Le Mans News

Apparently the whole race (and all the other ILMC races) are being streamed live on the Peugeot sport website

Do you have to pledge your undying allegiance to France to watch that stream?

Matt wrote:Not sure but Eurosport have said they're covering the race in full.... must not be any tiddywinks or European cattle shuffling on this weekend.

Eurosport 2 according to schedule have race live for 6 hours so no issue here

"No Issue Here"

Who's commentating?

@ Adrian not you ........ lol

Thats good then.

But I bet its Kirby.

Yea sound off Radio Le Mans volume up then pause live virgin for x2 seconds un pause so radio lemans and pics in sync

narboza22 wrote:Do you have to pledge your undying allegiance to France to watch that stream?

It says something about 5 prayers daily to our holyest quesnell

Stonewall458 wrote:Highcroft Racing - Thanks and Farewell to Honda

The team had intended to run the HPD ARX-01e at next month’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Unfortunately, given the situation in Japan and its impact on Honda, Highcroft has been obliged to withdraw its entry at Le Mans, due to lack of adequate financial support.

nooooooooo

Stonewall458 wrote:Highcroft Racing - Thanks and Farewell to Honda

The team had intended to run the HPD ARX-01e at next month’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Unfortunately, given the situation in Japan and its impact on Honda, Highcroft has been obliged to withdraw its entry at Le Mans, due to lack of adequate financial support.

ffffffffffffffffffff

Well, this years race is going to suck. Highcroft was the only dark horse that stood a chance of remaining in sight of Audi and Peugeot, and with no Risi in GT2, I will not be at all surprised to see Corvette blitz the field without breaking a sweat.

Notice you don't see Strakka or RML mentioning anything about the situation in Japan keeping them from racing. Hell, RML don't even have a car that's in one piece anymore and they are still planning on racing as far as I know. Radio Le Mans said that they were hoping to get a spare tub from HPD in California. Highcroft already have their car, they ran their Le Mans low down force package at Sebring if I remember correctly, and it would seem that the HPD support facilities are based in California, not Japan. So it all comes down to the fact that the DEFENDING CHAMPIONS from the ALMS could not find sponsorship to pay for the flight over to France. Way to go IMSA and ACO, even Bernie would have lent a hand and pulled a few strings to avoid this happening. Now the biggest sports car race in the world is missing one of the top manufacturers in the premier class. In fact, I don't know why Honda bother to compete at all. The ACO completely nerfed Strakka and RML because Honda did too good of a job building a competitive package. Meanwhile in P1, Audi and Peugeot just keep getting faster and faster while every rule change that the ACO makes just seems to slow the petrol cars down even more. How about we institute a diesel tax where Audi and Peugeot have to pay 50% of their hospitality budget to teams like Highcroft (to get them on the grid) and Aston Martin (to either buy them a working engine or a book that explains how not to build an engine).

I honestly cannot believe that the people in charge can let this happen. They are spending so much time setting up the ILMC as a personal championship between Audi and Peugeot that they are oblivious to the fact that every other team on the grid is either dead, dying, or living on borrowed time. Aston Martin is a joke, Highcroft is now gone, the Lola Toyota was never going to be competitive, and Pescarolo was actually completely dead until some rich people decided it would be fun to buy it and bring it back to life.

The entire P2 field is pathetic, they went from being a competitive and fun to watch class last year to being a bunch of expensive cars that are slower than spec LMPC cars.

And without Risi this year, I don't see any real competition for Corvette. They were both way faster than the rest of their class last year. BMW looks fast, but their cars were screwed up by the ACO last year and had horrible reliability. The Porsche's get slower every year because they've been racing the same car for years with only minor aero updates. And the others like Lotus aren't anywhere near the pace.

So basically, come June, there will be a 56 car grid, of which 50 cars will be completely irrelevant. The 6 factory diesels are going to streak off into the distance, with the Oreca 908 a few laps behind, and then the rest of the grid dozens of more laps behind them. The only entertaining thing to watch will be how badly Kronos is going to beat the works Astons.

/rant. Sorry.

Is the works Aston AMR-One even going to be at Le Mans? I thought they weren't allowed to compete because they didn't race at Spa and didn't get the necessesary laps at the Le Mans Test Day.

I think you only needed to get 10 laps per driver in if you were running rookie drivers. The problem that Aston has is that you are only allowed to skip one ILMC round, and they have now skipped two, Sebring and Spa. As far as I know, that should have disqualified them from the rest of the races, but I don't think the ACO has done anything about that yet. Maybe they are just morbidly curious to see just how bad the AMR-One really is.

I remember the RLM guys speculating that Aston Martin could "persuade" the Kronos team to change their entry into an AMR-One and have AMR factory drivers race it at Le Mans.

I hope not, I'm a Vanina Ickx fan and her getting to race is the only upside to Highcroft dropping out.

edit: Plus the fact that the AMR-One is an abomination and the Aston Lola is sexy and sounds amazing.

narboza22 wrote:Well, this years race is going to suck. Highcroft was the only dark horse that stood a chance of remaining in sight of Audi and Peugeot, and with no Risi in GT2, I will not be at all surprised to see Corvette blitz the field without breaking a sweat.

The entire P2 field is pathetic, they went from being a competitive and fun to watch class last year to being a bunch of expensive cars that are slower than spec LMPC cars.

And without Risi this year, I don't see any real competition for Corvette. They were both way faster than the rest of their class last year. BMW looks fast, but their cars were screwed up by the ACO last year and had horrible reliability. The Porsche's get slower every year because they've been racing the same car for years with only minor aero updates. And the others like Lotus aren't anywhere near the pace.

/rant. Sorry.

I'm sorry but have you seen the other Ferrari teams?? AF Corsa are just as competetive as Risi, and have a very competetive driver line up, JMW should have won at Spa but were unlucky with overheating problems and have a very good driver line up and then there's Farnbacher who also will be competetive especially with Dominic Farnbacher so Corvertte will not walk it. BMW were unlucky last year as the ACO choked them before Le Mans as they were so quick at Spa last year so expect them to be very competetive, i think GT2 should be just as exciting as last years race and it's no way a fore gone conclusion!

I'm not saying that the other Ferrari teams are bad, but for the last several years Risi has been hands down the class of the field. They went something like 2 years straight undefeated in major endurance races. Not to mention the fact that the 458 is still unproven around Le Mans. I do think BMW will be a lot faster this year since their lack of pace was due to the ACO last year, but they haven't proven reliability over 24 hours either. And since the people who run the TV feed only showed GT2 last year when Risi and Corvette were trading first and second for a few laps and spent the other 23.5 hours following LMP1, I don't really expect to be watching a lot of GT2 action unless there is a serious battle for the lead.

Didn't a Porsche win in GT2 last year? Oh yes the Felbermayr car to be exact! and weren't those Porsche's the fastest in the speed trap last year? yes they were! So Porsche will be competitive plus they have reliability on their side. (because the car is so old) And BMW have proven their reliability over 24 hours as they outlasted Ferrari, Porsche and Audi to win the 24 hours of the Nurburgring, GT2 is still going to be the epic race it always has been.

Porsche won last year because all of the faster cars failed to finish, not because they had the pace to win. Felbermayr were something like 2 seconds slower per lap than the class leaders. Risi had an iffy gearbox and decided not to risk destroying their car, Corvette lost one to a random engine problem, and the other to Anthony Davidson and the ensuing engine problem. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it certainly seems like every time a 911 wins a race be it at Le Mans or in the ALMS its because they ran a slow and steady race while the faster cars tore each other apart at a much quicker pace. I'm not trying to discredit that, a race win is a race win, but the 911 is not on the fast side of the grid.

The VLN M3 is a different spec car to the GT2 M3, as they showed last year by failing to finish at Le Mans and winning at the Ring. Their 2011 car is obviously fast, having won the opening 2 rounds of the ALMS, but keep in mind that at Sebring, Risi had teething problems and Corvette had problems with Lizards crashing into them. BMW did win Long Beach on merit, I'll give them that, but don't forget that the C6R last year wasn't that great in any of the ALMS rounds, but when it showed up in France, it was the fastest car out there. I think Audi is the only team that knows more about how to win Le Mans than Pratt and Miller.

Last years VLN BMW was the exact same as last years alms GT2 BMW, the difference between ALMS and LMS BMW's last year were the engine one was a 6 cylinder theother was an 8

Well, I just looked for an hour trying to find something that said they were the same or different and I couldn't find anything. But, I'm almost positive that the VLN cars ran completely different suspension in addition to having to have ABS as per the regulations. I also remember hearing a conversation last year about why Manthey doesn't compete in Le Mans and the reason given was because their VLN 911 wouldn't fit the ACO regs.

Also, according to Wikipedia, RLR and Schnitzer both ran V8s, and according to the VLN class break downs, I'm pretty sure those two cars did as well, so I don't think the engine size was the difference.

Its also worth nothing the BMW was able to win at the Ring because the top Porsches had mechanical trouble. But we are now getting into my prejudice against BMW because IMSA and the ACO allow them to run a more powerful engine than their road car while telling Ferrari and Corvette that they can't race engines that are as powerful as their road cars, which is ridiculous since this a GT field.

The VLN cars are basically GT2+ and GT3+, lots of illegal ACO stuff allowed Yum yum!

I thinkthe GT2 battle will be close, I mean the Ferrari's were the only cars to lap under 4 minutes at the test day.

Im sorry but what!

Look Le Mans always has been about manfactures pushing new technologys, ever since the first race Le Mans always have and always will be a testing ground for manfactures for new technology wether they are customer car programes or full race factory efforts, Budgets are the biggest factor in LMP1 battle, yes I agree the Desiels may have a slight advantage but if Toyota or Ford commited to a Ptrol Powered Factory effort yes I expect they would be on pace with the Pgt and Desiel because of £ not effort, which is a shame but a fact in all racing.

P2 I agree cars need looking at weight and HP dont mix.

But GT2 looks great, its Lotus first year so yes they will be off the pace, Porsche = reliable but the 911 is coming to its end of life and they will need a new replacement soon, BMW = Quick Quick Sebring (sandbaging at Spa), Corvette = Quick, Ferrari = Quick

I cant wait for Le Mans, what happens if its rains and all the leading cars are taken out you know it always rains at le mans, it did last year although we had a dry race it rained for 1 min on the back by indy for 1 min lol