Toyota Disqualified from WEC Silverstone 6h – Rebellion Inherits Victory

[Glaurung]

Dump the prototypes and just get on with the GT series.

There are already full GT championships like Blancpain, why WEC should degrade into it?

 

[birle1]

I only going to say that in this coast of Atlantic ocean people who regulates races should learn about how they do on the other side. i think indy is awesome, the tracks they race, how many cars race on it,... please tell me if the teams in the usa earn money in the diferent leagues, or they lose tons of money like here??

 

[Richard Dastardly]

It's interesting that we are talking about fuel flows, and how hybrids are so superior because of it, but nobody talks about how much the systems weight, and what would be the true impact in laptimes/efficiency if the non hybrids would have the weight equivalent of the hybrid system removed from them. I don't believe the current difference in weight is a reflection of how much could be gained if the systems would be totally removed.

Spa 2016 - Porsche #2 lost it's hybrid system within about 15 mins of the start of the race, beat all the privateers even with the extra mass ( and presumably system drag from the useless motor-generator too ) and lack of power from the ICE compared to the others. I would imagine it still had some regenerative braking available or they might have been in for pad changes a few times... what you missed from your comparison is that a non-hybrid would have a heavier engine and possibly a heavier fuel load ( and brakes, for what that's worth ) so it's not just a case of pulling the batteries out.

It also came second overall because practically all the other hybrids broke down! *that* is the other missing part of this season, nothing is stressing the Toyotas except themselves so there is a slightly false sense of reliability. Rebellion came third that day even with three works teams running hybrids.

I only going to say that in this coast of Atlantic ocean people who regulates races should learn about how they do on the other side. i think indy is awesome, the tracks they race, how many cars race on it,... please tell me if the teams in the usa earn money in the diferent leagues, or they lose tons of money like here??

It can be done in Europe just fine - the WSC & predecessors were highly successful until there was some "outside interference" - the WEC has been running reasonably well too until now, it's just fallen flat on it's face this season because VAG screwed up & there was no contingency plan at the organisation. The hurried contingency plan ( the 2020 regs ) appears to be scaring all the privateer teams right now which is why they really should not be trying to do everything at once.

I'd be happy if the P3s in ELMS got shifted to the LM Cup ( maybe with more rounds ) & the WEC P1 privateers could run in ELMS - they're either all european or already in ELMS anyway ( Dragonspeed ). Pipe dream though.

IMSA is on an upsurge right now, they've got just as much history of screwing up as anyone in Europe. DPi could still get out of control very easily ( and when the regs run out in 2021 iirc that's rather conveniently timed to take a bunch of unusuable ex-LMP1 cars ) with manufacturer money involved. Please go check up the screwy history of Indycar before you use that as a good example

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Should point out Toyota were DQd for failing the skid block *deflection* test - that means a bunch of things, like being able to ride kerbs without bouncing so much, or having less skid block wear because the block can bend up into the car & reducing pressure on it while it's rubbing, or being able to run lower without issues again. That isn't a problem with their setup on the day running lower, that is a concious design decision. That just makes it even worse!

 

[Richard Wilks]

Richard, you are comparing there a works team car with privateers. The fact that the engine alone is enough to beat everybody shows how much important it is indeed money and the support of a big manufacturer to have success in LMP1 today, regardless of technical regs... that is something i didn't dispute on my post, all i did was questioning if the equivalence formula was indeed equivalent.

 

[Richard Dastardly]

Richard, you are comparing there a works team car with privateers. The fact that the engine alone is enough to beat everybody shows how much important it is indeed money and the support of a big manufacturer to have success in LMP1 today, regardless of technical regs... that is something i didn't dispute on my post, all i did was questioning if the equivalence formula was indeed equivalent.

Indeed - there were two sides to that example. First that the difference in laptime performance without the hybrid wasn't enough that it was at the back of the pack, so a lot of that car's performance was the car itself; and secondly that losing the hybrid and thus the energy harvesting wasn't enough to make the *race* result suffer that much either, which again points at the car being that good too by itself ( and the drivers & team, obviously ), and that the hybrid part wasn't the magic that made the car so good. Taking the hybrid and the engine out of the Porsche, weighing them, weighing a Gibson V8 ( or whatever was in the Reb at the time ) and letting Reb take out the difference in weight from the chassis still wouldn't have made them equivalent, I feel. That is without considering that Rebellion probably wouldn't have been able to reduce their chassis weight much anyway - they really struggled to make use of the break they had for Silverstone as it is.

I don't think the equivalence formula works, I don't think it's ever worked and I don't think it was ever meant to; quite why LMP1-H wasn't it's own class from the start I don't know, we had LMP-900 and LMGTP for quite a few years and the only difference between those was a roof & tyre widths, as far as I remember. Bentley managed to compete two years in a row alone in GTP without anyone laughing at them for it.

 

[2112]

It's interesting that we are talking about fuel flows, and how hybrids are so superior because of it, but nobody talks about how much the systems weight, and what would be the true impact in laptimes/efficiency if the non hybrids would have the weight equivalent of the hybrid system removed from them. I don't believe the current difference in weight is a reflection of how much could be gained if the systems would be totally removed.

Honestly, weight is the one aspect I never even thought of. Most of my thoughts on Hybrid are the increase in acceleration that is enjoyed by a hybrid sysytem. I do not think an ICE is capable of matching the torque of a hybrid system without a penalty in performance somewhere else.

Sure, one could put some huge turbo's on a huge engine and get gobs of power but you either have a car with the characteristics of such an addition (Turbo lag followed by, "Oh crap! I'm gonna die!"), or a car that handles the characteristics with such things as anti-lag, stability control, etc...which add a performance penalty. You would also miss the ability to put an electric motor on each front wheel to spin that wheel only. Any other type of AWD would penalize power to the whole vehicle.

 

[Richard Wilks]

I disagree 2112. It's not by chance that the fastest cars in the world are the Agera R and the Chiron, two cars that have no hybrid systems. When it comes to power to weight ratio, nothing can beat a good old ICE engine, and modern technology makes turbo lag or uncontrolled wheelspin a thing of the past, no matter what type of engine you have.

 

[Richard Dastardly]

I disagree 2112. It's not by chance that the fastest cars in the world are the Agera R and the Chiron, two cars that have no hybrid systems. When it comes to power to weight ratio, nothing can beat a good old ICE engine, and modern technology makes turbo lag or uncontrolled wheelspin a thing of the past, no matter what type of engine you have.

That's... only true with a very narrow view, and we're looking at cars with a minimum weight requirement even if they're sail-powered, at some point it just depends where your masses are rather than how much mass - one reason the Porsche was so good is that it had a tiny engine. The starting torque an electric motor can provide is crazy, and it offers other things like contact-less braking as well. The energy density of hydrocarbons ( and replacements ) knocks batteries out of the park at the moment so for sustained output over a long period yes you can't really beat that in a car right now.

So, given your car has a fixed minimum weight the hybrid is essentially free to use ( ie, doesn't contribute to fuel burn ) if you can keep to that minimum weight, and you get to reuse a lot of the energy you'd burn in heat braking as extra acceleration again. Given your batteries aren't meant to power the car for an entire stint you can afford a very large motor, too. And you've still got the torque from the ICE as well. Before anyone points out friction losses in the gearbox for the motor, you can save a little battery charge to negate those.

The privateer P1s are actually faster in a straight line than the hybrids - it doesn't do them any good though, hybrid acceleration is just too much for them. There's not a road circuit anywhere anymore that lets a car hit top speed & run flat out for any length of time long enough to matter, not even LM. If there weren't any chicanes the privateers would probably pull a couple of seconds on the hybrids down the straight, but well, there are chicanes.

 

[2112]

I disagree 2112. It's not by chance that the fastest cars in the world are the Agera R and the Chiron, two cars that have no hybrid systems. When it comes to power to weight ratio, nothing can beat a good old ICE engine, and modern technology makes turbo lag or uncontrolled wheelspin a thing of the past, no matter what type of engine you have.

What are the weights of both compared to cars that employ hybrids? I am not trying to argue, I really do not know. I do know that an electric motor has much more torque than an ICE motor of the same size/power, and that the systems used in ICE cars to get rid of lag or wheelspin only add wieght to the car.

 

[Koen Verlinde]

Toyota this season be like racing against the AI at the lowest difficulty level with all assists on.
What a joke

Blame Audi and Porsche for leaving instead of Toyota for staying.

 

[Will Mazeo]

Nah, blame ACO for stupid regs. LMP1H was never successfull, despite its good moments they only had 3 manufacturers. Even before that the poor management of the diesel engines didn't help either.
Porsche was only there to prevent Audi from having more wins than they do so they had no reason to stay once Audi left.
And that just shows how fragile the class is.