The End of an Era

This past weekend marked the end of one era of sports car racing in North America with the final running of Petit Le Mans, closing the last season of the American Le Mans Series.I am not alone in being somewhat saddened by the loss of the ALMS.I felt the same sort of loss in the early 1970s with the close of the original Trans-Am series (1966-1972), the original Can-Am series (1966-1973) and my local drag strip (Lions Drag Strip 1955-1972).While I have some reservations about the new combined series, at least I have some hope for next year, unlike that earlier time.

This year was the first (and last) year that the Grand-Am Rolex series ran at Road Atlanta and this offers a final opportunity to compare the DP to the LMP2 lap times prior to performance balancing that will place those two different cars in the same class next year. Here are the raw numbers for the top 4 fastest race laps in each class.

It must be remembered that the DP teams had no previous track data to work with.Grand-Am ran in April, ALMS ran in October.

It will be interesting to see what sort of numbers are put up next year after TUSC/IMSA "balance" the performance of these cars.Speaking of which, TUSC/IMSA has finally released the essential elements of that balancing of LMP2 and DP cars competing in next year's Prototype class. I read about it at Racer.com.

The important changes to the DP cars are:

- New mandatory front diffuser and rear wing

- Brake materials are now open

- Single piece forged wheels are now allowed

- Differential choice is now open

- Damper choice is now less restricted

- Throttle actuation is now free

- Engines will gain about 50hp

The important changes to the LMP2 cars are:

- Le Mans aero kits mandated for Elkhart Lake, Daytona and Indy

- Minimum weight will increase from 900kg to 960kg

- Spec. Continental tires are mandatory

- Driver teams can be any mix of Pro and Am

The DP cars will be faster, at some significant up-front cost. Some DP teams are whining about the cost of these changes, but it is worth noting that only the new aero pieces are mandatory (approx. $15K). So if economy is more important that winning, they don't need to spend the money.If they don't want to upgrade, they will find it hard, not only to keep up with LMP2 cars and with upgraded DPs, but with LMPC cars as well. The current LMPC cars are faster than the current DP cars (the #8 LMPC's fastest race lap at Road Atlanta was 1:16.0). I would love to see one of the top teams from Grand-Am switch to and LMP2 car next year. Imagine: Gnassi dropping the BMW V8 from the DP car into an LMP2 chassis (Oreca, Lola/Multimatic, Adess, Riley).How about putting the Ford EcoBoost V6, like the one in Michael Shank's new DP, into an LMP2 chassis? That Roush engine was developed for LMP2 after all. Here is a rare photo of that engine in the Libra Radical/Ford at the 2012 Laguna Seca ALMS round:

The LMP2 cars will be slower. The mandatory aero changes for LMP2 run about $13.7K.The biggest hit will be the added 60kg (132lbs.). This increase will have a negative affect not only on acceleration, but braking, manuverability, fuel economy and reliability. The evolution of the LMP2 class has seen weight go from 675kg to 700, to 750, to 800, to 820, to 900, and now to 960kg. While this penalty will allow the DPs to compete, to me it is exactly the wrong thing to do. Road cars are getting lighter with smaller engines, why are we making race cars artifically heavier (other than politics)? I have had my say about this in an earlier posting.

When it comes time to formulate new specs for the Prototype class for TUSC (2017?), I am hoping for a true lightweight, efficient formula that takes advantage of modern automotive technology and keeps the flavor of sophisticated racing that the old ALMS series promoted alive.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

The weekend of September 21st - 22nd provided the first chance for ALMS fans to see the series compete on the new Circuit of the Americas (COTA) track near Austin Texas. The track was built to accommodate the renewal of the United States Grand Prix for Formula 1 in November 2012. The third week of September held the COTA "Super Endurance Weekend" with an ALMS race on Saturday and a World Endurance Championship (WEC) on Sunday. So now three major multi-class sports car series have competed at COTA for the first time this year. This will allow some comparisons to be made where the rubber meets the road.

This is both the first and last time the ALMS will run at COTA. While the GTE cars and the LMPC cars in the ALMS will be running largely unchanged next year the United SportsCar Racing Championship series sponsored by Tudor watches (aka TUSCC, pronounced "tusk"), the LMP2 cars will be combined with the Daytona Prototypes from Grand-Am into a single class. The COTA races permit a comparison of those cars from the WEC, ALMS and Grand-Am on the same track.

Here is a summary of the fastest race laps (time in seconds) for the top four cars in each series (for LMP2 and DP):

The results are somewhat surprising. The first thing that stood out to me was the difference between the WEC and ALMS LMP2 cars. I would have expected them to be much closer instead of nearly 3 seconds apart. I also expected the ALMS cars to be significantly faster than the DPs, and while nearly 2 seconds is far from nothing, I would have predicted a better showing from the ALMS LMP2. So my first question was:

 Why is there such a difference between the WEC and ALMS lap times?

Part of the answer is probably because the WEC LMP2 class runs on bespoke Dunlop tires (one car, Pecom Racing is on bespoke Michelins), while the ALMS class is on off-the-shelf Michelins. According to Ryan Dalziel, this can make quite a difference. Another part of the answer is that, while the race was run in dry conditions, rains prior to the ALMS race prevented the track to "rubber-in" sufficiently to permit maximum performance. Even the ALMS qualifying was run in the wet. The WEC qualifying and race were in dry conditions and benefited from the ALMS race seasoning the track. There is also one other obvious difference between the LMP2 cars in WEC and ALMS: All 4 LMP2 cars in the ALMS are HPD/Honda while none of the WEC cars are that configuration. Would these factors explain the entire 2 second difference between WEC and ALMS? Maybe, but we'll never know.

What about the small performance difference between ALMS/LMP2 and Grand-Am/DP?

Part of the answer may lie in the weather. Grand-Am had their race much earlier in the year when conditions were likely much better:

The temperatures are the daily high for Austin, Texas from the Weather Underground Weather and History Almanac (www.wunderground.com).

The 24-25F degree difference in ambient temperature very likely had an effect on performance, tire wear and driver fatigue. Looking at days prior to the race dates indicate that Grand-Am also had dry weather to prepare for the race, unlike the ALMS. 

The 2014 Season

Sadly, next year there will be no ALMS. We will however be able to see the TUSCC and WEC at Cota the same weekend next September. The TUSCC race is on the 20th and the WEC race is on the 21st. By then hopefully we will know what BoP measures have been applied to LMP2 and DP in the TUSCC Prototype Class and be able to more directly compare them to the WEC teams. Of course the best comparison would have been to have them in the same race.