TBK-Light.com

Looks nice. Reminds me of Praga R1. Might be even the same category.

We have a winner You can claim your price at the Pescarolo-headquarters.

Interesting development, and as the article says, this might mean that there is some talk about including these prototypes as an LMP3-class in Le Mans?

Here is the confirmation:

http://racing.ford.com/road-racing/news/articles/video-ganassi-switches-to-ecoboost-power-for-uscc-1293055693543/

That is a huge addition to Ford's lineup. It's a bit of a case of Scott Pruett's career coming full circle after starting his SCCA Trans-Am career with Ford in 1985.

Please be true..... that livery.... god yeah!

http://autosprint.corrieredellosport.it ... utosprint/

_________________
"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

I saw that earlier and wondered: how are the alcohol advertising rules in France at the moment?

Not favourable: http://www.ias.org.uk/What-we-do/Public ... ption.aspx



But that story: translated, no substance at all = BS. Another mag (Autohedbo) already few weeks ago had a Gulf livery render. Rothmans is next? :roll:

I figured it probably didn't have much substance, but still... that is one cool livery, got a picture of that Gulf one?

_________________
"An idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by any army or any government"


3x TBKL rFactor Hillclimb champion

I would assume Mobil1 is a major sponsor, so that probably won't happen.

Wouldn't mind a variation of this livery

Mobil1 is certainly one of the sponsors, or corporate partners, as are:



But that doesn't mean any of those will be a major/title sponsor. If they're going to have one. If they don't, that will reveal how NOT attractive WEC is.

Red Bull has been suggested but not sure if that one has any substance either, just 1+1+1 because couple of the hired drivers are sponsored by RB.

Aside from the obvious regulations that restrict tobacco and alcohol advertisements, wouldn't you rather see a new iconic livery? I like the good old Gulf/Martini/Rothmans cars as much as the next guy, but come on now. If all we ever manage to cook up are cars in the same old colour schemes then all that was ever unique and cool about them will just become the norm. As Stan shows they managed perfectly fine to make a nice livery with the GT1 (and I personally think the RS Spyder had a very memorable livery with the yellow and red DHL colors) so I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to do the same thing again.

Sorry about that rant, but it just cheeses me off to see the lack of imagination regarding this sort of thing

[youtubeidiot]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbHFQZbqZmY&feature=youtu.be[/youtubeidiot]

I fear that is the case.....

Anyway, it's interesting that Toyota was still quite far from Audi, on pure pace, back in Austin. Each car best lap in QLF was 1.47.5 VS 1.49.2. In Fuji, Toyota already closed the gap a lot and their fastest laps were 1.26.2 for Audi and 1.26.3 for Toyota.

Now Toyota already showed more raw pace in China with 1.47.5 versus 1.48.0. The improvement in this raw speed was around 2.2s from Austin to today's QLF. Of course a lot of other factors such as different track layout, temperature and etc... can have a big influence on laptimes too but still it shows just how much Toyota kept developing it's car.

Given that next year cars are gonna have some important changes, I think Toyota messed up by keeping developing this year's car once Audi already won everything. Won't be surprised if Audi and Porsche rip them apart due to having more development time/effort into their 2014 challengers

Something in me says they just developed the car to be good at Fuji, to make a good show in front of the Toyota bosses.

or rip them apart due to actually not having a shoestring budget.

Audi and Porsche are going to rip Toyota a new ass until Toyota decides to stop fooling around and run a proper team. They're tourists right now. '99 was the last time they brought forward an honest effort.

do you have any info on how much, obviously on very rough numbers, is each's budget, please?

2012: "Toyota is spending as much as 40 million euros ($50 million) on entering its TS030 hybrid at Le Mans and six other endurance races this year, according to Leupen"
// http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-1 ... -race.html

Audi 2010: 70M eur
// http://archives.tomorrownewsf1.com/budget-audi-sport-100me-14412

Peugeot 2011: 75M eur
// http://www.sportune.fr/sport-business/wrc-peugeot-citroen-et-son-budget-sportif-de-80me-49254
// http://archives.tomorrownewsf1.com/peugeot-sport-la-strategie-de-partir-26174

If anything, since 2010-2011, the budgets should have risen, so the difference might be even bigger. Some things Toyota might be able to do with less money as everything can be built in-house in TMG/Cologne, but since they can't field a 2nd car, it is obvious the actual racing budget is much less than Audi's. Emphasis on 2014 is just excuse.

I think the racing team itself, people from TMG and few from Oreca, are doing very good job, but the people in the boardroom in Japan are still having nightmares about their F1 spending.

But what he said is still correct. If they aren't funding it properly than frankly that's not enough effort. This is the same team that had one of the largest budgets in F1 history to LOSE every week. Whilst now if they gave the Le Mans team about half the F1 budget then they'd be right up with Porsche and Audi, or bigger.

So lack of budget isn't an excuse. It's a works team effort. If they're going to call it Toyota then they should be taking that responsiblity.

So as long as Toyota are turning up at Le Mans with a set of cars where one of them is already a year old tub, then I don't have much sympathy for them.

Contradictory / misunderstood what I meant. My point was that its is very good reason for the racing team itself since it is the reality, but for the company as a whole, a lousy excuse.