331 replies to this topic

[JHS18]

At least half an hour more safety car due to the barrier being damage. Both drivers are okay apparently.

Anyway, here is Dumas' earlier moment:

[JHS18]

By the way, Toyota currently leads! This was the battle for the lead just before Davidson's huge crash.

[JHS18]

Whilst the race is under a safety car, there's time to debate this.

Is the Am class a bad idea?

It has raced at Le Mans in two years. Both years, there has been a serious crash caused by an Am car. Last year Rockenfeller, this year Davidson. Not a good statistic.

I'm all for allowing gentlemen drivers and rich amateurs having a go - but when they're potentially a danger to other drivers on a track that is dangerous anyway - you're asking for trouble.

I'm not sure what the solution is.

Edited by JHS18, 16 June 2012 - 07:47 PM.

[JHS18]

Problems at the restart! Traffic chaos results in the remaining Toyota sending the Deltawing into the wall at the exit of the Porsche Curves.

[JHS18]

The Toyota recovered to the pits with body work damage. The order is now #1. #2 and #7 now dropped a fair distance behind.

Now Toyota have it all to do again.

[JHS18]

The Deltawing may be done according to Marino Franchitti.

[HandyNZL]

F'ing Toyota drivers....

If you're debating amateur drivers being noddies, you'd better debate pro drivers being noddies too.  Perhaps they shouldn't be out there too.

[JHS18]

#7 back in the garage, it seems like there's still damage from the Deltawing clash. Sounds like they're changing the floor and the tail, so will lose a few laps.

[JHS18]

Look, professional drivers are better qualified, that's all I'm saying.

Yes, occasionally accidents happen, but they're more aware of what's going on than amateurs. You wouldn't let gentlemen drivers run at the Indy 500 in this day and age for instance.

Edited by JHS18, 16 June 2012 - 07:46 PM.

[HandyNZL]

No, they're just paid.

And for what ever reason they were lucky enough to be so.  Be it a rich Daddy having opened doors for them, or a helpful handful of sponsors along the way.

Just because someone is not paid doesn't equate to less skill or less experience.

[The Shadow]

Davidson accident was a racing incident as far as I'm concerned. #7 and Deltawing is less so from the cameras.

[JHS18]

HandyNZL, on 16 June 2012 - 07:50 PM, said:

Just because someone is not paid doesn't equate to less skill or less experience.

I think in this case, we'll agree to disagree.

They interviewed Perazzini and he said that he saw Davidson, but "misjudged" the distance. At a track at Le Mans, when speeds are that high, that is a bloody dangerous "misjudgement" - and if you're making that kind of error, you shouldn't be racing in the first place. The Pro GT drivers know how to give space to prototypes...

Le Mans is one of the biggest races on the planet. You can't be allowing "gentlemen" drivers to turn the race into a farce by dangerous driving.

How many more accidents do there need to be before they realise the Am class is just a dangerous grid filler?

Rant over.

Edited by JHS18, 16 June 2012 - 08:09 PM.

[HandyNZL]

I think, James, that you're putting too much weight into the term professional, and as such putting those that get paid and that you have heard of too high up on a pedestal.

You'll find that more professionals cause crashes, or have crashes than so called amateurs.  Anyone, no matter the pay packet, can misjudge a closing cars speed.  I could pull three such incidents out of my arse, being Schumacher on DC in the rain at Spa(?) - you know, the famous "you tried to kill me!" incident, Webber on Kovalinen, and Schumacher on B-Spec Senna just this year.

What I am saying is, is that the guys in the "amateur" class all have to meet the same driving standards as those in the paid race seats to even have their entries accepted.  They also have to pay for repairs or aid in the running of the team.  They don't have bottomless pockets, so they will race conservatively NOT to crash, whereas the paid guy will just go for it.

Perhaps the pro should be more aware of what others might do around him....afterall he is the professional, and professionals should know all, right?  And they're amazing gods that can't make errors, so if they can't make errors then they should only ever pass where they know it to be 1000000% safe because they are more qualified as you say.

But that all goes against the truth, which is that they're all human, and humans as we are, we make errors.  Some of us get paid to make errors.  Some of us pay for our errors.  That is the only difference.  It is not, in this case, like we are comparing a student driver with someone that has been racing motorsport for fifteen years or more.  The amateurs in this case have been racing just as long as the pro's in most instances.  Maybe even longer.  And some have probably driven more powerful, faster cars, than some of the younger professionals...i.e. they own and race Group A rally cars, or 1970's/80's F1 cars, or a Porsche 962.

If you took away the amateurs, you do not make the race any more safe.  They will still crash, and Le Mans being Le Mans, may very well suffer a fatality.

[JHS18]

Moving this debate on as I really don't have an awful lot more to add, this is what happened to the Deltawing.

[JHS18]

The #7 rejoins after a lengthy period in the pit lane. But it is way down the order, in 42nd position, 19 laps off the lead. It seems Toyota's chance of a debut win have been ended. Not through reliability, like many were predicting, but through crashes.

Audi hold a 1-2-3 with Rebellion 4th and 5th. Audi's only task now is to get their three leading cars home without any problems - but I'd absolutely love it if Rebellion managed to sneak onto the podium.

[JHS18]

Deltawing has been officially retired apparently. Obviously attempts to fix it weren't successful. A shame.

[JHS18]

Toyota back in the garage again as well.

[Massa]

JHS18, on 16 June 2012 - 07:45 PM, said:

You wouldn't let gentlemen drivers run at the Indy 500 in this day and age for instance.

Marty Roth and Milka Duno disagree.

I won't restart the debate you don't want to have, and I respect that because there's no point in trashing a thread about a good race, but I'll just say that I'm of the belief that these accidents are a product of having multiple classes of cars going all sorts of different speeds than they are with the drivers.  You have huge speed differences in cars, low visibility, a lot going on around you, a lot of things being said into your ears, you can't know the closing rates (whereas in IndyCar or something, you know the basic closing rate of the car...you can't possibly memorize the closing rate of every different LMP if you're GT traffic), you have a huge track where you probably do have to prepare yourself for corners and get in a zone because memorizing the layout and doing it perfectly is hard...

I'll take one of the rich guys who has run Le Mans many, many, many times and has years in sports car racing over someone like Brian Vickers who is a pure rookie, even though he's a professional.  I just think these wrecks are the product of multi-class racing, not multi-licensing levels.  Take the money out, and there goes the entire history of sports car racing.  You'd also lose guys like Chris Dyson, a pro-am driver who actually overtook Guy Smith as the lead driver at Dyson this year in Sebring.

You have fast cars and slow cars and when fast cars close on slow cars **** happens.

[Massa]

And when you have fast cars and slow cars racing happens, too, so since you want to get back to that, we'll go back to that.

I caught a bit of it.  Sucks to see DeltaWing done.

Corvettes still sound good.  Corvette and Viper is going to be fun and I hope Viper will be at Le Mans next year.  1999 class winner, I believe the Oreca Viper was, and I also think Viper (the factory outfit) has won 15 of 16 ALMS races it's run, so there's that, too.  Corvette sounds mean.  Viper sounds meaner.

Murphy Prototypes...did we expect that?  Were we supposed to?  Weren't they a running joke for the last like...eight years with some phantom entrant that never shows up?  Wow.  Good for them.

How do these guys run at night?  You can't see...anything.  I don't think you can call amateur drivers the real danger here.

But seriously, the night stuff, it's terrible TV because the lights obscure everything, but when you get to see it on-board, very cool.  Very, very cool.

[JHS18]

Glad you're enjoying it Eric. I was just working writing a report of the last hour, so just catching up now.

I think the amateur driver debate is something to have another day, as you say, I don't want to take this off topic, but I just find it alarming when an Am driver says "oh I misjudged" - I mean, I appreciate that it is very, very difficult, otherwise I'm sure we'd be all doing it. I appreciate that accidents happen in multi class racing too, but man, this is the big league. It isn't some computer game where you can reset it. You make a "misjudgement" and you can very easily injure or kill someone. Last year with Rockenfeller, this year with Davidson - both lucky to escape without serious injury.

But then that's part of the risk of racing.

Seems you cursed them Eric. Murphy suffered a puncture and have lost the lead of the class. But no, they're doing a great job. I like Hughes as an ex BTCC guy. One of the guys I grew up watching race in BTCC.

I'm enjoying the race. It has had some good moments, particularly earlier when both Toyotas were in contention. Now it is Audi's to lose effectively, but that's how it goes. Great to see my Rebellions doing so well in fourth and fifth. I hope they hold off the recovering #3.

[JHS18]

I believe the lead 'Vette in GTE Pro has just lost a wheel.

[JHS18]

"Le Mans will do that to you. It's a long race, these things happen" says Doug Fehan.

[Massa]

I'm banning everyone who replied to this thread and didn't tell me about this: http://live.fiawec.com/

Here I am, trying to figure out what's going on from a Corvette on-board, and there's this.  Come on!

[HandyNZL]

A two year old could find that....

[Massa]

Just the other day I discovered this really cool and useful site called Google.

[Massa]

Congratulations to Spencer Pumpelly on his Le Mans debut today, even if it hasn't gone so well for Flying Lizard.  He's always been a real team player and has great chemistry with his co-drivers.

[The Shadow]

Back to the race, kudos to the 51 car. Who'd have thunk that a Ferrari had such good fuel mileage?

[Massa]

That Audi closes so fast.  You have to be legitimately alert if you're GT traffic.  After hours and hours of driving, I have no idea.  Tons of respect to all these guys out there getting lapped.

Now the feed is showing a scruffy, drunken man who needs to button up his shirt and may or may not be presenting this coverage.  He's speaking a language that isn't English or Spanish and because it's French.

Live timing may be lying but I believe the top two cars are on the same lap now, both Audis.  Might have some Audi-on-Audi action.

[Massa]

Live timing is saying Audi #2 is OUT...what...

[Massa]

There is something vaguely fun about being so in the dark and misinformed.  It's like a big secret.