The enduring appeal of the mother of all endurance events has received a shot in the arm lately, thanks to top level prototype sportscar racing entering what looks to be a golden period.
The winning Porsche 919 Hybrid driven by Nico Hulkenberg, Earl Bamber and Nick Tandy covered 5,383.455 km over the course of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, while the 19 races of this year’s Formula 1 World Championship will cover around 5,800 km by the time the season comes to a close in late November. Putting aside the hyperbole fueled criticism of F1 that is in vogue these days – thereby overlooking the things actually worth complaining about – that is a remarkable technical achievement any way you look at it.
Especially when you consider that that distance was covered at an average speed of 224.311 km/h. For F1 to do something comparable, it would have to race exclusively at a track like Monza, Spa-Francorchamps or Silverstone. And perhaps that is the reason why, almost improbably, a motor racing event that lasts for an entire day comes as a day of celebration for motorsport fans who normally get their racing fix in bite-sizes, be it two wheels or four. And that too at a ‘traditional’ racing track where the emphasis is on speed and power and the penalties for getting it wrong are high compared to venues where vast tarmac run off areas allow for many mistakes to go unpunished.
MOTORSPORT AWAY FROM THE SPOTLIGHT
When both F1 and MotoGP became big enough to be included among the sporting chatter largely dominated by football, tennis, basketball and even cricket their commercial bosses made sure that they would grab every possible eyeball they could by making them more television friendly.
Shorter races, focus on ‘personalities’, rivalries and even politics. Although F1 got the short end of the stick in the last category due to its administrative and commercial bosses welcoming controversy and acrimonious debate while construing any kind of publicity as good publicity.
These are things that NO ONE gives a damn about when it comes to Le Mans. It’s all about competition, ability and achievement. Be it of the participants, constructors, marshalls and even the rulemakers.
And purely from a racing point of view, sportscar racing was also lucky to avoid a fixation on aerodynamics as a means to achieve speed over a single lap. While it is an element that is not ignored, talk in the FIA World Endurance Championship and Le Mans is largely dominated by that of the current generation of hybrid engines.
DIFFERENT STROKES
Porsche uses a 2-litre, V-4, turbocharged, petrol engine, with F1 style energy recovery that puts out over 500 horsepower at around 9,000rpm – specs that will make a bandwagoning F1 fan question the current criticism of grand prix racing’s current engine regulations – is mated to a Lithium-ion battery that accumulates energy that is otherwise lost due to braking and directs it to a generator unit to the front axle. This amounts to a boost upwards of 400 horsepower.
What makes these technical specifications all the more special is that they differ from the ones found in Audi’s LMP1 machine, which had dominated Le Mans by winning 13 of the last 15 editions, albeit against competition that was not as tough as a fully prepared Porsche squad who extended their overall Le Mans tally to 17.
The R18 e-tron Quattro is powered by a 4-litre, V-6, turbo-diesel injection engine driving the rear wheels, like the Porsche, producing over 550 horsepower and using a mechanical flywheel accumulator system supplied by the Williams F1 team, which developed it when Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) were used in Grand Prix racing.
Last year’s WEC champion Toyota’s TS040 Hybrid that was left in the dust by the two German squads continued to use the 3.7-litre, normally aspirated, V-8 petrol engine paired to a supercapacitor, which gave the car a combined power output of 1,000 horsepower much like the Porsche and Audi. Although a lack of development meant that the VW Group stablemates had the jump on their Japanese rivals at both Le Mans as well as the two six-hour events at Silverstone and Spa that preceded it.
A lack of development and testing was made all the more apparent by the fourth factory LMP1 squad, which got only one car to the finish and was not classified as a finisher – on account of not completing at least 70 percent of the distance covered by the race winner. Amid much hype, Nissan’s GT-R LM Nismo was revealed as a machine that showed an ability to buck the trend.
Front-wheel drive, a front mid-engine, 3-litre, V6, direct-injected, twin turbocharged petrol engine that produces 500 horsepower paired to a mechanical flywheel hybrid system that recovers energy from the front brakes and delivers a power boost to the front axle and even the rear axle if necessary. At least that was the plan.
Issues with weight – cars need to adhere to a maximum weight limit – reliability as well as the system’s complexity meant that Nissan missed the first two rounds of the WEC and were not able to connect the rear axle to the drive train at all. An extremely front heavy layout as well as the race being reduced to a day long test session meant that only one of their three cars was able to take the chequered flag under its own power.
ALL PART OF THE SHOW
Differing approaches to achieve the same end, however, is what racing is ultimately about and while costs were stable through first the involvement of manufacturers and then the influx of tobacco sponsorship it was one of the things that defined F1 just as much as sportscar racing. Although historically both F1 as well as sportscar racing have seen technology that was successful or had potential to get banned to keep costs low – and hence more of a level playing field, to reduce speeds or even political reasons as is often cited by insiders.
Wankel, rotary engines being banned after Mazda’s triumph at the 1991 Le Mans race – piloted by two drivers who were also racing in F1 at the time – is such an example along with many others that can be dug up by sifting through the history of motorsport.
Perhaps now the powers that be will be more lenient to new approaches if a manufacturer is willing to commit to it. After all, it is from their participation in one capacity or another that motorsport even remains big and exciting enough to attract new fans.
RETURN OF MULTITASKING?
More leniency is also hoped for from the major motorsport series that will hopefully brainstorm a way to allow drivers to compete in various disciplines over a calendar year.
Nico Hulkenberg’s victorious participation has rightfully sparked tremendous interest in many other current F1 drivers who would want to follow his example and supplement grands prix with sportscar races and Le Mans, the way it regularly used to be till the eighties and even the nineties.
Multitasking even led to Karun Chandhok having a particularly busy month of June with rounds in Formula E and then Le Mans with Murphys Prototype where the three-driver team he was part of netted a fifth place finish in the LMP2 class.
Chandhok’s hunt for a class podium finish continues with Murphys with whom he has been participating at Le Mans since 2013. The first Indian to complete the 24 hour odyssey has become a regular at the event since 2012 and is likely to be so for many years to come. And who can blame him for wanting to? The combined testing, practice, qualifying and racing mileage is enough to satiate any circuit racing nut. Especially those lucky enough to actually get behind the wheel in the heat of the battle.
THE BOTTOM LINE
That’s what it all ultimately comes down to anyway. Not which motorsport discipline is supposedly better than the other or which or which one deserves to be featured more. In an ideal world, motorsport fans would get to see the best drivers in the world race in one series on one weekend and a different one the next. Sponsor commitments would be secondary and lack of a personal budget would be immaterial as factory teams would not need drivers with money in their pockets but only those with the talent to be able to drive their cars fast without crashing them.
It’s a nice fantasy for now but no more than that until all the hyperbole dies down and motorsport is regulated by and for those who like motorsport rather than those who simply use it as a means to attract attention to themselves. And for that one needs to go beyond quote-shoots and social media memes.
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