Endurance Racing 2019

Barbara Charles

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Since @Sassy Colin and I are the only two peeps who regularly post in the endurance race threads, I am opening the season with the news that the Rolex 24 at Daytona will be this coming weekend. Quali is Friday. It's a great race and if anyone has access to NBCSN here in the States or a stream in other countries, tune in to sample it.
 

Sassy Colin

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Looks like we won't be going to Le Mans this year, due to the extended season Toyota will just march to the finish line without breaking sweat.

The whole atmosphere is wonderful, but it's the racing that really makes the weekend and if that's gone then it puts a dampener on the whole thing.

The new regulations look like a lot more fun though, roll on 2020.
 

Sassy Colin

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Alonso racing this year?

Also who are the teams to look out for?
As long as he is still with Toyota, which I would have thought he would be as the season isn't over yet, then yes.

Don't forget, this is a long season, where the only team that ever stood a chance of winning from the start is Toyota. The season finishes at Le Mans, in June.

Roll on the new regulations and lets get some serious racing again.

The new season starts again at Silverstone on 1 September 2019 and I hope I can attend.

https://www.fiawec.com/en/calendar/80

What I don't get is that Le Mans is supposed to be the finale, that was the whole point of the 'Super season', yet there is a prologue at Barcelona, in July. :confused::houllier:
 

11101

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Boring, predictable season. Endurance racing seems to go through this downturn every 10 years or so.

Audi just racing themselves in the 2000s
Mercedes ruining it for everyone in the late 90s
Group C getting too fast for its own good in the late 80s

Hoping the new regulations draws the big manufacturers back in again.
 

Sassy Colin

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BMW withdrawing form WEC after 1 season because they can't compete.

Do they expect to be on the pace in their first season, having been out of the game since fecking years? :houllier:

Ford also stopped competing, leaving only Porsche, Ferrari, Corvette & Aston.
 

mariachi-19

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BMW withdrawing form WEC after 1 season because they can't compete.

Do they expect to be on the pace in their first season, having been out of the game since fecking years? :houllier:

Ford also stopped competing, leaving only Porsche, Ferrari, Corvette & Aston.
BMW seemingly dont see the point of investing in motorsport anymore despite their M Division.

I think after their F1 failure, they're weary of investing heavily with little to no returns.

I feel like WEC needs a clean slate for prototype racing to invite all manufacturers to join. It baffles me that they haven't targeted using f1 style tech to encourages the likes of Ferrari, Mercedes and Redbull across. F1 is probably at its weakest point in history and WEC seemingly can't capitalise on it.
 

Sassy Colin

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BMW seemingly dont see the point of investing in motorsport anymore despite their M Division.

I think after their F1 failure, they're weary of investing heavily with little to no returns.

I feel like WEC needs a clean slate for prototype racing to invite all manufacturers to join. It baffles me that they haven't targeted using f1 style tech to encourages the likes of Ferrari, Mercedes and Redbull across. F1 is probably at its weakest point in history and WEC seemingly can't capitalise on it.
New rules come in soon, which might be more exciting, but they have really messed up with this super season Toyota procession.

We weren't really planning on going to Le Mans this year anyway, because we already know the result.
 

11101

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Take LMP1 out of this and it would be a terrific spectacle
That's basically what's happening from 2020. The new hypercars will be around LMP2 pace. Toyota and Aston Martin have already committed and no doubt Porsche and McLaren will too.
 

11101

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Yeah I saw that on the Autosport Youtube page the other day. You would think it would entice Ferrari as well considering their FXX program.
Them and Ford threw their toys out of the pram and have stopped going to the preparatory meetings.
 

11101

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Any reason for it? Ferrari I'd imagine have hard accepting that outside of F1, they dont have the same leverage when it comes making decisions that benefits their brand.
Not that I've read. Ferrari haven't been interested in endurance racing for years though and it's not exactly unusual for them to kick off if things aren't going their way.
 

Sassy Colin

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Welcome to LMP1. Audi set the trend, now it's Toyota's turn.

Of more concern is GTE Pro. No Ford, no BMW, and maybe I'm wrong but it seems like even Corvette are showing less interest in Le Mans lately.
LMP2 looks surprisingly light too.

The ACO have really fecked up with the new regulations, first the Super Season and now another year to wait for the new regulations, so basically 'wasting' 3 Le Mans. They should have made up their minds about the new regulations in time for the 19/20 season, ideally. It would have been better had Toyota dropped out, which would have made LMP1 far more interesting.

Maybe some rich privateer might buy a couple of the old 919s off Porsche and run them for a season :D
 

11101

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New Porsche is out.



Sounds pretty flat, disappointing considering the state of the old one:

 

mariachi-19

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The 911s are, generally, one of the noisier cars on the track.
Dont they rev higher than most?

Lack of torque from the inline 6 is always going to result in higher revving engines to get power. No different to motorcycles where the inline 4's generally scream compared to a v twin which is torquey and doesn't need to rev to 14k to get peak performance.


Of course Ducati have just come out with a v4R that revs to 16.5k