2012 WEC / 24 Hours of Le Mans

[RacingManiac]

Not just "enthusiast" if they have an winning Indy car designer involved, have Michelin making bespoke tires to them and have AAR making the car....But its just hard to grasp how this thing can be successful....They had some pretty bold claim...but so far very little to back it up..

[Matra et Alpine]

Cobra , 300hp is easily able to exceed the acceleration and speed of a monster power alternative ... IF ... the vehicle is of very low weight and very low aero respectively.

Persoanlly I think they can acheive both of those but have HUGE doubts on its ability to corner with such small contact front tyres,

[faksta]

I was referring mostly to the 'what if...?' nature of the whole project when calling them enthusiasts. After all, you can add Marino Franchitti and Highcroft Racing to your list But still, it's not something that you see and think 'Yeah, this is a winner'. It's one of those projects that take balls to try.

[Cobrafan427]

Persoanlly I think they can acheive both of those but have HUGE doubts on its ability to corner with such small contact front tyres,

That's another thing, the rear is wider than the front and behind the driver, how many wheels are gonna be dropped in the corners bc the driver can't see where they are on the track? That's also a tricky recipe in traffic and could lead to misjudgments when trying to pass other cars. Also, where are the mirrors gonna go?

[Kitdy]

I wonder how the diesel/gas equivalency will go in the coming years, what with Toyota throwing the ACO a huge bone.

[RacingManiac]

If they make them "equal" in the same vein that teams like Pescarolo or something asked for in the past, Toyota will make Audi its bitch....

I still believe the rule was equal in pure performance terms, but the money made most of the difference between the diesel(who happens to be the OEM backed, big budget teams) and petrol(scraps)....

How well the hybrid works this year will play a part also...

[henk4]

it seems that Audi will field two hybrid cars this year, plus two diesels. The first two for the political correctness, the second two for the win. They can allow themselves this policy as the serious competition has left the building.

[RacingManiac]

The hybrid may well be the faster ones.....looks like Kristensen/Capello/McNish Trio will be in one of them. The rumor was the 908 Hybrid is a sec a lap faster than the pure diesel version in private testing....

Both the new 908 and the R18 seems to have left room for addition of the hybrid system....

[henk4]

The hybrid may well be the faster ones.....looks like Kristensen/Capello/McNish Trio will be in one of them. The rumor was the 908 Hybrid is a sec a lap faster than the pure diesel version in private testing....

Both the new 908 and the R18 seems to have left room for addition of the hybrid system....

faster may be, but I think reliability could be an issue. With Peugeot out, it is safe to test the hybrids under 24 hour race conditions. The non hybrid cars will serve as the reliable back-ups.

[RacingManiac]

If Toyota actually goes through with the 40,000km of testing planned before Le Mans, they might well have a reliable hybrid....if they are fast enough, I would be worried at Audi camp...

[faksta]

The hybrid may well be the faster ones.....looks like Kristensen/Capello/McNish Trio will be in one of them. The rumor was the 908 Hybrid is a sec a lap faster than the pure diesel version in private testing....

Both the new 908 and the R18 seems to have left room for addition of the hybrid system....

To me it looks like Kristensen/Capello/McNish crew is more used for publicity lately and for testing etc., while the bets are on Rockenfeller & co. I may be wrong, though, I'm not working for Audi

[RacingManiac]

Toyota recruits Anthony Davidson, Sebastien Buemi for second TS030 HYBRID - Le Mans news - AUTOSPORT.com

Davidson and Buemi signed up for Toyota's 2nd car for the 24 hours...

[Wouter Melissen]

The poster is here:

Parisian agency La Fourmi has again created a hard-hitting visual image for the 80th Le Mans 24 Hours on 16-17 June. It combines the power of the cars and the passion of the crowd and portrays the coming battle between two of the biggest car manufacturers in the world, which have both entered hybrid prototypes, Audi, the reigning champion, and Toyota the challenger that has dared to take up the gauntlet.

“The poster for the 2012 race is a continuation of the graphic expression that links it to the one revealed in January,” explains the La Fourmi agency, “the first poster celebrating the 80th running of the greatest endurance race in the world showed two drivers that symbolise racing, and above all this mythic event that has always exercised enormous fascination.

“This time, the cars take centre stage. The agency has made a point of adding an even more dynamic quality to this poster with an enhanced four-colour image and a finely-honed perspective of the Toyota-Audi duel.
Finally, we have opted for the choice of an ultra-creative realistic style giving a feeling of total involvement that will delight all the fans!”

This poster, of which Michelin has become the main partner for the first time, slots marvelously well into the long, rich line of Le Mans 24-Hours posters.
It will soon be visible on over 1000 billboards throughout France as well as in the form of stickers, T-shirts, small posters, magazine covers, advertising etc.

[Wouter Melissen]

An updated entry list with just the final Toyota driver missing:

The teams entered for the 2012 Le Mans 24 Hours have announced the names of the three drivers who will be at the wheel of their cars. Overall, it is a mouth-watering list for the 80th running of the most prestigious endurance race in the world.


This is the first year of the FIA World Endurance Championship at the end of which a drivers’ world title will be awarded, so for those taking part in the Le Mans 24 Hours, which counts for double points, the race is of capital importance.
For the teams, entering for the Le Mans 24-Hours race is a two-stage process: they had until 19th January 2012 to send in their entry for the event nominating one driver. By 9th May at the latest they had to send their complete driver line-ups consisting of three people to the Automobile Club de l’Ouest.

After the usual checks, the ACO is publishing today, 23rd May, the list of drivers per car. It includes 167 names for 56 cars, as Toyota Racing has asked for the authorisation, granted by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, to announce the name of the third and last driver of the no.8 TS030 hybrid only by the end of this week, as a replacement for Hiroaki Ishiura who recently cried off (sore back).

It is a mouth-watering list with nine outright winners at the start, the oldest being Martin Brundle (winner in 1990, Jaguar) who is back with his son Alex and Lucas Ordenez from Spain, and the most recent Tréluyer-Fässler-Lotterer who will drive the Audi bearing the number one.
A number of 2011 winners are back to defend their crown: Tréluyer-Fässler-Lotterer outright and LM P1 winners, Olivier Lombard victorious in LM P2 entered in the no. 23 Signatech-Nissan, Antonio Garcia, Tommy Milner and Olivier Beretta, winning trio in LM GTE Pro who are split up this year (Garcia, no. 73 Corvette, Milner no. 74 Corvette and Beretta no. 71 Ferrari) as well as Patrick Bornhauser and Julian Canal, who came out on top in LM GTE, and who are still sharing the no. 50 Corvette in which Pedro Lamy has replaced Gabriel Gardel.

Lamy, who was with Peugeot in 2011, is one of the former Lion drivers who has found a seat. Bourdais and Minassian will team up in the no. 17 Dome, and Alexander Wurz is the lead driver in the Toyota squad where he has been joined by Anthony Davidson. Stéphane Sarrazin is racing in LM P2 for the Starworks Motorsports team, and Marc Gené has found a seat as reserve in the Audi squad. Gené, Lamy, Sarrazin, Bourdais, Wurz and several others are all ex-Formula 1 drivers. There will be many of them at Le Mans this year with the arrival of guys as quick as Nick Heidfeld (Rebellion Racing), Sébastien Buemi (Toyota Racing) and Karun Chandhok (JRM) who were racing in F1 in 2011.
Another driver competing in one of the most prestigious championships in the world is NASCAR star Brian Vickers who will be making his Le Mans debut in the no. 61 Ferrari.

This year there is only one women driver on the entry list, Keiko Ihara from Japan in the LM P2 Lola entered by the Gulf Racing Middle East Team.

Le Mans is also the theatre in which a number of amateur drivers like Patrick Bornhauser, Tracy Krohn and Jacques Nicolet, who do battle throughout the year in the FIA World Endurance Championship, will show off their talent.

On this list the ACO hasn’t forgotten its own licence holders like Benoît Tréluyer and the various drivers who have learned the ropes in its driving school like Bastien Brière from the Sarthe plus ACO Volant winner, Fabien Rosier.

The vast majority of entrants will take part in the test day on 3rd June, which is a general rehearsal for the race itself. It is obligatory for new cars, for teams and drivers that have never raced in the Le Mans 24 Hours before, or drivers who are not on the list of those automatically allowed to compete in official practice since the 2007 Le Mans 24 Hours.

They will then take part in scrutineering and admin checks on 10th-11th June, in official and qualifying practice on 13th-14th June before the culmination of the Le Mans week, the start of the Le Mans 24 hours on Saturday 16th June at 15h00.

[faksta]

Still no Bailey