Le-Mans 2012

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 14:26

Free practice kicks off today then quali is tomorrow night. So, thought start thread for all these sessions and then for the race at weekend. The 80th Edition of the great race, going to be good 1.

dscracelive ‏@dscracelive
Corvette 1,2 in GT Pro - Wurz goes 2nd fastest time in #7 TS030 (3:32) Lombard now fastest in P2 - 3:47 - Wurz Treluyer on fliers

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 14:28

Former winners and destinies
13/06/20129:41 - Auto News - LE MANS 24 HOURS 2012

Among the former winners of Le Mans 24 Hours which take the track on Wednesday for free practice and qualifying, some have won together in Sarthe.

Fifteen former winners are originally from the 80th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans: Tom Kristensen (eight wins), Dindo Capello (three wins), Allan McNish, Alexander Wurz (two wins each), Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer, Romain Dumas, Marc Gene, Mike Rockenfeller, Seiji Ara, David Brabham, Stefan Johansson, Christophe Bouchut and Martin Brundle (one win each).

Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer, the winning crew of the 2011, was renewed in 2012 and will carry the No. 1 Audi R18 on his e-tron quattro.

Romain Dumas (Audi R18 ultra No. 3) and Mike Rockenfeller (Audi R18 ultra No. 4) jointly established the record for the distance of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2010 alongside Timo Bernhard: 5405 kilometers in 397 laps, 225 km / h average.

Dindo Capello, Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish won a trio in 2008. The first two were already taxed together in 2003 and 2004. This past year, they were associated with Seiji Ara.

The winning crew in 2009 is now in 2012 on three different cars: the Honda HPD ARX-03a # 22 David Brabham, the Audi R18 ultra No. 3 for Marc Gene and Hybrid Toyota TS030 # 7 Alexander Wurz .

Stefan Johansson was one of the teammates Tom Kristensen in his first Le Mans victory in 1997

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 14:29

ACO ‏@24hoursoflemans
Fastest in GTE PRO now No 59 Ferrrari with 4:01.041 #24LM

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 14:31

The support races are races that take place before the race the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This year we will find especially the Aston Martin Le Mans Challenge Festival.

Saturday, June 16th at 11:15, an event will be organized for owners of Aston Martin as a curtain raiser for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. A selection of all models and all categories will be seen racing on the track such as DBR9, Vantage GT2, DBRS9, Vantage GT3, etc ...

The administrative and technical checks are conducted from 9am this morning for the 31 cars entered. As a reminder, free practice will be held tonight from 20:30 to 21:30 while qualifying will take place Thursday from 17:30 to 18:30. The race, she will be held Saturday from 11:15 am to 12pm.

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 14:34

Loïc Duval and Romain Dumas: the best possible stroke
13/06/20123:57 p.m. - Auto News - LE MANS 24 HOURS 2012

While the free practice session begins shortly, Romain Dumas and Loïc Duval, the French duo of the Audi R18 ultra, addressing the 80th edition of Le Mans 24 Hours as leaders of the World Endurance Championship of the FIA .

As part of the double scoring 24 Hours devoted to a possible victory Sarthe (which would be the first to Duval and the second for Dumas) would offer them a comfortable lead.

Loïc Duval: "Le Mans is Le Mans, and I think just to make the best race possible. My primary objective is to win here. "
Romain Dumas: "For me, this is primarily an attempt to win the race the biggest and most publicized of the year. I would not say I'm surprised to be leading the World Championship because we have always been at the forefront at Sebring and Spa-Francorchamps. Since the beginning of the season, we take the races one after another trying to do our best. In any case, if we were still leading the World Championship after 24 hours, that would mean we had a great weekend! "

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 14:41

Audi Sport ‏@Audi__Sport
#WEC #LeMans No.1 Tréluyer now in P1 (3m 29.635s), first lap under 3m 30s

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 14:42

dscracelive ‏@dscracelive
#8 suffered a minor fire - Capello now fastest 3:28.7 - Now Audi 1,2,3 and Oreca Nissan 1,2,3,4 in P2.

ALMS Racing ‏@almsnotes
No. 8 Toyota stopped on Mulsanne straight followed by a minor fire. This after turning fastest lap at the time with @antdavidson

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 14:43

ACO ‏@24hoursoflemans
Fastest in LM P1 now Audi e-tron No 2 with 3:28.787 #24LM

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 14:49

Audi Sport ‏@Audi__Sport
#WEC #LeMans No.1 Tréluyer finds another second: 3m 28.901s

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 14:50

dscracelive ‏@dscracelive
Now Audi 1,2,3,4 - Hancock npw second in P2 for Jota, Sean Edwards grabs 1st in GTE AM (4:02.6) - Ferrari 1,2 in GTE Pro

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 14:58

Audi Sport ‏@Audi__Sport
#WEC #LeMans No.3 Duval takes over P1 (3m 27.833s), first time under 3m 28s

#8 Toyota has had a fire while on Mulsanne straight, Ant Davidson on board atmo.

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 15:07

Audi Sport ‏@Audi__Sport
#WEC #LeMans After 1h: 1 Audi No.3 3m 27.833s 2 Toyota No.7 3m 28.459s 3 Audi No.2 3m 28.787s 4 Audi No.1 3m 28.901s 5 Audi No.4 3m 30.123s

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 15:09

GTE Pro 51-59-73-74-71

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 15:11

Ferraris looking good already, but it only practice times atmo.

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 15:13

ACO ‏@24hoursoflemans
In GTE Am No 99 Aston Martin now fastest with 3:58.753 #24LM

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 15:14

ACO ‏@24hoursoflemans
No 8 Toyota returns to its pit after fire #24LM

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 15:19

Italiaracing.net ‏@Italiaracing
Bruni è Leader nella GTPro col crono di 3'58"136

getting quicker for the #51 AF Corse Ferrari

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 15:20

dscracelive ‏@dscracelive
And #8 looked rather oily at other side too! Car #29 looks to be in gearbox problems. Gonzalez stops at second chicane in #41 Greaves

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 15:24

dscracelive ‏@dscracelive
Bruni improves in #51 - 3:57.7,

#26 Signatech in the gravel at 1st chicane as is Tracy Krohn in #57 ferrari

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 15:30

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 15:32

Audi Sport ‏@Audi__Sport
#WEC #LeMans New benchmark from No.3 Duval: 3m 27.671s

**Sianellen** · 13th June 2012, 16:37

Have you ever been to see Le-Mans Rob?

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 17:37

Originally Posted by Sianellen

Have you ever been to see Le-Mans Rob?

No i havent

I was hoping to go this year, but with money and how things are atmo and to put it off. I will plan to go next year, it 1 thing i got to do.

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 17:52

Q & A with Pascal Vasselon
By Stuart Codling Wednesday, June 13th 2012, 15:43 GMT

After over a decade away Toyota returns to Le Mans in 2012 with a fresh bid for the outright victory that has eluded them at all previous attempts.

Ex-Formula 1 engineer Pascal Vasselon's team have taken a very different approach to Audi in shaping a car to the ACO's hybrid regulations, and the TS030 has shown considerable promise in testing.

While clearly very quick, the TS030 Hybrid has yet to prove itself in competition after the first chassis was damaged in a crash during testing, forcing Toyota to pull out of the Spa 6-hour enduro last month.

Q. You haven't had a great deal of testing with this car. What programme will you be working through during the practice sessions?

Pascal Vasselon: Our plan is nothing unusual, I would say. There are the normal things we have to work through, like qualifying all the drivers, making sure they have all done enough laps at night. We have to install a few spare parts and make sure everything will work fine in case we have to change any pieces of bodywork during the race. One of the main targets is to develop our set-up, because we had a day of testing a few days ago and although we did well, we found a few things that needed to be corrected. We have quite a lot of set-up activity ongoing.

The weather will dictate when we go for the qualifying runs. We want to show that we are there even though qualifying has little importance at Le Mans.

We also have a lot of tyres to evaluate, thanks to the weather. This will be a big job: we have several tyre specs, and we have to find the temperature limits of the slicks as well as the transition between wets, intermediates and slicks. We have plenty of work to do, especially with the conditions predicted to be changeable.

Q. How much development have you done on the hybrid system in terms of wet- weather performance?

PV: Fortunately - or unfortunately – we've done quite a lot of work in the wet. At Le Castellet we had several days of rain. So we have some experience in terms of reliability as well as performance.

The hybrid system works better in the wet than it does in the dry. Why? Because in the dry the braking events are shorter. In some places we don't recover the full 500 kilojoules [permitted by the regulations]. In the wet the braking events are longer because of the lower grip, so we can recover more energy and boost more within the restrictions of the rules.

Q. Can you release the energy at the same time as you would in the dry, though?

PV: By the regulations, yes, but technically you can only transmit what the tyres can take, so for sure with less grip you stay tyre-limited longer. You have to wait, maybe 50 metres later. But the impact on performance is minimal because you are releasing the energy of the combustion engine first and then the electric power. It's based on what the tyres can take.

Q. Unlike Audi you've chosen to do the energy recovery and redeployment through the rear wheels. Did you do that for reliability or weight distribution reasons?

PV: We are using only one set of driveshafts which do everything – combustion engine, energy recovery, energy deployment. We did test with a system at the front of the monocoque. We made the decision because of packaging – it was easier to package the engine and the gearbox. Globally it was a lighter solution, so even with the weight at the rear it freed up the possibility of putting some ballast at the front. Also there is less friction and rolling resistance when you have fewer driveshafts. For all these reasons the decision was clear for us to make the installation in this way.

Q. What made you choose super-capacitors rather than a flywheel system or batteries?

PV: It's power density. For this kind of system it was important to be able to charge and discharge quickly. We were not looking for storage – it's not like an EV car where you're relying on the power for 100 kilometres or more. You're charging under braking, waiting a few seconds and then releasing it again. So you need a storage system with the best power but low weight, and that is the power density. We did many studies and found that a capacitor was the best device – but we expect that soon the battery will become the best option. At the moment you need more battery weight for the same power.

Q. How reliable are the capacitors?

PV: We will not have to change them – hopefully!

Q. The Audi drivers say their system is quite subtle and it can be hard to know whether it's working or not. What do your drivers say?

PV: Our hybrid system is more powerful. Our drivers – you cannot not notice it, there is a really big boost. But they complain that when they are out of the boost, there is nothing left!

Q. Is it possible to run purely on the electric system, say if you wanted to save fuel while running behind the safety car?

PV: We can do what we want with it. In testing we have brought the car back to the pits on electric power after running out of fuel. Obviously here it would depend on where it happened! We have options to use it for pure performance, or to drive to a certain laptime, or to save fuel. It depends what scenarios we encounter during the race.

Q. With having the hybrid system working through the rear, are there any implications for tyre wear?

PV: It was one of the difficulties of the packaging we chose, but we are very good at managing the tyres. We were quite surprised at Le Castellet about how long we were able to run on one set of tyres. It's a strong point.

Q. Why did you choose petrol for the combustion engine rather than diesel?

PV: That's a good question! Historically, Toyota hybrids for the road car market are gasoline hybrids. The decision was made to be in relation to the road car concept.

Q. The Audi diesels have had a reduction in on-board fuel capacity for this year. Was that the result of some negotiations behind the scenes with the ACO about performance balancing?

PV: I would not talk in terms of negotiations – we are engineers. The intention of the ACO and the FIA is very clear, they want different technologies at Le Mans but they want them to be balanced. Not in terms of lap time – that's where the confusion comes from. If you talk about lap time you never reach a conclusion because lap time is about many things – aero, braking tyres – as well as the engine. The debate had to be reset. To move forward we had to engineer it better – if we want to balance the performance of the engines we had to look at acceleration. That's the process that's in place, it began last year, adjustments have been made and the process is still going on. For me it's not a negotiation, the intention is clear: the two technologies should offer the same power, let's measure it and adjust it if necessary. There is no place for lobbying.

Q. Is it your intention to go for pole position?

PV: We will try to do well – we want to show that we are here. Pole position would be nice. We are going to do our best, so long as it doesn't detract from the other work we need to do. It will be a nice game. We have so many choices because all our drivers are able to qualify the car, and we haven't made the decision yet.

Q. At this stage in the car's development, what can you realistically expect to achieve in the race? How long can you run for?

PV: We have had issues in the test sessions and we've been working hard to fix them. We've fixed the known issues but we have not done the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and that's the next step. You can do endurance sessions anywhere in the world but Le Mans is very specific.

Q. You've got some operational support from ORECA. Who will actually be making decisions on the pit wall?

PV: The race operation is heavily supported by ORECA and we're very happy with that. You will find a mixture of people but the spine of the race engineering is ORECA. You have different decisions to make during the race and there is a process for each of them. If an immediate decision has to be made, that is the responsibility of the car's race engineer. For strategic decisions where we have more time available, for instance which tyres to fit for the next stint, I will be involved in that. Higher level decisions will go through the team management. We have a great level of integration – car seven's race engineer is from ORECA, car eight's is from Toyota Motorsport. The number one mechanics are the other way around. We are one team rather than two.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/100341

**Rob** · 13th June 2012, 17:53

Toyota not ruling out Le Mans 24 Hours pole position
By Stuart Codling Wednesday, June 13th 2012, 15:37 GMT

Toyota's technical director Pascal Vasselon says pole position at Le Mans is not out of the question, despite the TS030 Hybrid being yet to complete a 24-hour test.

Although Toyota is behind schedule with its TS030 Hybrid programme after a major crash in testing at Paul Ricard damaged the first chassis, it is still determined to show the car has the pace to challenge Audi's dominant R18s.

Vasselon told AUTOSPORT the Japanese manufacturer has its sights set on pole position.

"We will try to do well," he said. "We want to show that we are here. Pole position would be nice. We are going to do our best, so long as it doesn't detract from the other work we need to do. It will be a nice game."

In Nicolas Lapierre, Alexander Wurz, Anthony Davidson and Stephane Sarrazin, Toyota has two drivers in each car with proven pace at Le Mans. Sarrazin was on pole for Peugeot for three consecutive years between 2007 and 2009.

"We have so many choices because all our drivers are able to qualify the car," said Vasselon, "and we haven't made the decision yet. We will decide after the first practice session."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/100340

**Sianellen** · 13th June 2012, 20:02

Originally Posted by Rob

No i havent

I was hoping to go this year, but with money and how things are atmo and to put it off. I will plan to go next year, it 1 thing i got to do.

When I have watched it, I keep thinking it would be great to go to. I'd love to go one day and see what it's like as it's basically a whole new experience with it getting dark and seeing the lights whizzing past. I bet it would be quite surreal.

**Tobes** · 13th June 2012, 20:20

Practice has just started on Eurosport2 UK...

Originally Posted by Rob

No i havent

I was hoping to go this year, but with money and how things are atmo and to put it off. I will plan to go next year, it 1 thing i got to do.

It's good fun, been a few times, nothing quite like those cars screaming round and round all through the night, and is better now since they built the train service, can now get into town and back no probs...

Rob, we're (Nug, Ojay, Petal etc) going again next year, booking it up now to get best campsite spots, give me a shout if you fancy it, probably taking both Skylines down if you want to jump in with Nug...