When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
And yet here we are. I'll take spending cycles with ebbing and flowing fields over artificial/political rules making any day, because as long as more than one car company exists they will want to compete and will build race cars to do it. If you want an even playing field, go watch a one-make series. Great competition in many cases (Cup, Super Trofeo, GP2/F3000/F2/whatevertheycallitnow), but don't kid yourself - there will always be haves and have-nots and people moaning about being it too expensive.
To be fair,it took longer for Toyota because they've decided to change the battery pack too. Their engineers believe the car wouldn't even have finished had they not changed the battery pack. They also said,they've never had to replace the motor in all the races and tests prior to LeMans.
I agree though,the speed argument is lame at LeMans... What I found even lamer is the comment about a competitor team member posing as an official : guess at whom they were hinting... and that burned their clutch. Seriously! What a brilliant plan by Porsche to burn Toyota's clutch! And it worked...
Algarve pro team driver Vincent Capillaire
Originally Posted by hf1
BOP is a logical contradiction even before you top it off with the politics.
What's wrong with imposing just these limits for GT: (1) Minimum Weight and (2) Maximum HP? Everything else is free if it satisfies (preferably stricter) homologation rules. No BOP.
Exciting for a few years until everyone builds a copy of the optimal solution or the class gets too expensive
Originally Posted by Whoopsy
Torque plays a big deal in racing.
2 cars can have the same HP but the car will the torque advantage will be the much quicker car. It's all about acceleration out of corners. And that's where torque output comes to play.
Torque = turbo advantage
Originally Posted by Petevb
It's an easy assumption to make- the race car is now mid-engine, so it must be "better". But better how?
Not because it's outright faster. The goal of the BOP rules is for all cars to run within a fraction of a second of one-another over a lap, so if they make a faster car the organizers will simply slow them down. More reliable then, or easier to drive? Not likely...
However a mid mounted engine has a critical advantage for endurance racing: it's much easier on tires. The lower load combined with the larger diffuser that helps keep the rear from sliding around means that rear tires last far longer. This in turn means the new RSR's performance doesn't drop off as much towards the end of a stint, and that makes them far more competitive. Like all race cars the RSR is shaped primarily by the rules it runs under. If it wasn't it'd look more like:
Back to the question: would making the GT road cars mid-engined make them "better" at the current price point? They'd get far more expensive to produce: bespoke chassis homoligation spread over a small number of cars gets pricey fast. And why bother, when as Chevy recently proved with the 1LE you can make numbers without any of that cost and complexity?
At the end of the day, however, chasing numbers is not really Porsche's game. Technically they are more than capable, of course, but to what end? If numbers are what you're after I would agree with you- time to look to a manufacture with a different philosophy. Luckily there are quite a few to chose from:
However when it comes to total driving experience at a price point (rather than shear speed) the consensus seems to be that the Porsche GT models remain in a class of their own. This is in large part due to choices you disagree with- remaining normally aspirated, continuing to offer a manual option, etc. You might not agree with Porsche's choices but I hope enough of the motoring world does so I don't need to worry about a turbocharged, PDK, mid-engined GT3 any time soon.
That said "driving experience" is down to personal preference, so if you know what's on offer doesn't suit I would encourage you to look elsewhere Not because the RSR is now mid-engined and therefore "better", however.
Exactly right!
Two reasons why 911 RSR is mid engined:
Tire wear
Diffuser fitment
As far as the mid engine positioning being a farce, read the rule book and it's clear why no waiver was required: the engine is still behind the driver and is still longitudinal, just like the homologarion car.
And yet here we are. I'll take spending cycles with ebbing and flowing fields over artificial/political rules making any day, because as long as more than one car company exists they will want to compete and will build race cars to do it. If you want an even playing field, go watch a one-make series. Great competition in many cases (Cup, Super Trofeo, GP2/F3000/F2/whatevertheycallitnow), but don't kid yourself - there will always be haves and have-nots and people moaning about being it too expensive.
So:
Minimum weight 2800 lbs
Minimum production figure of 500 street cars globally each year in which the car races
Maximum fuel allotment for each race determined by avg lap speeds
Minimum weight 2800 lbs
Minimum production figure of 500 street cars globally each year in which the car races
Maximum fuel allotment for each race determined by avg lap speeds
Everything else free?
Are you familiar with the story behind this photo?
How expensive would it be to make 500? So the rules end up subsidizing race cars for the road. Whoever spends the most wins by a country mile... If you're not willing to outspend the top dog and expect to be embarrassed why would you bother entering?
Are you familiar with the story behind this photo?
How expensive would it be to make 500? So the rules end up subsidizing race cars for the road. Whoever spends the most wins by a country mile... If you're not willing to outspend the top dog and expect to be embarrassed why would you bother entering?
Of course I'm familiar!
It just won't work - introduces another bad set of incentives.
How expensive would it be to make 500? So the rules end up subsidizing race cars for the road.
Sure, if they can satisfy the increasingly onerous safety and DOT regulations, why not? How is this bad for us? Did those cars on the pic weigh above 2800lbs?
Whoever spends the most wins by a country mile... If you're not willing to outspend the top dog and expect to be embarrassed why would you bother entering?
Still trying to understand how cost would be more of an issue under MinWeight, MaxHP, and MaxTorque limits vs. how it is now without any limits, with huge performance discrepancies, and everyone scrambling to satisfy ephemeral, random, and individualized BOP limitations.
Let's not forget that pretty much everyone agrees that BOP is a farce but for some reason it is also the best thing we can have (?!)
^^^ Oh it's a complete farce. We know it. A GT3 would stomp on a V8 Vantage. Artificially, meaninglessly close competition.
As for the switch to mid engine, pure tire wear. The rear engine RSR eviscerated the rears too quickly. The improved corner exit from the rear engine was offset by the decrease in laps per set of tires.
Sure, if they can satisfy the increasingly onerous safety and DOT regulations, why not? How is this bad for us? Did those cars on the pic weigh above 2800lbs?
Still trying to understand how cost would be more of an issue under MinWeight, MaxHP, and MaxTorque limits vs. how it is now without any limits, with huge performance discrepancies, and everyone scrambling to satisfy ephemeral, random, and individualized BOP limitations.
Put your designer's shoes on. What's going to win the class described above? You want to build an LMP car: ultra small and low passenger compartment for optimum aero. Big footprint for maximal underbody downforce. Big engine detunded so that it makes exactly 650 ft lbs from 2000-5252 rpm and exactly 650 hp from 5252 rpm-8000+. Four wheel drive to put the power down, sequential transmission, an inch off the deck, heim joints everywhere- no thought given to NVH. You use magnesium and carbon to build it to 2k lbs, then add 800 lbs of ballast back into the floor to lower the CG.
It's a highly questionable street car- too wide, poor visibility, harsh ride, noisy, incapable of doing anything well except going fast. It costs whatever you're willing to spend, easilly a million if you're willing to get fancy with weight savings. And anyone who doesn't bring one, or tries to cut corners by making their version more livable or practical, will get crushed. Forget winning with your Ferrari, 911, etc- bring a bazoka or go home.
Now try to fill a grid with these cars. That's 500 x 6 manufactures x $1 million = $3 billion (or pick your number) per year. I feel safe saying there's no market for that. One manufacture might justify spending F1 money to win, but if they bring a ringer why would manufactures 2 through 6 even bother to show up?
So as consumers if you could talk manufactures into making a fleet of these cars and then dumping them on the market it's not bad for us. However it would be commercial suicide and hence they'd never sign up for it even if the racing was close. Unfortunately it wouldn't be- Toyota or someone else with deep pockets would buy the series and everyone else would take their ball and go home. Try to add cost controls, dimensions, etc and pretty soon you end up with something just as contrived as BOP but with racing that isn't as close...
^^^ Oh it's a complete farce. We know it. A GT3 would stomp on a V8 Vantage. Artificially, meaninglessly close competition.
As for the switch to mid engine, pure tire wear. The rear engine RSR eviscerated the rears too quickly. The improved corner exit from the rear engine was offset by the decrease in laps per set of tires.
what about cornering speeds and aero being improved with a mid-engined car? Though maybe this matters not with BOP.
^^^ Oh it's a complete farce. We know it. A GT3 would stomp on a V8 Vantage. Artificially, meaninglessly close competition.
As for the switch to mid engine, pure tire wear. The rear engine RSR eviscerated the rears too quickly. The improved corner exit from the rear engine was offset by the decrease in laps per set of tires.
And a Ford GT, 488 GTB, etc would do the same to a GT3.
Put your designer's shoes on. What's going to win the class described above? You want to build an LMP car: ultra small and low passenger compartment for optimum aero. Big footprint for maximal underbody downforce. Big engine detunded so that it makes exactly 650 ft lbs from 2000-5252 rpm and exactly 650 hp from 5252 rpm-8000+. Four wheel drive to put the power down, sequential transmission, an inch off the deck, heim joints everywhere- no thought given to NVH. You use magnesium and carbon to build it to 2k lbs, then add 800 lbs of ballast back into the floor to lower the CG.
It's a highly questionable street car- too wide, poor visibility, harsh ride, noisy, incapable of doing anything well except going fast. It costs whatever you're willing to spend, easilly a million if you're willing to get fancy with weight savings. And anyone who doesn't bring one, or tries to cut corners by making their version more livable or practical, will get crushed. Forget winning with your Ferrari, 911, etc- bring a bazoka or go home.
Now try to fill a grid with these cars. That's 500 x 6 manufactures x $1 million = $3 billion (or pick your number) per year. I feel safe saying there's no market for that. One manufacture might justify spending F1 money to win, but if they bring a ringer why would manufactures 2 through 6 even bother to show up?
So as consumers if you could talk manufactures into making a fleet of these cars and then dumping them on the market it's not bad for us. However it would be commercial suicide and hence they'd never sign up for it even if the racing was close. Unfortunately it wouldn't be- Toyota or someone else with deep pockets would buy the series and everyone else would take their ball and go home. Try to add cost controls, dimensions, etc and pretty soon you end up with something just as contrived as BOP but with racing that isn't as close...
Thanks for the explanation. It helped.
What if you tightened the homologation rules (forcing the racecar to be much closer to the street car) AND raised the homologation sales requirement to 1000, 2000 or however many cars it would take to make it a financial suicide for anyone to throw away $1mil/car on a model that max 500 people would buy?
Torque = turbo advantage
Two reasons why 911 RSR is mid engined:
Tire wear
Diffuser fitment
and weight distribution.....
AMG GT series 46/54, Cayman Series 45/55, 458-488 42/58, F1 45-47/53-55
The impact of which is profound as this delivers optimal corner speed (max Vmin) and maximum traction for corner exit speed in ALL conditions.
Rear axle steering can deliver similar outcomes (or rather compensate) in the dry but can't to the same degree in lower traction/grip conditions. Other manufacturers have picked up on RAS type systems and are implementing them e.g. AMG.
Originally Posted by Petevb
However when it comes to total driving experience at a price point (rather than shear speed) the consensus seems to be that the Porsche GT models remain in a class of their own. This is in large part due to choices you disagree with- remaining normally aspirated, continuing to offer a manual option, etc. You might not agree with Porsche's choices but I hope enough of the motoring world does so I don't need to worry about a turbocharged, PDK, mid-engined GT3 any time soon.
That said "driving experience" is down to personal preference, so if you know what's on offer doesn't suit I would encourage you to look elsewhere
Not because the RSR is now mid-engined and therefore "better", however.
Petevb - I think you'll find the consensus is moving on, to suggest the GT cars are in a class of their own is really not correct. If you mean Journos, I would simply counter they don't seem to understand the devil is in the detail and more importantly they rarely own the car and thereby in the main can't understand the all round track dynamics.
Also, I want to buy a performance car that is not compromised in its base case - unfortunately for Porsche the game has moved on and is well past them at this stage.
I expect the GT division to deliver track focussed cars with the latest technology and innovations for performance, with trickle down from race experience. For a track car (to be used in competition/base car) the GT3 needs more torque (turbos) and PDK (largely to minimise wear and tear relative to a manual) - they have signalled the move to mid-engined (GT4 and 911RSR), they need to complete the journey.
If the GT3/RS, going forward is to be a "purists" car - literally stuck in a different era, a faux race car if you like, a rich mans ricer - then its not for me (btw I track mid-engined and rear engined cars).
To me this Le Mans series is a classic Pyrrhic victory, a Bradbury event for Porsche that masks the cracks.
Remember the BMW slogan "The ultimate driving machine".........Marketing can only do so much.
Ok. So I'm a little lost here. Why can't WC/sanctioning body establish a set of rules that says:
1. Production chassis and body with suspension mods allowed.
2. Production engine with limits on torque and hp. No add ons.
3. Homologation production requirements.
4. Run any trans you want.
5. Fuel capacity limits.
06-23-2017, 03:50 PM
Seriously! What a brilliant plan by Porsche to burn Toyota's clutch! 
