/WEC

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10-06-2020 | 07:11 AM

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Peugeot 908 LMP1 Tales: Center of pressure

Peugeot 908 LMP1 Tales: Center of pressure

Image by Marshall Pruett
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emailBy Marshall Pruett | September 20, 2020 6:46 AM

Peugeot’s lithe replacement for the original 908 HDI FAP and its nuclear turbodiesel V12 was a little dancer with a lighter twin-turbo V8 diesel in the back and an all-new 908 chassis that looked like it was born in Victory Lane.

Looks for the 2011 creation, as shared by Sebastien Bourdais, Anthony Davidson, and Pedro Lamy in an excerpt from the Peugeot 908 LMP1 Memories podcast, were deceiving.

Davidson: “We hated the next generation of the 908. The only car we really want to talk about is the V12 908. The V8 was still good and if it was the first car you ever jumped into as a sports car; you’d love it, of course but it was a down-scaled version. It was like a 908 light, if you like. It just wasn’t the same, you didn’t have the same power. The car was a bit more sophisticated aerodynamically, but it was never the same car. The wheel dimensions changed as well, so it basically had the same width of wheel from front to rear. It changed the balance of the car and the feel, which we all just preferred the stability of original V12 908 over the V8 car.”

Peugeot 908 LMP1 Tales: Dirty downforce

Peugeot 908 LMP1 Tales: All the torque

Peugeot 908 LMP1 Tales: Making permanent enemies at Paul Ricard

Peugeot 908 LMP1 Tales: Who’s steering this thing?

Lamy: “Yeah, I agree. I mean, the V12 was fantastic. If I have to say something, I believe Peugeot when arrived, it just came with something really new against Audi. Audi was our main competitor and they were not strong enough for the technology Peugeot brought into the competition. That’s my feeling and it’s my opinion. And then, Audi had to catch back slowly and then they (came) back.”

Bourdais: “In ’11 they killed us.”

Lamy: “They killed us because they came with a completely new car, completely different, but they had to invest. I think they had a different people making the car and they were alone in the market and Peugeot came really strong into the business and they did a great job, I have to say that.

Bourdais: “Especially with the budget, because it was a fraction of the Audi budget then and all of the money was into the performance of the car. I think we got bit a couple of time with quality control and suppliers and this and that but ultimately, I mean the performance of the car from the get-go, ’07, ’08, ’09, ’10 was just superior. And then in ’11 when Audi responded, they responded big and there was a bit of a conceptual issue with the second version of the 908, because that 908 was meant to be running 46% of front CoP (aerodynamic center of pressure), and it was those big front tires and the whole concept was running very little rear wing. Sure enough, we found our buddy (Peugeot driver) Nic (Minassian) flying over the fence at Paul Ricard and everybody’s scaring themselves with the car the way it was meant to be, because the concept was wrong at that point. He lost the car, it was snappy (oversteering). The car was snappy there, was difficult to drive.”

Davidson: “We were all scared to drive it.”

Bourdais: “Yeah, it was like everybody was scared and (Peugeot driver) Stephane (Sarrazin) was hanging onto it and driving it.”

Davidson: “Of course he would, Stephane would just hang on to anything. I remember him telling me, ‘You’ve just got to say to the car, “I am zee boss, I am zee boss.”‘ And I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? Just take the front aero out of the thing.’”

The “scary” 2011 908. Image by Marshall Pruett

Bourdais: “This thing is scary, yeah, and there was no taking front wing off of it. The only way was to put rear wing into it and it killed the concept because then the efficiency of the car became bad. Unfortunately, we almost killed Nic, who we found at the airport, over the fence, flying backwards because he spun the thing at high speed, when the thing finally let go on him.”

Davidson: “We heard it, that’s the first thing. We were doing the Circuit Paul Ricard, where you went flat out around the left-right kink. Now, that’s the place we we’re all really struggling to hold onto the car because we didn’t know at the time and neither did the team, but the correlation was wrong to the wind tunnel. We were 5% out in our aero balance, 5%!”

Bourdais: “So the car was a little twitchy.”

Davidson: “So every time we were saying to them, ‘Take some front wing out,’ or, ‘Dial out the front of the car, just raise the front ride height or anything you can do.’ They were saying, ‘No, it all matches the figures properly. It’s set where it needs to be.’ It was really tough, one of the most pointy cars I’ve ever driven. But anyway, we heard it all go quiet as Nic thundered down the main straight in Paul Ricard. We heard the slide, we heard it go quiet and we legged it to the car, the teammates, we just thought, ‘Wow, we know where he is. We know exactly what’s happened.’

“We went around to the perimeter road as quick as we could. The drivers were the first ones there. We were looking for the car on the track, ‘Where’s the car? Where’s the bloody car?’ And it’s over the fence on the runway, no lie. They had to close the airport. The car was over the fence and he was upside down, or on its side. He was sitting there, he’d got out the car and he was sitting there all disheveled and dazed. It was unbelievable. Honestly, I thought we were going there to witness a fatality and there’s nothing left of the car. Nic, he didn’t know where he was and it was really bad. Yeah, poor Nic. I mean, it was going to happen to one of us at some point, basically.”

Bourdais: “(Peugeot eventually fixed the CoP and) the problem is it came at the cost of the efficiency of the car and the performance of the car at Le Mans, and unfortunately, because of it, the model didn’t work anymore. We were just far too draggy and we got our butt handed to us at Le Mans. The concept was the absolute best for Le Mans, except we had to take downforce of the front and we could take nothing out of the rear. So the efficiency was just terrible for the Le Mans track. Then Audi did a far better job on that and they killed us.”

Davidson: “Yeah, we were basically a second and a bit too slow every lap, weren’t we? Which at Le Mans, with all the safety cars and stuff, you can kind of keep within the fight, but any more than that and you wave goodbye to the victory. Yeah, we tried — we drove our hearts out on that race. I still think it’s one of, personally, my best races I ever put together at Le Mans, but we just didn’t have the equipment to do it.”

Catch the full conversation below:

Peugeot, Le Mans/WEC, Podcasts