Diesel Smoke & Mirrors
Le Mans during years ending in an ‘8’ have over the past 40 years been
special, and in 2008 it was no different. The battle between Peugeot and Audi
was always going to overshadow the other classes and it did so, masking
Porsche’s achievement of two RS Spyders winning the LMP2 class on their
debut, Aston Martin defeating Corvette again in GT1 and the Risi Ferrari team
scoring an overwhelming win in GT2. It has been a long time since the
winners in all four classes have run trouble-free throughout the 24 hours, and
in each class the level of competition meant that total reliability was critical.
The pace of the diesels in qualifying and the race, coupled with the accident
of Mike Newton, the seventh driver to take flight this year, may prompt the
ACO to rush through emergency measures to slow the cars and reduce their
downforce. By next year, the ACO wants to have target race lap times of
3m30s for the LMP1 cars, and planned to do so by reducing air restrictor
sizes for petrol cars and turbo boost pressure for diesels.
That leaves manufacturers in even more of a quandary than they were before
the ACO press conference on Thursday. Open and closed cars will be
admitted in 2010, confirming the rumour started here in December. The
existing cars will be eligible to race beyond this deadline. Diesel and petrol
will be better balanced, but with the air restrictor rules not being announced
until September, and possibly new aero rules announced then too, teams will
have to rush through new cars if they are to race them in 2009.
Corvette denied that the C7 programme was dead and expects a decision
quickly whether or not General Motors will return to top flight endurance
motorsport in LMP1. This from a racing department which has consistently
fought against the suits back home to deliver victory at Le Mans time and
again, and turned the American Le Mans Series programme into a marketing
bonanza. The case has been made, for this and for other projects. The
question is which way will the suits jump?
Another case to ponder is GM’s position with the ACO, which in April
presented manufacturers with a draft set of regulations for 2010. According to
paddock rumour, the diesel manufacturers rejected them and delayed the
announcement of their new projects. With Peugeot’s racing department not
delivering for a second year, a significant reduction in diesel performance
would not be well received in Paris. Audi’s programme is for five years, and
this is its third, but it desperately needs a new car. Will it be petrol or diesel?
That depends on the rules, and we will have to wait until the Essen Show in
November after Audi delayed the announcement it was expected to make at
Le Mans…
The R10 TDI was in 2008 inferior to Peugeot’s 908 HDI FAP by up to six
seconds in qualifying and four seconds in the race when the track was dry.
While the Peugeots could overtake wherever they wanted, even changing
direction mid-manoeuvre, Audi had no option but to attack everywhere, taking
big risks under braking, mid-corner and on acceleration, all the time staying
clean. This was the big challenge for the drivers, and testament should be
paid to those in the GT1 and GT2 cars who played their part in avoiding big
accidents.
While Audi was tactically brilliant, keeping in touch with the leaders despite
its dry weather performance, the decisive factor was the rain, and how both
teams coped with the changeable conditions. In the wet on Sunday morning,
Audi was able to press home its advantage, using its tyres better and was
faster.
Audi Sport had devised a plan that concentrated on the performance of its
personnel, in the pits and in the car. The Audi driver changes were faster by
between five and 10 seconds, and there were fewer of them. From the start,
Audi quadruple stinted its drivers which also gave the number 2 car greater
consistency, particularly when the weather changed on Sunday morning from
dry to wet, from wet to dry, and the greasy bits in between. Tactically, Audi
called the race better.
“As soon as the rain came Audi went straight onto full wets,” said Michelin’s
competition manager Matthieu Bonardel. “Peugeot tried intermediates at first
before going to harder tyres then full wets.” Having lost the lead during the
night, Peugeot had to gamble on Sunday morning and their guesses did not
pay off. A catastrophic decision to put Nicolas Minassian out on wet tyres on
a dry circuit was as a result of a weather report that was not right, and gave
Tom Kristensen the chance to stroke home a comfortable win.
Audi was able to complete 12 laps on a tank of fuel compared with Peugeot’s
11 even given their attempt to keep pace with the Peugeot. By midnight, the
number 2 Audi had saved itself two pit stops, three driver changes and
despite their significant speed disadvantage around the 13.629km circuit,
were only two minutes and 53 seconds behind the leading Peugeot!
Peugeot had a strong driving line up, including Franck Montagny who was
outstanding in the dry conditions on Saturday evening, Nicolas Minassian,
Stephane Sarrazin and Pedro Lamy. Yet they were all in different cars and
each line-up had a weak link. At a time on Saturday when Jacques
Villeneuve was lapping in 3m27s and Capello in 3m29 in the Audi, Montagny
was regularly posting 3m20s laps.
That brought his car into the lead, before he handed to Christian Klien who
was called to the pit to replace the nose of the car due to only one headlight
working. The bodywork change was insufferably slow, as was Klien’s reaction
to the pit call which earned him a stop and go penalty for driving too long with
a defective headlight. The Austrian then spun the car into the gravel at 10pm,
undoing all of Montagny’s brilliant work. Villeneuve picked up speed on
Sunday, as he did in 2007, but in the dark and wet, he was not fast enough.
The Lamy, Sarrazin, Wurz car arguably had the strongest driving line up, but
a broken piston which enabled gear selection cost them too long in the pits
on Saturday evening to catch a healthy Audi.
“The hardest aspect was that we had a car that was obviously slower,” said
Kristensen. “It was three or four seconds slower in the dry. In the wet we
were able to take chances. We had a race we could win, and they had a race
they could lose. We had the right calls on tyres, which was difficult in the
night and the wet. The drivers drove very fast, were very disciplined, and we
had an iron will to win together.
“We decided to go four stints from the beginning. They copied our strategy
but it was far too late and we had stressed them. I was in the car late at night
when it started to rain, and got into a good fight with the number 7 car, and
we passed it in the pit stop. From then on we were really well disciplined and
we knew that there would be more rain. We took good solid chances and that
meant they had to dig in deeper.”
For McNish, the options were simple: “We knew we had one chance and that
was to put them under pressure straight away, be clean and tidy, but needed
to be on the risky side of traffic and strategy to be close enough if an
opportunity came about,” he said. “Twelve laps were important as were 4
stints, not easy on either but necessary. When it rained it was our chance
and the 3 + minute lead we had at 9am was enough for them to be the ones
taking risks and difficult strategy decisions. After 3 o' clock it was all plain
celebrating.”
Peugeot succumbed to this pressure. Not only did they struggle to get heat
into their wet-weather tyres which left them without grip, but they also wore
them out faster and had to change at every pit stop. This was despite running
three different downforce set-ups on the three cars, one of which was ‘maxi’
downforce setting. In the dry, the 908s could double stint, in the wet, Audi
could and may even have triple stinted. Do they have the same Michelin
tyres?
“I don’t think there was one mistake,” concluded Peugeot’s technical director,
Bruno Famin. “There is a short list of inconveniences that we had, and we
have to solve them. There were no major problems. I don’t think it was
strategy that was a problem. That was good. We have shown that even going
fast and consuming more fuel was the right choice. The problem in the rain
was the speed and that was because our package was not as good. We had
all sorts of problems with the car and tyre package.”
Peugeot was beaten by a team which performed better. It was Audi’s finest
hour at Le Mans, but it is not a trick that can be repeated. Peugeot Sport will
learn good lessons from this and will be even stronger next year. Audi needs
a new car because Peugeot will not fall like that again.
Andrew Cotton, June 2008
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