Chris Harris Rants against Ferrari

Spectre said:
I type corrected on that - but still, they're averaging 20 years between class wins? And unlike some other makes, who come and go from Le Mans, Ferrari's almost always there. Pretty poor performance if you think about it.
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They were pretty much gone from Le Mans in the 1980s, if you don't count the LC2 Lancia from 1983 to 1985 (which had a Ferrari engine). First private Ferrari entry to appear after that gap was a 348 in 1993. The 333SP and the F40s came in in '94 and '95, they were both gone again by 1999, and since 2002 they've had a pretty much constant presence in the GT classes with the 550 GTS, 360 GT, 430 GTC and now the 458. See marcos_eirik's post at the top of the previous page for some more details.
 
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Which is still more (and more often) than Jaguar's been there, yet Jaguar has done a hell of a lot better. :p A bunch of men in a shed in Coventry beats out Ferrari. :p
 
Spectre said:
Which is still more (and more often) than Jaguar's been there, yet Jaguar has done a hell of a lot better. :p A bunch of men in a shed in Coventry beats out Ferrari. :p
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After last year's embarassment... a lot of people wouldn't say so. :lol: Le Mans had a Jaguar on the grid last year and it was an utter JOKE. Electrical and clutch issues all through the week, finally the ECU killed the engine after about 5 laps of the race. For comparison, the GT2-winning Porsche covered 338 laps.
 
vikiradTG2007 said:
After last year's embarassment... a lot of people wouldn't say so. :lol: Le Mans had a Jaguar on the grid last year and it was an utter JOKE. Electrical and clutch issues all through the week, finally the ECU killed the engine after about 5 laps of the race. For comparison, the GT2-winning Porsche covered 338 laps.
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Well, to be fair, Jaguar has ceased to be a few men in a shed in Coventry.
 
vikiradTG2007 said:
After last year's embarassment... a lot of people wouldn't say so. :lol: Le Mans had a Jaguar on the grid last year and it was an utter JOKE. Electrical and clutch issues all through the week, finally the ECU killed the engine after about 5 laps of the race. For comparison, the GT2-winning Porsche covered 338 laps.
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Yeah, but that's first year back in how long? It's been almost 20 years since Jaguar was running there.

And, well, it's not like the engineering and design people remaining at Jaguar are any good these days. :p Almost all of the good ones exited around 2000 or so.

The historical record says the marque was still better at Le Mans than Ferrari was.

vikiradTG2007 said:
It wasn't by any means "a few men in a shed in Coventry" for the last two occasions when they won (1988, 1990, also the forgotten/controversially disallowed GT class win in 1993).
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Actually it was a few men in a shed working for Tom Walkinshaw, who was working for the men in the really big shed in Coventry, for all those last three victories. Remember, the XJ220 and the return to racing was prompted by a bunch of Jaguar employees working in one of their personal home garages on the then-banned-by-corporate car on their own time.

As Crazyjeeper was trying to point out, men in a shed > Ferrari. :D
 
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Spectre said:
The historical record says the marque was still better at Le Mans than Ferrari was.
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That's a tough one to properly evaluate, because you have to take into account the number of participations in the top class related to the number of wins... and also what that top class is. Before going through that, Jags have 7 overall wins and Ferrari 9. You can't beat Porsche though on this one.

Spectre said:
Actually it was a few men in a shed working for Tom Walkinshaw, who was working for the men in the really big shed in Coventry, for all those last three victories. Remember, the XJ220 and the return to racing was prompted by a bunch of Jaguar employees working in one of their personal home garages on the then-banned-by-corporate car on their own time.

As Crazyjeeper was trying to point out, men in a shed > Ferrari. :D
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I wouldn't call Tom Walkinshaw Racing "a few men in a shed". :p I'd call it what it was, "a completely professional racing team".
 
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http://img137.imageshack.**/img137/920/harris.jpg

First the MX-5 , now this....
 
vikiradTG2007 said:
That's a tough one to properly evaluate, because you have to take into account the number of participations in the top class related to the number of wins... and also what that top class is. Before going through that, Jags have 7 overall wins and Ferrari 9. You can't beat Porsche though on this one.
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Nope, and I wasn't going to argue that. But number of attempts vice wins, Jaguar handily beats Ferrari. And it's always when the racing effort was "men in a shed," too. :p

Consider this too - the people that first curbstomped Ferrari after they started dominating the first half of the 60s at Le Mans? Men in a shed... headed by a guy from Texas, borrowed/hired by Ford.

Chicken farmer from Texas > Enzo Ferrari. :mrgreen:
 
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Spectre said:
Chicken farmer from Texas > Enzo Ferrari. :mrgreen:
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The chicken farmers from Texas only did it for the first two occasions. :p The other two were done by a team run by a certain British gentleman named J. Wyer with British-built GT40s.

(I'm arguing now, yes, but I'm not arguing that Ferrari are useless cowards a lot of the time, that's the truth; I'm arguing for the historical record)
 
The chicken farmer (failed chicken farmer, at that!) from Texas and his team of men in a shed showed the way, though. And he has a relatively short attention span, so it's not surprising that he'd leave it to others after he'd made his Ford-sponsored point. :mrgreen:
 
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Spectre said:
Anyone else remember why there were no Ferraris in GT4? It was because Ferrari (at the time) refused to license any video game where a Ferrari is not the fastest car in the game.
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are you sure about that? I thought the reason was Microsoft buying exclusivity for their Forza Motorsport series?
 
Pretty sure - but it was Ferrari's policy for years (was also why there weren't Ferraris in Test Drive III or IV), and there was an article in one of the gaming magazines at the time wherein this was stated (I think it was EGM). Microsoft's Ferrari exclusive didn't start until 2009, IIRC.
 
Gman333-X-ferrari said:
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That is all? There I was, hoping that the Ferrari nuts come into this thread and threaten to kill everyone, and all I get is this lousy picture? I am disappoint!
 
I like Chris Harris, and I like good rants, so this was a good read.

And even if I disagree with him on MX-5, I can respect a well argumented opinion. A lot of my opinions aren't shared by many people either :p
 
LOL

mancitto_960.jpg
 
Viper007Bond said:
LOL

*pic*
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Wrong, that setting should be hidden from public view (but still available) and only enabled in the nuclear-submarine-nuclear-missile-firing way by Ferrari technicians before throwing the car over to a journalist.


EDIT: And disabled by an electronic problem caused by a piston going through the block and destroying the ECU. :lol:
 
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