Le Mans 2009 Roll Call

Thanks.

Yeah, everyone scored championship points. It is a normal round of the championship, just has more teams turn up because it's a bigger event. Sebring is similar.

In all honesty, I've supported ALMS for years and I've just grown tired of the bullsh*t. People say the FIA was corrupt with how it favoured Ferrari, but if you look at the stunts IMSA pulled then it shows how neutral F1 is. This event is sorta like the straw that broke the camels back for me.

Back 2 or 3 years ago, Audi were the only P1 team still competing in ALMS. They kept saying unless a competitor turned up, they'd have to pull out. They stayed, they supported the series, and what was IMSAs thanks? They bent Audi over a barrel and screwed them royally. They rev limited the car, cut the rear wing down, and even changed the tyre sizes in order to slow the Audi down so it'd be racing the P2 cars.

So eventually no competitor turns up, and Audi leave the series. Acura then pop in with the P1 car. Are they getting slowed down in order to compete with the slower cars? Nope! They are being allowed to fully exploit everything they can. The situation is no different, we have only swapped Audi for Acura, but they are allowed to run full pelt? To add insult to injury, Jon Field is running around in P1 in Lola chassis that is older than the Moon, but isn't getting any help from IMSA to challenge the other cars. Why not?

Acura might be the only P1 car, but at Sebring and Petit Le Mans, Audi and Peugeot turn up for the battle for the lead. Turns out that at Sebring, the performance gap between the Audi/Peugeot combo and Acura was massive, so IMSA gave Audi and Peugeot smaller restrictors. Yeah. They didn't change the rules, they just changed how they govern Audi and Peugeot. Gotta allow Acura to keep up, right?

It isn't just the Prototypes they do it with either. The biggest joke they came up with was they allowed the BMW M3 GTR to race (and win) despite the car not even being slightly legal. The road car comes with a V6, the race car came with a V8. It isn't homologated for the series at all, but they threw out the rule book just to get BMW in. They eventually gave in after Porsche continually lodged protests.

Then came the era of DBR9s and Ferrari 575s. The DBR9s effectively replaced the 575s as the customer car of choice back then (both Prodrive developed), but IMSA slowed down the DBR9s so the 575s could compete. So what was the point in even having a new car? Can't I just turn up with a knackered old Porsche and then bitch and cry until IMSA slows everyone down sufficiently?

Last year they allowed the MC12 to run. Despite it being too long and too wide. Why let it run? Because they needed more cars in the GT1 class to avoid looking silly.

And the latest GT joke is this year. Corvette introduced the new GT2 car this year, after stopping development of the GT1 car after nobody else joined that class. The car won in it's 3rd race, which is ridiculously impressive since the GT2 class is filled with some damn impressive teams. Flying Lizard, Risi and works BMWs for example. So what happened? Porsche lodged a protest claiming the direct injection system violated to the spirit of the regulations (despite the same system being installed on Porsches and BMWs...) and IMSA ordered Corvette to remove the system, crippling the cars performance, despite it being legal. So again, why did Corvette bother even making a good car? It was only going to get bitch-slapped back down by IMSA.

Sorry for the longish post there, but I'm just tired of ALMS now. I've supported the series the best I can. I tune in every race, or record it if I can't. I go to Le Mans every year. I buy merchanise. The only thing more I can do is fly over to America and watch the races there, but that's asking a bit much. I feel that after years of supporting the series, that this weeks Petit Le Mans was the final slap in the face for me as a fan. Maybe I'm just angry about it now and will calm down a bit later, maybe not.

My problem with Peugeot however is how they have acted about all this. In 2008, they took pole position for Le Mans. They were cocky about it. The press releases about the event, they were just being arseholes really. Talking about how they blew away the Audis in dominant fashion etc. Come the race, the #2 Audi drove one of the best performances ever seen in the history of Le Mans, and Peugeot lost. There was no cocky press release, and no congratulations to Audi. Just the usual PR stuff.

The same happened in LMS and Petit Le Mans in 2008. LMS they should have won, and they were so confident of winning that they gave out free tickets of it via the website (to boost crowd numbers) so they can say "X Amount of people turned out to see Peugeot win". Even the ticket website said something along the lines of "Come see Peugeot take an historic LMS win". Of course in true Peugeot style, they bottled it. Rockenfeller and Premat took the title at Silverstone, and again, Peugeot fell silent. At Petit, they again qualified on pole, and again done the usual "We are about to make history" stuff. McNish crashed the #2 Audi during warm-up and the car had to be repaired. They started the race 2 laps down, and come the last hour or so, McNish had made up 2 laps, Dindo then got the #2 Audi to the back of the Peugeots, and McNish jumped back in and went around them and won. It was one of the best races I've *ever* seen.



Then come this year. Audi turn up with the R15, and it is clearly a dud. Well, maybe that is being harsh, but it clearly needed more development. It turned up at Le Mans and was blatantly outclassed. Sure, McNish put it on pole in Q1, but for Q2 Peugeot went for low fuel, qualifying tyres runs and blew Audi away. There is nothing wrong with that of course - it was some epic laps by Peugeot, and they deserved pole position. What was frustrating was the PR crap afterwards "We weren't going for pole". Yeah, sure. Those qualifying tyres and 1 lap qualifying runs were just by chance, right? They eventually won the race, by utterly destroying Audi. They deserved the win, but of course were cocky about it. It was annoying.

Fast forward to Petit Le Mans 2009, and whats happened? They get gifted a lucky win, that technically isn't even a win. How do they react? They have now declared that they are the sportscar team to beat. Yeah, don't bother mentioning how you almost went a lap down and only won because of lucky yellow flags. You won the race which isn't even official, but are clearly the team to beat.

They are just insulting to be a sportscar fan. Audi, Acura, Aston Martin and ORECA don't act like this. Why do Peugeot have to?

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2009 10:25AM by DaveEllis.

Been a nice read!!

That % thing is crazy!! I knew the IMSA were sometimes abit fishy but thats crazy!! Thats worse than Mosley!!!!!

Pug should watch themsevles, le mans next year will be a different story im sure! The 908 development is over isnt it?! Audi will give them a run for their money next year!

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

2010 Le Mans Regs are a joke themselves. They require extensive redevelopment of the front end of the cars. Much more than a customer team can handle. Then to add insult to injury the 2011 regs are "all new". So your 2010 work gets binned anyway.

It's all very pointless and I wouldn't be surprised if a few big names took a year out from Le Mans in 2010.

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Acura have ads here all the time on their LMS prototype winning this and that, blablabla, but that Peugeot cockyness is just absurd!

I don't want to lump nations into generalisations, but it is a very French thing when it comes to motorsports. Henri Pescarolo spent years bitching that he couldn't keep up with the Audis and claimed that the only reason he couldn't was because he couldn't afford to develope a diesel engine, and therefore the diesels should be neutered, to allow the petrol cars to compete.

Eventually he said he was going to pull out. Peugeot threw him a 908 for 2009, and what happened? He still sucked. It was still slow, and they binned it in spectacular fashion during the night in the esses. All this rubbish about the diesels having an advantage just isn't true. Audi sold the dominant R10 chassis to Kolles, and they are no where with them.

If Audi and Peugeot had been running petrol engined cars, they'd have still destroyed the field. They are out front because they are better, not because they have diesel engines.

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DaveEllis schreef:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Then came the era of DBR9s and Ferrari 575s. The
> DBR9s effectively replaced the 575s as the
> customer car of choice back then (both Prodrive
> developed), but IMSA slowed down the DBR9s so the
> 575s could compete. So what was the point in even
> having a new car? Can't I just turn up with a
> knackered old Porsche and then bitch and cry until
> IMSA slows everyone down sufficiently?
>
> And the latest GT joke is this year. Corvette
> introduced the new GT2 car this year, after
> stopping development of the GT1 car after nobody
> else joined that class. The car won in it's 3rd
> race, which is ridiculously impressive since the
> GT2 class is filled with some damn impressive
> teams. Flying Lizard, Risi and works BMWs for
> example. So what happened? Porsche lodged a
> protest claiming the direct injection system
> violated to the spirit of the regulations (despite
> the same system being installed on Porsches and
> BMWs...) and IMSA ordered Corvette to remove the
> system, crippling the cars performance, despite it
> being legal. So again, why did Corvette bother
> even making a good car? It was only going to get
> bitch-slapped back down by IMSA.

I thought the 575 GTC was Ferrari built, and the better 550 was Prodrive built? Anyway, the direct injection on the Corvette had to be removed as it wasn't on the roadcar either, so it goes under the same head as BMW running a V8 while the roadcar comes with a V6.. Which CAN race and Corvette can't race their direct injection, funny.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2009 10:41PM by Iceman-Kimi.

I thought the 575 GTC was Ferrari built, and the better 550 was Prodrive built?

Yup sorry, got those 2 mixed up. Kinda understandable since they look almost identical. :D

Anyway, the direct injection on the Corvette had to be removed as it wasn't on the roadcar either

And as Pratt and Miller pointed out, the direct injection system is not covered under the homologation regulations. The car was declared legal by IMSA, ACO and FIA GT (for 2010 competition), and then suddenly declared not so legal. If you want to cover the entire car on what the road car has outside of the homologation regulations, then they all better start chopping those wings off mighty fast.

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In the space of 1 lap, Bergmeister -

- Ran Jan into the pit lane
- Forced him off the road in T2
- Brake checked in the final corner
- Wrecked him

and IMSA said it was ok.

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Been reading about this and saw the video earlier. Poor poor driving!

The incident at turn2 though I thought Jan should have lifted, Jorg looked to have the line and Jan looked to be going for a gap that wasnt there, as for the rest Jorg should have recieved a penalty or race dq! Very bad racing.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

how the hell he got away with that, i'll never know

Sim

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