Lizard gone fat?
 

It is painful to watch ALMS race for over 1 year now. It's becoming harder and harder to find No 45 Flying Lizard up front. When I spoke with Patrick Long last year at Laguna Seca he said "we are down on power and the new RSR should help". Well, despite of the bad luck at Sebring at the start of the race with a crash with the F-car I think there is more problem with the team and the new RSR is not going to help much.

Words around the paddock and also from other race teams is that folks at Lizard are getting soft and complacent which leads to unnecessary fatigue and inefficiency. On the contrary, M3 team is one of the most efficient and well run team and they are usually the first team at practice and first one to leave and the end results are much better than the battered and bruised Lizards.

Snap! :)

team morale is one thing, but to have 100 more hp in the trunk would not be a bad thing too. no matter what anybody says no 6 cyl engine can outrun 8 cyl one.

Going to be very interesting to see if the organizers allow the RSR a little more power and/or less weight—that's probably all the 997 RSR needs to be capable of winning again. Then again, what would that say...a 13-year-old Porsche chassis that's as fast or faster than the latest race cars from Ferrari, Corvette, and BMW? Even accounting for the PM's impressive development program, it says a lot for the basic 996 chassis and mold set by the first GT3R.

As to six-cylinder engines beating V8s, I don't know about that. Traction-rich 911 sure knows how to use a low-torque, normally-aspirated flat six to good effect...

This may be the best illustration I have ever seen of the rear-engined, RWD 911 advantage:
-Battle Royale with two top drivers.
-Power track.
-V8 "Corvette" with superior low-end torque.
-Chevy driver resorting to dirty tricks.
-...and the 911 walks the Vette in the drag race out of T11 every time—until Mags resorts to another dirty trick. But the RSR is still able to strike back.


Totally agree on team morale thing...it's a whole 'nuther thing and an interesting observation on the part of the mikymu.

That video never gets old.

No it doesn't

one of the best duels.

Made my day.

Love that clip.. Thanks

RSR's 6 cyclinder can compete with big V8 and Porsche has the technology. When the Lizard's RSR get beating badly at Sebring and down on speed during qualify you did not see Lizard guys running down to the ALMS offical demanding a smaller restrictor. When people are too "happy" with their status they don't bother to make the race even and their team competitive

I think that position may have changed. Check this out, and in particular, the following quote (following the Long Beach race):

http://press.porsche.com/motorsport/...ase.php?id=772

"Rain during the two-hour free practice, resulting in a wet track, and subsequent cancellation of qualifying, did not enable our customer teams enough track time to set up the new Porsche 911 GT3 RSR for its best performance potential. The competitors who finished ahead of us at Long Beach all have a bigger restrictor – thus more horsepower – than we do. We must work with the American Le Mans Series to find a solution that gives us comparable classification to our competitors in this area,” said Hartmut Kristen, head of Porsche Motorsport."

Great video clip -- I remember that race well -- I was on the front straight when it all unfolded!

Kristen is right to request bigger restrictors, for sure. But Porsche's press release whining about the weather and its effect on qualifying looks bad.

The slow-in, fast-out/traction-rich 911 has always held an advantage on street courses (witness Falken's win in the dry in Baltimore last year) and it's always been good in the rain (witness Falken's other win last year, at Mid-Ohio). Then there was the practice session at this year's Long Beach race, which was pretty shocking. Pity that it looks like ALMS deleted the practice results. While they weren't telling per se, the Falken RSR was the fourth fastest thing in the rain, ahead of a whole lot of prototypes and several seconds faster than the next fastest GT car IIRC...

pete

All of the competitors complain about the waivers given to other teams. BOP will always be something to argue about. What I find interesting is that the rsr was far superior to the the 360 and superior to the 430 in terms of torque but can 't seem to compete with the 458. All of which are V8s. The other challenge will be top end speed with the increased frontal area. I believe the Lizards have had to run beyond the limit in order to compete - which means more chances for mistakes.

See it the way you want to. It is painfull to watch. I don't think it is a team only issue. BTW-Is it true that Manthey decited NOT to race in the 2012 season? Does anyone know why?

Really? that's interesting. Have anything to substantiate this? I know the Perpetual Gossip crowd always bitches that Seth Neiman is an issue...but this season IIRC he went out of his way to get out of the way of his true pros. I agree it is sad, especially to see Porsche whine about rain.