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LMAO Aston Martin has 10kg of fuel more than Corvette and Ferrari. I became a fan because of the F550 and DBR9 but seriously their efforts since the AMR-One are pathetic. The only way they can keep up is because of the BOP and half of their cars is filled by pay drivers.



http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/114255

Hope new Astons will get them to race on own merit in the future because this is starting to get annoying (saying this as a fan...).

Lets remember that forecasts that far can't be accurate, and in terms of "rain or no rain" total crapshoot at this point I always wonder why these weather sites even bother generating 1-2 week forecasts.

Yeah, but we shouldn't be expecting a heat wave. Out of experience they are pretty decent in accuracy, but of course everything can move back or forwards 1 or 2 days.

Do you know the speeds recorded? I mean, 300kmh vs 330kmh or what?


I think the same and that the same thing will happen to Porsche. Then, the win will fall into Albuquerque and Bonanomi

Audi wants to win, of course, but I don't think anybody would call it a 'bad year' if they just get a podium, simply because they've won so much and the fact that the general consensus is that the competition by two other manufacturers is tough.
Porsche wants to win, of course, but they're new so they don't have to do anything apart from trying to get as far as they can. If they fail, nobody would call it a 'bad year' either (unless they do a JLOC/AMR-One).
Anything but a win is failure for Toyota, however, so I agree with the earlier as well. Either they win, or they both end up in the DNF-list. They're going to be pushing like hell.

...and then it went Dempsey.

Dempsey is like the Danica Patrick of endurance racing. Only more likable though.

Good article and summary of the BoP in P1 so far: http://gb.zinio.com/reader.jsp?issn=0961-1096&o=ext

From page 8, since you have 3 free zooms, skip the last page or use incognito mode.

Frankly, the utter wank-fest that is the Mark Webber concentration is even worse. He's being talked about so much that one of the posters for a WEC race was just essentially a big picture of his arse. Here theres an advert for Le Mans, and there's no mention of Tom Kristensen, or the even the GT Classes. Just Dempsey, Webber and a footballer. You'd be forgiven for not knowing there was an actual race this year, and it was just a big Mark Webber celebration. Poor Nick Heidfeld must be sitting thinking "He achieved as much as me...why does nobody care about me?!"

Regarding the regulations, the FIA have revised the front skid block deflection rules



However this does not apply to Porsches rear bodywork, and the statement also says:

Possibly a stretch to Heidfeld, yes, however I think my point does stand in that nothing here is in proportion. Villeneuve is a significantly larger name than Webber, and we didn't get shots of his arse on posters, or adverts featuring him, a generic actor and a footballer. It's ridiculous the amount of exposure Webber is getting - they're giving him more attention than the actual event now.

Bourdais, whilst not as big a name in motorsport, should've been worth more than Webbers. Born in Le Mans, went to America, dominated, then local boy returns to drive for the national team and slay the evil Germans. The only thing missing was a shot of his arse on the posters. Mansell...well, you're spot on the money - was just a lot of pish. And of course we had Sebastien Loeb - a name which holds a lot of weight in France, and then we had Colin McRae at the same time as him.

However "the most decorated drive to be in the running for a Le Mans title":

Tom K - 9 wins
Fassler - 2 wins
Lotterrer - 2 wins
Treluyer - 2 wins
Wurz - 2 wins

Well, everybody would argue all day about what's worth more - a handful of F1 race wins, or a couple of Le Mans wins. But at the end of the day, when you sit your arse down in an LMP and fire up the engine for the start of the 24 hours, your F1 wins, F1 Championships and Indy 500 wins mean less than zero. You're at Le Mans. And these guys have achieved more.

We could all rant about Dempsey, but I think we're all in agreement. He's an actor who wants to race. Fine, do that. But the exposure he's getting is unfair. And Bartez? Well, this may seem harsh..but who gives even the slightest fuck? I mean really.

I want more talk about the epic battle of 3 manufacturers, the awesomely strong P2 field, the massive GT field, and the rumors of more manufacturers coming. This is shaping up to be one of the most well contest Le Mans in decades, and we're watching an advert concentrating on 3 of the 170 drivers, 2 of which are completely insignificant GT drivers? Kinda rains on the parade, and achievements, of the other drivers who are entering. Same deal with Nissan really - all the attention on them, more so than the race itself, for one car.


This post may sound harsh, but at the end of the day this is just what IndyCar used to do with Danica Patrick. Rather than say "Come watch the Indy 500, it's awesome!" they say "Come see how Danica Patrick will do in the Indy 500!" Le Mans and WEC needs to promote itself, rather than relying on a couple of names that will not be there in a few years.

Great shot showing the airflow through the LM spec Audi. Can be presumed the other 2 cars are the same idea. Shows how little there is down there.

Disagreed. IndyCar and Le Mans are perfect examples to prove my point.

IndyCar - concentrate on Danica Patrick. Shit..she's not there anymore. Now nobody cares. The event cannot stand on it's own feet because for years it was the Danica show. Only a few years later is it now recovering.

Le Mans 2012 - no marketing except for the DeltaWing and how it was going to equal P1 speeds and reset racing. It turned up and was crap, viewing figures dropped. When it finally retired, they dropped massively. Great way of quite literally, getting people to turn off the TV.



Nope (although I see how it can read that way with how I worded it). I'm saying that at Le Mans, they've achieved more. You said "the most decorated drive to be in the running for a Le Mans title". I'd say that 9 Le Mans wins is worth more than a handful of F1 race wins.

AND, as I said, Villeneuve, Bourdais, McRae, Loeb never got anything like this coverage. And I'll disagree fundamentally on the football comment. Football fans will not watch motor racing because a football name is in it. They built an entire series around this concept, and it nose dived into the ground like a plane made of granite. Crossing 2 sports that are fundamentally different and expecting both sides to care doesn't work, and never has. We have olympic gold medalist Chris Hoy racing for Nissan soon, and he was a fucking *hero* in the UK press. But here...nobody cares he's racing a car. It's a tiny newspaper clipping to fill a gap, and that's it. You can't name an ex Manchester United Footballer in a motorsport advert and expect even 20 people to suddenly tune in.



Drivers in GT feeder series? Countless. That only works if you count single seaters and ignore all of the GT classes.

That shot was taken from this article.

http://www.racecar-engineering.com/cars/audi-lmp14/

It has updates from the first appearence right up to test day, so it's completely up to date. No floor pan shot yet.

I agree with your points, ellis, but I'm afraid that they are actually doing a good job in marketing the event. Le Mans addicts come over and watch the race anyway, they don't need a TV-clip or a poster to get interested. Everyone else does. They are also using a famous (apparently) comedian on their Youtube-channel to explain the different technical and sporting regulations in a newbie fashion.

The fact that viewing figures dropped after the DeltaWing retired actually shows that they succeeded in getting more people to watch the lucrative first hours. They wouldn't have been there if not for whatever big 'innovative' headline they saw in a (TV) ad.

The race is going to be great, huh fella's?

After all, it's just an ad. It won't matter for 5 minutes. Le Mans is Le Mans and will advertise itself. It's a grand party, even if you don't like racing that much. Go there and see the spectacle for yourself; during the night it's both a depressing and awe-inspring spectacle at the same time.

It's definitely going to be great, since we're already a couple of pages further than where the track action started in 2013

Can't wait, got Saturday off work to watch and have FS1 and FS2 so will be up at 8.30am local time to watch it all the way through. Then go to work on Sunday which will be interesting, lol.

I will try to make the 24 hours this time. There will be World Cup football to help me

wat is that

A kind of Brazilian riot apparently.