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by John Glynn | Jun 10, 2014 | Porsche News, Race and Rally
Weather forecast for the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2014 this weekend shows no sign of rain at the start. A high of 26 degrees on Saturday should give moderate track temperatures, so tyre wear will be interesting. Overnight temperatures of 11 degrees will be a relief for drivers after the heat of the day.
Sunday is forecasted to be warm and slightly overcast. Rising humidity could be a risk, as rain threatens towards the finish. Cars in tight competition running close behind another for hours on end and pushing reliability might face engine and brake temperature issues in muggy weather. No doubt it will be a real test for the drivers to manage their cars to the finish. Tom Kristensen puts it into perspective:
“Le Mans takes the best out of everyone: it’s such a big and great event in motorsport. You do more kilometres in that one race than Formula One does in a season, and probably a higher average speed. We average about 220km/h including pit stops, and cover nearly 5,000 kilometres.”
I think F1 may cover more distance this year, but F1 teams strip and rebuild the cars after every two hour race. Le Mans is a tough event.
TV Coverage of Le Mans 24 Hours 2014
Eurosport will be showing the full race live. Not sure if this is HD: I doubt it. You can follow the 24 Hours of Le Mans live online with the Michelin-sponsored Le Mans live website. The ACO website will have a full data feed available, so my viewing will be commentary by Radio Le Mans, pics by Eurosport and timing from the organisers. I’ll blog a bit during the race for sure and you can follow the Ferdinand: Cult of Porsche Twitter feed to keep up with Porsche progress.
Porsche Le Mans Track Schedule
Porsche has a busy Le Mans schedule this week (see below). Are you in Le Mans? Share your experiences on the Ferdinand Facebook page or email us at mail@ferdinandmagazine.com.
Tuesday, June 10:
2:00-2:30 pm Porsche team photo (LMP1) at start/finish line
2:30-3:00 pm Meet the team (LMP1), team and media hospitality
5:00-6:30 pm Autograph session, pit lane
Wednesday, June 11:
2:30-3:00 pm Meet the team (LMP1), team and media hospitality
4:00-8:00 pm Free practice
10:00 pm-midnight Qualifying
Thursday, June 12:
3:30-4:00 pm Meet the team (LMP1), team and media hospitality
7:00-9:00 pm Qualifying
10:00 pm-midnight Qualifying
Friday, June 13:
10:00 am – 8:00 pm Pit walk
1:00-2:00 pm Porsche press conference in the large guest hospitality area
5:30-7:30 pm Driver parade in the downtown area
Saturday, June 14:
09:00-09:45 Warm-up
2:22 pm Beginning of race start ceremony
3:00 pm Start of race
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by John Glynn | Jun 9, 2014 | Porsche News, Race and Rally
Some great facts and figures surround the works Porsche Le Mans experience. Check this out:
- 812 Porsche cars have raced at Le Mans, scoring 16 overall victories
- Porsche 919 LMP1 Hybrids are numbered 20 and 14: 2014 is the year of Porsche’s return
- Hans Stuck holds the qualifying lap record: 251.815 km/h, or 156 miles per hour AVERAGE
- In normal racing mode, the Porsche 919 LMP1 Hybrid must refuel every 13 or 14 laps
- The 919 LMP1 may only use 1.67 kilowatt hours of electricity as boost per 13.6 km lap of Le Mans
- The core Porsche racing team for Le Mans numbers 86 personnel, not including marketing etc
- Porsche Motorsport will use more than 1,000 team shirts through the full Le Mans week
- The shopping list for Porsche catering and hospitality includes 1,100 loaves of bread, 2,000 eggs, half a tonne of fish and 1.2 tonnes of meat
- ACO expects a quarter of a million spectators at Le Mans this year
Porsche Le Mans 919 LMP1 Hybrid Energy
The 2013 Le Mans winner drove 348 laps. Over this distance, the Porsche 919 LMP1 Hybrid would generate 581.2 kWh from its energy recovery systems. This electrical energy could:
- Power a 60w light bulb for 9,687 hours
- Power a Volkswagen E-Golf 4,576 kilometres: the distance from New York to Los Angeles
Current WEC Championship Standings before Le Mans
Porsche (36 points) is P2 behind Toyota (84 points) and ahead of Audi (28 points) after two of eight rounds. Twice as many points are awarded at Le Mans compared to the other 6-hour events.
Le Mans Driver Rest/Sleep
Team members grab sleep in the pits whenever they can. Drivers have beds in containers behind the pit garages, but they would more usually sleep from exhaustion. It’s not an easy place to drift off in peace.
I don’t know how you’re feeling, but I have no idea how Porsche expects people to get any work done this week. I’m nervous already and it’s only Monday. Roll on Saturday afternoon!
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by John Glynn | Jun 7, 2014 | Porsche News, Race and Rally
There’s just one week to go until the 2014 Le Mans 24 Hour. Porsche will tackle LMP1 with its 919 Hybrid racecar and a star crew of drivers, but Le Mans is not all about prototypes. The reduced-power Porsche 911 Le Mans RSR faces a tough challenge to repeat last year’s win in both GTE-Pro and GTE-Am classes.
Watch Out for Corvette at Le Mans
It always feels like there are cars everywhere on track at Le Mans, but the GTE-Pro field is very compact. Nine cars will race in GTE-Pro: three Ferarris, two Corvettes, two 911s and two Aston Martins. While the GTE Pro Porsches finished 1-2 at Silverstone, the gap to third placed Aston was less than a minute behind. Both Aston and the P4 Ferrari finished on the lead lap in class.
Bruni’s Ferrari won at Spa, a lap ahead of Pilet/Bergmeister in an RSR that had been getting quicker as the race wore on. Now Pilet leads the RSR charge at home, in the third round of the eight for 2014 WEC championship and the final WEC race held in Europe this year.
““Le Mans is a very special race, especially for me as a Frenchman,” says Patrick. “It’s always an incredible feeling to go racing on such an extreme circuit in front of so many fans. We are well prepared and our 911 RSR is a strong contender, especially on the long straights. It would be fantastic if we could turn this into a win.”
Less Power for the Le Mans Porsche 911 RSR
It would indeed be fantastic as thanks to the “balance of performance” ruling, the RSR now weighs 25 kilos more and has a smaller air restrictor, reducing engine power. No one wants to see how this affects the 911’s chances in France more than the second French Porsche works driver, Fred Makowiecki.
“A Frenchman simply has to race – and win – at Le Mans. Your family is watching at the track, your friends are there supporting you. This makes it hugely motivating. As a child I dreamed of Porsche; I launched my racing career with Porsche. If I could now win Le Mans with Porsche, that would be the best thing in the world. But first we have to face 24 hours where pretty much anything can happen.”
Porsche Works Driver Le Mans Crash
Fred has bitter personal experience of this, as he crashed out of an established GTE-Pro lead last year when his Aston smashed into the barriers at a Les Hunadières chicane. “It was wet, and at the exit of the chicane the car just snatched, went 90 degrees and into the wall. We were going well, but as always the most important thing is to be first in the last minute. It was a small mistake on my side; I take the blame.”
Running at the last minute means everything at Le Mans. In eight days, we’ll know how that went for Porsche. Here’s how the French commentators reported Fred’s crash last year:
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by John Glynn | Jun 4, 2014 | Porsche News, Race and Rally
“Le Mans in a way is what drives us all. It’s the hardest race: night, day, hot, dirty. It’s one race, one year and one winner.” So said Tom Kristensen in 2013, at the start of a great short documentary by Michelin called “24 Hours: A Matter of Seconds.”
Made in conjunction with Audi, the video followed the team through the full 2014 Le Mans, a gripping race (which we blogged live on Ferdinand), when the lead Audi lost 45 minutes due to an electrical problem, leaving only one Audi car in contention for the win. Fending off a strong race-long challenge from the Toyotas, Kristensen’s Audi took the chequered flag after 24 hours of racing.
This made it nine wins for Kristensen at Le Mans: an all-time driver record. Porsche has gone to the next level: taking outright victory at Le Mans 16 times. But motorsport is a team effort, and racing cars are nothing without good rubber. Michelin tyres have claimed a mighty 22 Le Mans wins. I’m surprised that no one at Michelin has worked out how many miles that would be, driven at 200 mph or more, but no doubt that Michelin is a premier motorsport competitor and no doubt it cares about winning.
This year, Michelin’s Le Mans videos focus on Porsche. The latest video, “We Are Racers” – which Michelin has kindly allowed Ferdinand to share ahead of its official release – is challenging at first watch but it grows on you. No surprise to see Webber given headline billing as first driver on camera, followed by Hartley and then Marco Holzer, but the star of the show is Vincent Barthe.
Over a dramatic jazz soundtrack, tyre tech Monsieur Barthe is credited as Porsche’s ‘rain master’, delivering the 911s safely through torrential rain to victory at Silverstone and helping the 919 LMP1 hybrid to claim a podium first time out. “The battle isn’t just between the racers,” says Barthe. “You have to fight the weather too: you have to beat it. I used to be a sailor, so I don’t mind challenging weather conditions.”
I subscribe to Michelin’s motorsport feed on Youtube as I enjoy the authenticity of their motorsport videos. No hard sell on “race tyres driving road tyre development”, no deep voice-overs or blockbuster soundtrack, just a real racer’s grasp of the spirit of motorsport, and plenty of slow motion footage, showing what the tyres endure through the toughest of corners.
“I don’t want to see how tortured the tyres look at full speed through Eau Rouge and Raidillon,” said Audi’s Allan McNish at Spa last year, when Michelin brought the first-ever SLICK wet tyre to the party. Who knows what they’ll have for P0rsche at Le Mans 2014? We’ll enjoy watching. Here is “We Are Racers”.
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by John Glynn | Jun 1, 2014 | Porsche News, Race and Rally
Testing for the 2014 24 Heures du Mans/Le Mans 24 Hours took place yesterday at Circuit de la Sarthe. While the Porsche team said it was happy with progress on the LMP1 hybrid – 90 laps completed in the morning session and 103 laps in the afternoon – both prototypes suffered small engine/overheating fires while stationary in the garage, and there were rumbles of discontent in the paddock concerning Porsche 919 flexible bodywork.
Sam Collins from Racecar Engineering magazine broke the body story on Saturday, following the pre-testing photo session held at the circuit. Sam’s photos show Audi engineers taking more than a passing interest in the 919’s rear bodywork, which at the time was missing a piece right at the back, allegedly pushing it outside the bodywork rules.
For the Sunday test, the missing component was present, and the appearance seemed to satisfy the regulations. But, as other teams had intimated on Saturday evening, photos were found that apparently showed the 919 bodywork deflecting at speed. This reduces drag and is not allowed in the rules – just as in F1.
“During the official pre-event photo session, the updated 919 was seen for the first time by rival teams and it was noted that a significant portion of its engine cover and rear bodywork flexed with a gentle finger push,” Sam reported. “This seems to be in breach of article 3.4 of the technical regulations which states that ‘movable bodywork parts/elements are forbidden when the car is in motion’.”
Collins’ intriguing piece – please read his complete report here – goes on to share these pictures: one of the 919 LMP1 at rest, and the other showing Porsche’s Le Mans prototype at speed. The rear bodywork is seen to be deflecting downwards at speed, relative to the static breather pipe. Audi and Toyota are said to have requested clarification of the legality of Porsche’s design.
I’m sure Porsche is not alone in testing the boundaries and no doubt rules are rules, so Weissach will make any changes required. But, as a motorsport diehard and Porsche engineering fan, I am always happy to see envelopes being pushed in the quest for performance. Porsche 911 RSR engine power has long been restricted by the governing body, damaging our race-winning chances more than once, so why not stretch rules to the max on this LMP1 car?
As Brundle always says of F1: if you’re not giving pressure in motorsport, you’re taking it. Let’s apply a bit of pressure to the regs and see what happens. I’m sure you will have feedback to offer: it will be interesting to see how it works out for Stuttgart.
Thanks to Sam for letting me share this. Racecar Engineering is a great magazine, and you can also catch Sam as an energetic pit lane commentator on the excellent Radio Le Mans Internet service.
