What do you think of the new 2011 regulations?

And of course the battle of the giants continue. Audi vs Peugeot.
Audi revealed their Audi R18 and Peugeot has scheduled the reveal of their new 90X in some days : Also Aston Martin is building their new car, exciting

The first battle between them will start at Sebring March 19

Anyways, discuss!

I hope that more teams are able to battle for the lead this year. Do you know if any interesting new cars start in the GT class?

a quick google seach gave me this. I dont know what else is new other than the old GT1 class has been cut.

smaller engine -> that sucks but I'm sure that cars gonna do <3.30 at Le Mans.

I like :
- some new contructor are coming in end 2011 early 2012 like Honda, AMR, Toyota...Porsche?(let's hope )
- Pescarolo is back
- LMP2 cars looks to be still quite reliable and less expensive
- Peugeot = petrol engine ?
- 908 is still in da house Thanks ORECA
I don't like :
- wtf are these cars? R18 is simply an ugly wind tunnel missil which have no place into a car museum. It looks like a formula one which some bodywork and I think that's not Le Mans.
- Hybrid : ACO give a big advantage to hybrid car, something worse than what it was for Diesel. At least if Peugeot gonna entry a petrol car (if it's not Peugeot that would be Toyota or Honda (Porsche <3) ) ACO would have to make petrol and diesel as performant.

Quote from MoMo92i :

smaller engine -> that sucks but I'm sure that cars gonna do <3.30 at Le Mans.

Yeah, always seemed strange to me that they want to make the cars slower every year only because the technology gets better. Let the cars go wild! It is prototypes after all

Quote from MoMo92i :

- wtf are these cars? R18 is simply an ugly wind tunnel missil which have no place into a car museum. It looks like a formula one which some bodywork and I think that's not Le Mans.

hmm.. right^^ but if you want to win i guess they have to look like that

Quote from MoMo92i :

- Hybrid : ACO give a big advantage to hybrid car, something worse than what it was for Diesel. At least if Peugeot gonna entry a petrol car (if it's not Peugeot that would be Toyota or Honda (Porsche <3) ) ACO would have to make petrol and diesel as performant.

Although they might have an advantage, u can say that twice as much can fail I think it will be interesting, but possible a lot of DNF...

Other than that im really looking forward to the races up to Le Mans and of course Le Mans it self

Quote from MoMo92i :

- wtf are these cars? R18 is simply an ugly wind tunnel missil which have no place into a car museum. It looks like a formula one which some bodywork and I think that's not Le Mans.

That's a pretty poor argument, IMO. This is racing, not a beauty pageant. The R18 was designed to win, and Audi will do everything they can to do just that. The car is 100% within the rules. Also, I love it. It's ugly as a pig in shit, but I love it because of its ruthless functional design. Form is 100% function, nothing it dolled up. That's the way a race car should be. In some cases it may result in an attractive package, in some cases not; but either way, the R18 is menacing and I love it.

I prefer italian way of racing that says a race car must be fast and cute to see and hear.

Anyway I think it gonna be nicer with race colors as R15 was.

Hybrid is reliable...electrical engine are more reliable than petrol engine. For example, Porsches have shown that it can win a 24hours race (well the petrol engine failed ^^) and hybrid prototyp are more balanced

ACO wanna restrict engine size because Le Mans = straight = the fastest track of the world (exept oval ofc). Peugeot 908 did 245+km/h average lap. max speed in Mulsanne straight is 350+km/h and Mulsanne straight is a bumpy national road where lot of trucks drive each day. That's not exactly a road made for racing but that is why Le Mans is Le Mans.

Unfortunately, safety = less speed so downsizing. Anyway, ACO made some chicane into Les Hunaudières in 1991, made a new sector ("S" Porsche...) in 1970s...but Dumas/Rockenfeller/Bernhardt have just beaten the race record so don't worry, in less than 10 years LMP1 gonna be in 3.15

Ofcourse there is always the safety perspective..

Test of the R18 and the old, but updated, R15++:
http://www.americanlemans.com/primary1.php?cat=news|15483

btw R15+ wasn't updated. It is just more restricted.

New name = Updated

no it is not allowed

New Peugeot 908 is nice but 908 HDI FAP was nicer ^^

No hdi fap for new peugeot 908 ?

Otherwise, nice car

Did the Oreca's 2011 908 is the same as Peugeot's 2011 908 ?

no Oreca's is 908 HDI FAP (2010 version) whereas Pug's is 908. New engine is 3.7 V8 HDI FAP ~550cv.

Quote from MoMo92i :

Oreca's is 908 HDI FAP (2010 version)

Adapted to 2011 rules

Unlike Audi, the pug is quite similar to the old one(outside only ofc.)^^ Looks nice though

Quote from Flingoko :

Test of the R18 and the old, but updated, R15++:
http://www.americanlemans.com/primary1.php?cat=news|15483

Audi R18 is one of the best looking cars in Le Mans for me.

Although i cheer for Audi, u cant really say its good looking The pugs always looked good, so did the old pescarolos^^ French can do some things with cars - unfortunately they have a tendency to break down

I think it looks good. But who cares about its looks? Last time I checked they are made for racing, not "best looking car of the year award".

Italian thinks the contrary Anyway ofc performance is the most important aspect of a racing car, but it is good when it looks nice

Btw I don't really understand what Audi is doing. When you see their car, it looks to creat lot of downforce although Le Mans is something like a straight. When you see 908 HDI FAP (gonna be epic to speak about 2010 version instead of 2011) and Audi R15, it was the same feeling and the pugs was way faster than the german car.

Anyway, Pescarolo gonna win this year.

Actually think u got a point there However i have full confidence in Audi´s engineers Sure they know what they are doing

We gonna have the answer on June 12th at 16:00 local time

Le Mans is Le Mans so everything can really happen there

Quote from Flingoko :

Although i cheer for Audi, u cant really say its good looking The pugs always looked good, so did the old pescarolos^^ French can do some things with cars - unfortunately they have a tendency to break down

No they didn't. The Pugs are ugly as sin. That nose is a travesty, and the whole rear section is one amorphous surface with no detail. Ugly.

It is pretty nice in real the only thing that upset me was the cockpit.

Really don't mind the look except for those horrid sharkfins. At least they sorta blended in on F1 cars; here they just look like pieces of cardboard taped to the cars.