PRUETT: 24 Hours - Nine things to watch
Tuesday, 14 June 2016
Marshall Pruett (Images by Pruett, LAT)
Here are the key storylines to watch for in this year's 24 Hours of Le Mans:
THE OVAL IS BLEU
Ford. Ford. And more Ford. The Blue Oval's return to Le Mans is the biggest story of the event, and we expect the four-car team's presence to place a greater emphasis on the GTE-Pro class throughout the 24 hours of TV coverage.
That's a shame for the excellent LMP2 class, which usually puts on the best show, but with an icon like Ford back at the international sports car table, it's more than understandable.
If there's an adjustment to make on Ford's return, it could be in how the brand's history at Le Mans, and its iconic wins against Ferrari in the 1960s, carries no weight today. Ford vs. Ferrari? Not today. The only rivalry that matters in 2016 is of the Michigan kind.
Although Ferrari, Aston Martin and Porsche will be involved in the fight, the significance of Ford's return — and any success it may have — will be judged against Corvette Racing, its home state rival. Sports car fans from other countries might have an eye on the theoretical rekindling of the 1960s rivalry that made Le Mans so special, but in the USA, Le Mans 2016 is all about the Bowtie vs. the Blue Oval.
UNSAVORY SIX
Coming out of the 2015 race where 11 LMP1 Hybrids served as the featured content, a drastic reduction to just two apiece from Audi, Porsche and Toyota is an unsavory change.
There are valid reasons for the decrease; the three factory Nissans are gone, and with the diesel emissions scandal that hit the Volkswagen Audi (and Porsche) Group last summer — and the pending fines, which are expected to be massive — Audi and Porsche tightened their belts and left their third entries behind.
Subtract three Nissans and one each from the German teams, and those 11 featured Hybrid prototypes turned into six for 2016.
OVERALL GROWTH
Even with the shrunken LMP1 Hybrid ranks, a pit lane expansion after the 2015 race that added garage spaces closer toward Turn 1 has allowed the ACO to increase the grid from 56 to 60 cars.
By the numbers:
2015's 14 LMP1s (Hybrid and standard) have become nine in 2016.
2015's 19 LMP2s have become 23 in 2016.
2015's nine GTE-Pros have become 14 in 2016.
2015's 14 GTE-Ams have become 13 in 2016.
And the return of the Garage 56 entry in 2016 has added the final car to the field, an LMP2 car with special controls fitted for quadriplegic driver Frédéric Sausset.
KICKED IN THE JOULES
We had a feeling what we were seeing for pole speeds in 2015 would be the last of their kind, and we were right. The ACO stepped in to slow its fearsome LMP1 Hybrids by taking away somewhere between eight to 10 percent of the fuel the six cars from Audi, Porsche and Toyota are allowed to consume per lap.
That's the big difference with today's top prototype class. The ACO regulates the size of the fuel tank for each P1 car, and then adds an additional layer of control by dictating how much fuel can be burned during each 8.5-mile lap of the circuit. They use fuel flow sensors to capture that information in real time, and if a car is caught using more than permitted, the driver can make it up on the next lap by "giving back" the overage, which means that lap will be slower than normal.
As rule makers continue to take fuel away from the internal combustion engines found in LMP1 Hybrids, manufacturers spend untold millions to claw back lap time and speed through other means. The engine-based performance loss has been partially mitigated through improved energy recovery systems — think of it as electric horsepower — and greater aerodynamic efficiency.
Those efforts were on display during the test day on June 5th as Audi's R18 topped the event with a 3:21.375 lap, and with a clear track and better conditions, drivers suggested more speed could be found. But with the new fuel reduction in mind, all three manufacturers would be hard-pressed to match last year's pole time of 3m16.887s, and provided they have a dry track and a clear lap, the 2016 pole is expected to be a few seconds slower than the lap record set in 2015.