171mph

I think so. But apparently some in F1 disagree, including Kubica.


http://www.paddocktalk.com/news/html...opic=8&catid=0


F1 Bosses Thumb Their Noses At Le Mans 24 Race


Leading figures of the formula one world have said they will not be mesmerised by one of the world's most famous motor races this weekend.

A plethora of names made famous on formula one tracks are this year in contention for the Le Mans 24-hour crown.

But McLaren team boss Ron Dennis insists that the endurance race is no match for F1 in his eyes.

"No comparison," he told the International Herald Tribune.

"You have to have phenomenal reliability, but also the drivers play such a key role, primarily in not falling off.

"It's rarely a race that's raced from beginning to end. You don't race for 24 hours, you compete for 24 hours and it requires a different strategy," Dennis, whose Woking based outfit developed a car that won Le Mans in 1995, added.

"There's no race," he continued. "They all suddenly realise that survival is the important thing. It is counter to the spirit of formula one; you very rarely slow down in formula one."

Honda team principal Ross Brawn has also been involved in Le Mans, with the winning Jaguar car of 1990, before returning to F1 with enormous success.

"It was not the sort of challenge that I like," he concurs.

"It's a very structured race over 24 hours, you're pacing yourself. It's quite a different event."

Canadian grand prix winner Robert Kubica is a renowned fan of rallying, but he admits that he has never even watched Le Mans on TV.

"Speed is secondary," he said, referring to the fact that the focus at Le Mans is on consistency and reliability.

"I'm the kind of person who likes to push. At Le Mans, you have to push less. It's a kind of different sport," the BMW-Sauber driver added.

MTosi

I think they are stuck in the mind set of the 60's/70's/80's/ and early 90's when it was simply trying to get the car to last, now they are so reliable it is almost a 24 hour sprint race. I think their point is valid to a very small extent, but its seems rather uncalled and snobbish for them to come out and insult another form of motor racing, I don't see them out there at 2am running with four different classes of cars, and putting in three, 3 hour stints behinnd the wheel in the course of 24 hours.

gums

I don't even think these guys are being snobbish, they're just acknowledging that it's a different discipline and not necessarily for them. I wouldn't read any further into it than that.

Fabio421

i prefer watching Le Mans and ALMS racing. To me it is much more exciting than F1. I can also relate a lot more to the cars raced in those series VS the F1 cars.

PTurbo965

It makes sense that some F1 guys think they are the best/only game in town, but they are just wrong.

Flying Finn

+1

What they're doing is comparing endurance racing to F1 and they're correct, those two are completely different.
That doesn't mean 24 is something less (I'm surpriced to hear that i.e. Kubica has never even watched it) but the reality is former F1 guys go into endurance racing, not vice versa.

I love them both. F1 GP of Monaco and Le Mans 24 are two top races in my "bucket list". I've done the GP of Monaco and "one of these days", will do the Le Mans.

earlyapex

Idiots.

ew928

Maybe the idea of passing and lead changes confuses the aforementioned F1 dudes.


And the idea of pushing a car into the pit garage and the bringing them back out threw the F1'ers into a loop.

race911

What's more of a human competition.........100/400/800 meters or the 10K/marathon? Entirely different disciplines. Think Dennis and Brawn can't hack it themselves in that environment where, as management, your career lives and dies in a single race?

earlyapex

Five hours to go and one lap separates the two leading P1 cars. Not racing?

Flying Finn

Brawn has won in Le Mans.

race911

The above-referenced article mentioned that already. You can certainly win/be enormously successful at something and not find it your life's passion.......

Flying Finn

I agree, just wanted to point out that he's done them both (endurance & F1) and finds F1 better. I don't think there's anything wrong with that (someone called them idiots).

multi21

I don't know how you can call them that given the fact that Brawn and Dennis have not only competed in Le Mans, but both have won. It's not like they're talking from the sidelines as spectators. They are correct in that it is not a full out sprint. Kind of like Nascar where it cannot be a full out sprint in a 500 mile race. The real race starts with 40-50 laps to go (speaking of Nascar).

Different strokes for different folks.

NNH

It's been a 24 hour sprint race since at least 1991, when Mazda picked up a team of young guns and told them to push non-stop. The result: they took Japan's first win at Le Mans, and changed the face of long-distance racing.

What is true is that it's a different style of racing, where experience and cunning count for a lot. Many of the great Le Mans drivers maintain their form well into their fifties and beyond: I had the privilege of watching Mario Andretti come within a hair of winning in 1995, and Derek Bell has remained competitive into his sixties. Perhaps the F1 guys mistake the success of older drivers for "old man's racing"?