ALMS 2011 thread

[Shifty]

Are you sure that this is teh right way to LeMans hon? Sure are a lot of folks...

[y2krtaf]

WOW! That Audi,Ferrari crash was pretty violent! http://youtu.be/7-cv0Izr11s Love the #73 Vette live feed!

[MOTV8]

"At around 15:51hrs there was a major Incident between #3 Audi driven by McNish and the #58 Luxury Racing Ferrari 458 Italia driven by Anthony Beltoise. The Ferrari is back on the track and the car looked largely undamaged. McNish is out of the car and OK. The Audi however is destroyed. McNish was lined up to overtake the slower #58 Ferrari driven by Beltoise., they touched and this launched the Audi into the gravel trap sideways at very high speed. McNish then had a massive impact coming in to the Esses. The car flew up and nearly cleared the Armco barrier but there were was all sorts of bodywork, tyres etc flying into a group of photographers all of whom by some miracle appear to have emerged unscathed. The #3 Audi was destroyed. The safety car came out." Can't believe nobody got hurt! Teh stream is AMAZING! Teh sound is GLORIOUS!!

[MOTV8]

Hot off the Le Mans update page:

LM GTE Pro..

"Corvettes Cruising?...maybe not. This has happened before.. the team arrive at qualifying relaxed and apparently very laid back and then they start racing, this time they are just leading the class!

But it is close.. The #74 Corvette C6 ZR1 is just 2 seconds ahead of the two works BMW #55 and #56 which are running almost nose to tail. But there is a very strong chance that the BMW’s will take over the lead of the class. After Andy Priaulx’s accident they rebuilt the car. This is giving us some of the best racing at the moment."

Whatevah frenchie. Sista vette #73 (teh live streamer) sits 4th, and teh Larbre vette sits 2nd in GTE Am.

Edit: CORRECTION, Larbre to FIRST in GTE AM!!

[MOTV8]

Vettes lead in TWO classes! How siick would two Le Mans class wins be?

:armed:

[y2krtaf]

How siick would two Le Mans class wins be?

:armed:

[Desertdawg]

I've been streaming on teh Ipad and plumbing all day (did I ever tell you guys how much I hate plumbing?) Awesome coverage this year, C6Rs are doing damn good !!!!

[Ted Y]

Post the link or app for live timing!

[Desertdawg]

Just goto speed.com and they have the links on top of the page...

[Ted Y]

Thanks!

[MOTV8]

Post the link or app for live timing!

http://www.lemans.org/en/races/24h-du-mans/live-2011/live-timing.html

Teh Speed onboard stream

Speeds TV coverage resumes in about 5 minutes...

Pro vettes sit 1st and 5th, Am vette in 2nd...

[MOTV8]

Mags

[Desertdawg]

Damn porches,... I don't know if it was the porch fault or not but he sure came out of that corner short, everyone else ends up on the outside rumble strip, he was in the middle of the track, squishing the vette on the inside. For those not watching, the lead vette #74 is out. Now a ferrari is leading by about 3/4 of a lap over #73.

[Shifty]

Maybe teh Porch. but I thinks it was Mags that choked that one....

[Shifty]

How 'bout little Tommy Milner!

[MOTV8]

How 'bout little Tommy Milner!

Epic epicness. He was taking 6 to 10 seconds outta the 458's lead per lap on a super slick track. You just know teh Ferrari team all had a sphincter factor of 10 watching the lap times!

Teh massive recap blurbs of an epic race...teh wrecks were truly scary this year, I bet no more "amateur gentlemen" will be on the track in the future. Props to Audi, they build a helluva racecar.

LE MANS: Audi Wins Le Mans Thriller

Benoit Treluyer, Andre Lotterer and Marcel Fassler carry the flag for Audi in the debut of the R18 TDI at Le Mans; class winners include Greaves Motorsport (LMP2), Corvette Racing (GTE-Pro) and Larbre Competition (GTE-Am)...

Eight hours into the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Audi’s hopes had rested on a single entry, and arguably its most unpredictable driver lineup. Major accidents by both of the veteran driving squads put the pressure on their newest but unproven pilots to deliver the German manufacturers’ first victory for the new R18 TDI.

Yet after 24 Hours of racing, Benoit Treluyer, Andre Lotterer and Marcel Fassler broke through for a history-making victory at Circuit de la Sarthe in the fourth-closest finish in the endurance racing classic’s 79-year history.

Battling intermittent rain and pressure from the Simon Pagenaud-driven No. 9 Peugeot, Lotterer took the No. 2 Audi to a narrow 13.420-second victory over the Frenchman in a battle that literally went down to the wire.

Both the No. 9 Peugeot and No. 2 Audi were locked in a titanic battle in the closing hours, with the two swapping the lead countless times. The race came down to the final stop with less than 40 minutes remaining when Pagenaud took fuel-only and made up ground to Lotterer, who opted for fresh Michelins.

"The whole race was incredible," Fassler said. "We were always under pressure. I was beside the team in the garage for the last five hours. We wondered how we could fight for victory. I didn’t know where to go. I know how difficult it is to do drive with slicks in the rain. Now, to be here, this is incredible. To go above all just for this race. Achieving this result is incredible, and a day I will never forget in my life."

It also marked the first win for a pole-sitting car since 2003, when Tom Kristensen, Dindo Capello and Guy Smith won in their Bentley Speed 8, also a closed-top prototype that was assisted by Reinhold Joest’s operation.

The victory, Audi's 10th in the 24-hour classic, was in part due to the right calls made by Brad Kettler and Leena Gade, who split engineering and strategy duties on the winning car.

"We did five stints on one set of tires," said Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich, Head of Audi Motorsport. "The strength was in our strategy, and it helped us go against Peugeot. The tires were strong but we questioned how they could do the stints. At the end, the drivers did five stints and it was not too difficult to drive the car... We had to take every risk, we did so, and we won. We have a big team that worked the strategy and made the right choices."

Peugeot’s three 908s showed the pace needed to win, yet lacked the consistency of the lone remaining Audi through the better portion of the twice-around-the-clock classic. Various on-track incidents, and lost time in the pits when compared to the Audis, who were able to complete more stints on tires, cost the French squad greatly.

"I would have preferred to be the one being chased!" Pagenaud said. "It was a titanic battle. We didn’t think it would be as tight as that. We had three Peugeots running at the finish, and four including the ORECA. It shows great preparation, but we lacked that little bit extra. Audi won and had two more stops, so the difference was on the track. They were quicker on the laps. It was more difficult to finish second by only 13 seconds because it was such a tough battle."

Pagenaud and co-drivers Sebastien Bourdais and Pedro Lamy led home a Team Peugeot Total 2-3-4, with the No. 8 machine of Franck Montagny, Stephane Srrazin and Nic Minassian completing the podium in third, two laps back from the winners.

Peugeot's No. 7 entry of Marc Gene, Alex Wurz and Anthony Davidson came home fourth, ahead of the 2010-spec Team ORECA Matmut Peugeot 908 HDi-FAP, which suffered two accidents in the hands of Loic Duval.

The No. 12 Rebellion Racing Lola B10/60 Toyota of Nicolas Prost, Neel Jani and Jeroen Bleekemolen finished the highest of the gasoline-powered LMP1s in sixth overall and 17 laps behind the winning Audi. The trio took over the spot when Emmanuel Collard crashed his Pescarolo Team Pescarolo-Judd with two hours to go.

Despite the close battle to the finish, the story of the race came from accidents by two of the Audis that ended in the destruction of both diesel-powered LMP1 coupes.

Allan McNish survived a massive crash in the first hour when his Audi made contact with the No. 58 Luxury Racing Ferrari of Anthony Beltoise while heading past the Dunlop Bridge. The No. 3 machine then careened into the barriers and flipped several times before coming to rest upside down.

Less than six hours later, Audi teammate Mike Rockenfeller also got caught out in traffic. The defending race winner in the No. 1 car slammed heavily into the wall at the Mulsanne Kink after attempting to overtake Rob Kauffman’s AF Corse Ferrari. While there was initial concern over his welfare, Rockenfeller also escaped serious injury from the frightening night-time accident.

The early demise of Audi’s two favorites put the manufacturers’ hopes rested entirely on the No. 2 machine of Treluyer, Lotterer and Fassler, who ran the races of their lives.

Top honors in LMP2 went to the Greaves Motorsport Zytek Z11SN-Nissan of Tom Kimber-Smith, Karim Ojjeh and Olivier Lombard after a near-flawless race for the trio.

The British squad was locked into a battle with the Team ORECA Matmut Oreca 03-Nissan, which led the opening 11 hours, but a crash by David Hallyday with eight hours remaining gave Greaves clear sailing to the finish.

Twenty-year-old Lombard, in his Le Mans debut, took the Zytek across the line to a seven-lap victory over the No. 26 Signatech Nissan Oreca 03-Nissan of Franck Mailleux, Lucas Ordonez and Soheil Ayari in second.

"We always had a plan and that was just to try and stay out of trouble," Kimber-Smith said. "As you could see with the two big crashes by Audi, anything could happen and it could have been us. Our plan was to go around at our own pace. Olivier showed this morning that we could have been the quickest LMP2 car out there, but in doing that, there's huge risks of things happening... People have a perspective that you must be quick. But in LMP2, you don't need to be that quick, all you have to do is finish. That's what we did."

Greaves helped give Nissan its first class victory since 2000 and the first with its new-spec LMP2 power plant, which finished 1-2 in class.

Level 5 Motorsports, in its Le Mans debut, completed the podium in third after a steady, but reliable run for Scott Tucker, Christophe Bouchut and Joao Barbosa. It marked Tucker’s first podium at Le Mans after racking up top-three finishes in the Rolex 24 at Daytona and two class wins at the Twelve Hours of Sebring.

While LMP1 only saw seven of the 17 cars finish, the new-spec LMP2 division surprisingly featured strong reliability, with five cars cracking the top-15 overall.

Corvette Racing defied all odds and broke through to take the win in GTE-Pro. After a dominant run by the No. 74 machine, which led for over half the race, Jan Magnussen, Oliver Gavin and Richard Westbrook’s race ended early after the Dane collided with a Porsche in Hour 16.

Down but not out, the Pratt & Miller squad turned its focus to the No. 73 crew of Olivier Beretta, Antonio Garcia and Tommy Milner, which ran solidly inside the top-three. With three hours to go, Milner was in the lead, thanks to some misfortunes from the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari F458 Italia, which battled electrical issues.

After handing over to co-driver Garcia, the Spaniard took the car to the finish, giving Corvette its seventh Le Mans class victory in its 10th anniversary of its first triumph in 2001.

But for 25-year-old Milner, who scored his first victory with Corvette, making up the necessary time in the closing hours proved to an unforgettable experience.

"That was the hardest drive of my life," Milner said. "It would have been a lot easier if it wasn't sprinkling, raining, not raining, and then wet - all that plus the pressure of the situation. I'd been super comfortable in the car all day long, but I was not comfortable right then. I was just trying to drive the car to what the track would allow. Every lap it changed, every corner it changed."

Corvette headed into the weekend as one of the favorites for class honors, but when the No. 74 machine dropped out, hopes of a win appeared slim, until the crew stepped up to the challenge.

"If I were to write a script to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Chevrolet and the 10th anniversary of Corvette Racing's first win at Le Mans, this would undoubtedly be it," said program manager Doug Fehan. "Louis Chevrolet was himself a racer, and his motto, 'Never give up!' is a philosophy we embraced from our first visit here. I think the result today embodied the spirit of Chevrolet's co-founder of that iconic phrase."

The No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari of Giancarlo Fisichella, Gimmi Bruni and Toni Vilander limped home in second, while BMW Motorsport’s Sebring-winning trio of Andy Priaulx, Dirk Muller and Joey Hand, in his Le Mans debut, completed the podium in third after overcoming an early race misfire.

Team Felbermayr-Proton’s Marc Lieb, Richard Lietz and Wolf Henzler were unable to repeat their class victory from a year ago but were again the highest-placed Porsche entrant in fourth. The No. 76 IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche 911 GT3 RSR completed the top-five in class.

Larbre Competition scored the GTE-Am class victory, leading a dominant 1-2 for the Jack Leconte-led squad. The No. 50 Corvette C6.R of Julien Canal, Gabriele Gardel and Patrick Bornhauser took a one-lap win over the team’s Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, run in conjunction with IMSA Performance Matmut.

The win, Larbre’s second consecutive at la Sarthe after taking top honors in GT1 last year, also marked a double victory for Corvette. It's the first for a manufacturer since 1997 when Porsche scored the overall and GT2 class victory. :cool

Late-race clutch troubles for the JMB Racing Ferrari gave the Robertson Racing Ford GT a well-deserved third-place result in class. David and Andrea Robertson celebrated their wedding anniversary on the podium with co-driver David Murry, who made a Herculean drive through the race. It marked the first ever husband-and-wife duo to finish on the podium at Le Mans.

Twenty-eight of the 56 starters finished, showing an increase in attrition compared to previous years.

Americans Have Mixed Fortunes

While Corvette Racing scored top honors in GTE-Pro and Level 5 and Robertson notched up podium finishes in their respective categories, not everything went to plan for every American squad taking part in the 24-hour classic.

Flying Lizard Motorsports’ GTE-Am class Porsche of Spencer Pumpelly, Darren Law and Seth Neiman led a good portion of the race as well. However, their race was over with less than eight hours to go when Pumpelly lost drive and was stranded on track. The team’s GTE-Pro entry of Jorg Bergmeister, Patrick Long and Lucas Luhr finished 6th after repairs for a broken injector wire cost them two laps.

Other retirements included the No. 57 Krohn Racing Ferrari, which dropped out with engine failure overnight and the Risi Competizione-crewed No. 59 Luxury Racing Ferrari called it quits in the early morning with electrical issues.

Michael Waltrip, making his Le Mans debut, also failed to get to the finish after his No. 71 AF Corse Ferrari suffered gearbox failure. Waltrip’s co-driver, Kauffman, was excluded from further driving after the race stewards deemed his incident with Rockenfeller to have been avoidable.

-and-

Corvette Doubles Up In GTE At Le Mans

At the 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans, Corvette Racing crushed the competition in the incredibly tight GT2 class field, but fell victim to being in the wrong place at the wrong time when an overtaking Peugeot assisted in the leading Corvette C6.R going off the road.

In 2011, history nearly repeated itself. But after one moment of despair, the fortunes turned for the American team seeking its first win at Le Mans with its new GT2-spec C6.R built for its regular racing in the American Le Mans Series and ultimately, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Thanks in large part to an epic comeback from Tommy Milner, making his Corvette debut at Le Mans and his first appearance at the circuit in four years, Corvette avenged its defeat to come back on top in the 24-hour sports car classic. Milner co-drove with Olivier Beretta and Antonio Garcia in the No. 73 entry to the win in the newly renamed GTE Pro class victory.

“That was the hardest drive of my life,” he said. “It would have been a lot easier if it hadn’t been sprinkling, raining, not raining, and then wet — all that plus the pressure of the situation.”

The No. 73 car took over as the single focus for Corvette once the leading No. 74, which dominated most of the race, had an awful accident which ruined its chances and took it out of contention.

Jan Magnussen, co-driving with Oliver Gavin and Richard Westbrook, was already racing with a lot on his mind this weekend as his wife is expecting very soon. Heading out of the Porsche Curves, Magnussen lost control and broke the car beyond repair. It lost drive and wound up in the gravel at Ford Chicane, damaged and retired for the day.

From there, Garcia and Milner spent the last five hours of the race on a torrid charge to hunt down the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari F458 Italia, which took the lead when the sister car had its issues.

Garcia, twice a previous class winner at Le Mans (GT1 with Aston Martin and Corvette in 2008 and 2009), set off on a pace of tracking down Toni Vilander in the Ferrari at roughly 1.5 seconds faster per lap. The car got back on the lead lap and after starting a minute and a half behind, began the comeback.

Once Milner took over he continued the charge, battling a mix of wet, misty and dry conditions, and still closing at a staggering rate of anywhere from six to 10 seconds a lap on the Ferrari. For Milner, this was the defining drive that may have gone largely unnoticed while the focus centered around the Audi/Peugeot battle for overall honors. Milner has yet to record an ALMS win — guessing a Le Mans 24-hour triumph will suffice in the interim.

“I’d been super comfortable in the car all day long, but I was not comfortable right then,” Milner said. “I was just trying to drive the car to what the track would allow. Every lap it changed, every corner it changed.”

Add to the equation that Milner and Garcia had to do more stints on their own as Beretta was sick after suffering from carbon monoxide fumes emanating from the safety car he was following. The Audi crashes, among others, interrupted the flow of the race and kept the safety car out in front of the field.

It was, by any stretch, redemption for the team that has been closer than ever to up-ending BMW in the U.S. this season and concerned with taking the win back at Le Mans. Milner joins Johnny O’Connell and Scott Pruett as American winners for Corvette Racing (since the team first came back to Le Mans is 2000, first win in 2001) at Le Mans.

“If I were to write a script to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Chevrolet and the 10th anniversary of Corvette Racing’s first win at Le Mans, this would undoubtedly be it,” said Corvette Racing program manager Doug Fehan.

Milner would have been thrilled to beat BMW, as he formerly drove for the German manufacturer. BMW has been off to a strong start in the ALMS with two wins from two starts, and in Le Mans with the Schnitzer-run BMW Motorsport effort the team took the pole position.

But oddly, BMW had neither the pace nor the reliability to match the Corvette and Ferrari. Gianmaria Bruni in the Ferrari and Gavin’s Corvette passed Augusto Farfus within the first 15 minutes and BMW never got much closer to the lead all day.

The polesitting No. 55 car retired with was termed serious vibration issues; Farfus co-drove with Jörg Müller and Dirk Werner on that car. The No. 56, in contrast, spent time near the top of the leaderboard but went in-and-out of the garage with a consistent misfire.

Joey Hand ended his Le Mans debut in third place, two spots shy of completing his quest for a personal “triple crown” of sports car endurance race victories in 2011. Hand co-drove with his regular ALMS co-driver Dirk Mueller and Andy Priaulx in the No. 56 car.

Porsche teams Felbermayr-Proton and IMSA Performance Matmut netted top-five results with their No. 77 and No. 76 cars.

While each of the European squads has a prior class victory at Le Mans (2010 and 2007, respectively), neither had the outright pace to contend with the Corvette, Ferrari, and BMW. Flying Lizard’s No. 80 Porsche made it home sixth in class, at least finishing after niggling mechanical issues.

The race also doubled as a double-points round of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup for 2011, and ILMC entrants AF Corse and BMW Motorsport secured the top two points results for that. The No. 51 Ferrari, No. 56 BMW and No. 65 Lotus Jetalliance Evora were the top three for the new global championship.

Considering he viewed the race as a time to “take the tortoise approach,” this was a cracking result for Lotus’s No. 65 with Johnny Mowlem, James Rossiter and Jonathan Hirschi driving. Seventh place and a full 24 hours completed for the all-pro driver lineup could be considered stunning.

Elsewhere in the class, the rest of the six Ferrari F458 contingent had myriad issues ranging from mechanical to contact that blighted their charge. Neither the Dunlop-shod JMW Ferrari or Hankook Farnbacher Ferrari were near the top.

AF Corse’s second F458 was involved in the Mike Rockenfeller shunt and the Luxury Racing pair of F458s had some issues as well. Poor Anthony Beltoise will be remembered as the individual Allan McNish attempted to pass cleanly at an incredibly early stage of the race.

GTE Am ended with Larbre Competition doubling up its previous win in the GT1 class, with the last ride of the venerable Saleen S7.R at Le Mans 2010. Larbre stepped down to the new GTE Am category for 2011 with a two sets of three gentlemen drivers, and both a previous generation Corvette C6.R and a Porsche 911 GT3 RSR in the class.

Important was teh fact that Larbre took the win with its ILMC-entered No. 50 Corvette, driven by Patrick Bornhauser, Gabriele Gardel and Julien Canal. Canal and Gardel were part of the winning Saleen effort in 2010 along with Roland Berville. The No. 70 of Christophe Bourret, Pascal Gibon and Jean-Phillipe Belloc finished second.

In third, one of the great stories at Le Mans in recent years: Robertson Racing with its Doran Ford GT-R. The Robertsons, husband-and-wife team of David and Andrea Robertson along with their good friend and professional co-driver David Murry, have secured a podium finish on David and Andrea’s wedding anniversary.

All in a 24-hour race’s work, right?

The Robertsons lost an engine earlier in the week. They had several spins. They ran out of fuel during Saturday’s morning warm-up when the fuel warning light didn’t come on and stopped on track. That was just before the race.

When you add in that the team’s paddle shifter system failed, they had to revert back to their sequential shift gearbox for the remainder of the race. Yet the Robertsons, led by team manager Andrew “H.” Smith and crew chief Lee Penn, have done it as one of the smallest teams in the race, making the finish and making the podium. A truly fantastic performance from the underdogs.

“Really we just didn’t make any dumb mistakes,” David Robertson said. “We finished, and that was the first step. Nobody made any mistakes. We survived the war of attrition. It’s a good start to hopefully being invited back next year and getting better.”

Whew. Best Le Mans ever, I say!

[Bigfoot]

Cool that the vette's took top podium spots in two classes.

[y2krtaf]

It was an awesome Le Mans for sure,non stop action of some kind all over the place! Thankfully no one was seriously hurt in some of the mayhem!

[Shifty]

I thinks I'm getting a tad old to stay up for 24 straight hours though...

[P51tj]

Way to go Team VETTES!!!

[Desertdawg]

I watched until about 3am, Milner was gaining on the leader and was probably about one lap away from passing him when I passed out.. It was an overload kind of race, I had the #73 feed on the ipad and the speed TV coverage both going at the same time for most of the race. I say 2 to Speed for the most excellent coverage this year...

[Bigfoot]

I won't give too many props to Speed...I would say about 75% or more of the coverage goes to P1 and they had at least 4 classes running that race.

[Desertdawg]

I was just happy Speed aired the amount of coverage they did, it's up to the puppets with the microphones to talk about the classes, and apparently they have no control over the camera shots that are aired so they have to go with whats on the screen. It sure was better than espns spotty coverage last year.

[Shifty]

I was happier with this years coverage, though there is still a lot of room for improvement.

[MOTV8]

I was just happy Speed aired the amount of coverage they did, it's up to the puppets with the microphones to talk about the classes, and apparently they have no control over the camera shots that are aired so they have to go with whats on the screen.

It sure was better than espns spotty coverage last year.

This.

I also was happy with the coverage. Like DD said, they don't control the French camera crews, and with the French "national squad" (Peugeot) battling in P1 with bazillion dollar sleds versus das Germans, near death wrecks and drama, and the overall title at stake yeah the coverage is gonna focus on P1. They still covered more Corvette action this year, no doubt. Seemed like every pit stop was covered and they constantly talked up the CR program along with the Chevy 100 yr hype. Plus you always had that Speed live stream (in the winning vette, mind you) to go to, and like DD I also had the live timing up on the 'puter the whole race.

I'm asuming that Chebby will soon hit us with some "we-kicked-butt-at-LeMans" adverts, hoping for the win on Sunday sell on Monday boost.