Records tumble!
Last week’s Le Mans 24 Hours saw records tumble with Neel Jani’s incredible pole lap falling nearly four seconds below the projected lap time just weeks after Brendon Hartley smashed the Spa Francorchamps lap record in May. Intriguingly, the drop in overall lap-times has come at the same time straight-line speeds have come down.
As such, World Endurance Championship’s organisers the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) have sort to curb increasing LMP1 speeds in 2016, with ACO Sporting Director Vincent Beaumesnil confirming the LMP1 technical working group are in the “advanced stages” of a speed restriction proposal.
Without question, the effectiveness of any velocity constraint is going to fluctuate from circuit to circuit. If you slow everything down by 20km/h an LMP1 is still going to be mighty quick through sections of track like the Porsche Curves – a section with very little run-off area in the event of an accident. Further reducing power in the main prototype class will only entice impatient drivers to take more chances whilst negotiating slower GT cars through corners; potentially exacerbating the very problem you’re trying to fix.
A proposal by the ACO is yet to be put forward, but the last thing we want to create is the same issue the European Le Mans series faced at Monza last month with the new LMP3-spec cars running at comparable straight-line speed to the GT’s. Admittedly the Ginetta LMP3 looked a handful and teams are probably fine-tuning the machines since taking delivery at Silverstone in April. Hopefully this happens sooner rather than later, as I’m sure GT teams wouldn’t take kindly to any power restriction imposition on their own class as a band-aid solution.
Trent Price, eRacing editor @realtrentprice