Le Mans 24hrs 2015

I wonder what will be of this from Porsche, an isolated win like the 911 GT1 or just the start of a year-after-year domination like the 956/962-family. :think:

I really hope the FIA doesn't peg the cars back, they are faster than ever now. The lap record of 3:16.887 (and 249.201 km/h average speed) set by Neel Jani in the 919 is very close to the 3:13.9 (and 250.069 km/h average speed) set by Pedro Rodriguez in the 917 back in 1971, when there were no chicanes down the Mulsanne.
 
fun fact: it's the first win for a 4cyl engine since 1928! :)
 
it's been 2 days, still no analysis from the race??? :?:

i've only seen 2h of the race, but short of the 7h i was asleep, i followed everything on radiolemans.com (thank god for mobile data!)
and i wanted to talk about tires...

when the race starts, the P1 teams are given 12 sets of tires.
one stint lasts about an hour, so to have enough tires, each set must be double stinted...

but as far as i've been able to pick up, none of the audis or porsche's did anything less than a triple stint, and some even went for quintuple stints (5h), so the tires last longer than the drivers are allowed to be in the car (4h)
so they're given 12 sets, but over 24h they manage more distance if they only use 6 of those?

that makes no sense if you ask me
they either have to allow more people to change the tires, so they're changed faster, give the tires higher degradation, or allocate fewer tires!

but looking for confirmation it's 12 sets indeed, i came across this page, where they state the following:
Michelin has three slicks for the LMP1 cars: a ?low temperature? soft compound, a ?high temperature? soft compound and a ?high temperature? medium compound, along with a ?slick intermediate? (no tread pattern), a ?wet? tyre and a ?full wet? tyre, the pattern of which can be adjusted to match the conditions of the moment using a technique known as ?re-cutting?.

so the 12 sets, that's an even split of those compounds?
or do the teams have to tell in advance which ones they will use?
or can they choose compounds like they want, as long as they don't surpass 12 sets?

anyone has a graph that shows the degradation over time/laps?
it's hard to find info!
 
Last edited:
Couldn't watch it because useless Canadian TV :censored:

Shaw refused to switch from SPEED to Fox Sports Racing like Rogers have so I've been SOL since April for everything except F1, Indycar and NASCAR (but only Cup and Xfinity. I prefer the Trucks, but can't get that either now). First cable company that offers FSR to this side of Canada is going to get a lot of motorsport fans signing up to them, that's 100% guaranteed.
 
it's been 2 days, still no analysis from the race??? :?:

i've only seen 2h of the race, but short of the 7h i was asleep, i followed everything on radiolemans.com (thank god for mobile data!)
and i wanted to talk about tires...

when the race starts, the P1 teams are given 12 sets of tires.
one stint lasts about an hour, so to have enough tires, each set must be double stinted...

but as far as i've been able to pick up, none of the audis or porsche's did anything less than a triple stint, and some even went for quintuple stints (5h), so the tires last longer than the drivers are allowed to be in the car (4h)
so they're given 12 sets, but over 24h they manage more distance if they only use 6 of those?

that makes no sense if you ask me
they either have to allow more people to change the tires, so they're changed faster, give the tires higher degradation, or allocate fewer tires!

but looking for confirmation it's 12 sets indeed, i came across this page, where they state the following:


so the 12 sets, that's an even split of those compounds?
or do the teams have to tell in advance which ones they will use?
or can they choose compounds like they want, as long as they don't surpass 12 sets?

anyone has a graph that shows the degradation over time/laps?
it's hard to find info!

I reckon they can pick what 12 sets they want, as long as they only use 12 sets for the race. Beyond those 12 sets they also have 4 "joker" tires which they can only use beyond their allocation to replace tires destroyed by punctures. Intermediates and wets are unlimited. And a quintuple stint is actually bordering on the 4 hours a driver can spend in a car, a fuel stint is about 40-45 minutes without yellows. So triple-stinting tires all through the race would just about use the 12 sets over the 24 hours.

The #19's winning move was the fact that they initially triple-stinted tires, but as the race went into darkness they most likely switched to a different compound and could then quadruple-stint for the rest of the race. Remember, Saturday afternoon was quite warm and sunny, but Sunday was cloudy, so that affects tire usage and degradation.
 
Last edited:
[video=youtube;lTn-mtFvwwE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTn-mtFvwwE[/video]

A bit cliche I know...
 
The defining moment of the Nissan effort for me was, at one point, faced with a brake job, a crew member staring blankly at the tool in his hand, then the brake assembly, then the tool in his hand, and then asking the guy on the other side of the car what he needed to do. Yes, it was stupid o'clock at night. But reaaaaaaaally!?

Hahaha, please tell me there's video of this somewhere. I don't think that crew got a single break all weekend. Maybe to take a whiz in the garage toilet. Maybe. They were in full Triple-K-Car Run at IOE mode all weekend long, but to their point, I can't imagine a better shakedown than that.
 
Top