[Sensible_Speed]

I watched pretty much the entire race and figured as much. The Ferrraris are on a different plane altogether, in terms of pace in the dry. The rain played equalizer for a while, but when the track dried out, they took over the race immediately.

Toyota's challenge for the win showed how important experience is, in a 24 hour endurance race. While Porsche dominated in the 6 hour competitions, driving 24 hours continuously is a challenge in itself. They couldn't keep up with the Toyotas, Ferraris or even Caddies throughout the race. If the Cadillacs hadn't crashed when they did, they could've mounted a fighting chance at victory. Even Ferrari committed massive infractions and just about got away with it.

Despite all the glamour from a Ferrari victory in Le Mans, the race left a lot to be desired. New entries struggled with reliability issues. When they didn't, they found themselves in the wrong side of the race regulations and rules. Ferrari themselves took on so many penalties for different infringements, it was a surprise they won at all! FIA needs to clarify what is allowed while racing and what isn't and apply the laws uniformly throughout the race.

The local teams, Peugeot and Alpine struggled and suffered throughout the race. Alpine needs a complete overhaul of their racing program at this point. Their engineering bona fides need to be questioned for the quality of car they brought to this race. Peugeot on the other hand, need to spend some time in the wind tunnel and fix their design. While the car seems reliable, it is nowhere near quick enough to challenge Porsche, Ferrari or Toyota.

New entrant Lamborghini did well for their first race, completely the full 24 hours with few issues to account for. This is a great first step towards building a championship contender. Cadillac did impressively too! Their cars were completely reliable and would've finished the race, if it weren't for driver error, I suspect caused by fatigue. Veterans Toyota, showed why they are still a force to be reckoned with, providing a tough fight for Ferrari both, last year and the present one. Their drivers are arguably the best on the grid, bar none.

BMW is quickly earning a reputation for being an accident prone outfit. They had only one car finish at Le Mans, and brought out two major safety incidents in the last two races, with the spectacular crash at Spa, grinding that whole race to a halt for more than an hour. Personnel management need some focus and drivers should be handled better.

Meanwhile, despite displaying some of the best racing at La Sarthe this year, the LMP2 class is all but finished. They weren't included in the WEC season at all! It really seems to be a feeder class for the more prestigious hypercar segment.

LMGT3 on the other hand, brought out a lot of talent to the forefront this time around. Manthey EMA finished on the top stepped in their Porsche, while WRT came second, driving a BMW machine. The podium was completed by Proton Competition, driving their Mustang GT3. This class was a very close run race to the end, like the hypercar class, with 5 different cars being in contention for victory. The all women outfit, Iron Dames, managed only fifth in the end, despite looking competitive throughout. Pole sitter Inception, couldn't even manage a top 5 finish after spinning out early on in the race.

Overall, this year's Le Mans showed us that with the right set of regulations, manufacturer will show interest in developing innovative racing machines, which employ tech that eventually trickles down to road going cars. With Aston Martin set to join in the 2025 season with a Valkyrie based entrant in the hypercar class, thing are looking better than ever for sportscar racing right now.

Despite all the show and brouhaha of Formula 1 and open-wheeled racing, the World Endurance Championship is more realistic in terms of developmental goals for the industry as a whole. With the ever-tightening climate regulations threatening to stifle the industry if newer, cleaner development isn't fast-tracked, this series has the potential to impact development of new cleaner technologies and stand as a showcase for their use in society at large.

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I agree that Cadillac were doing really rather well before crashes took a toll on their charge. I think they can be pleased with their effort at the big one. I'd love to see them challenge at the very front next year. When was the last time an American marque took outright victory? Would be Ford with the GT40 right? Cadillac winning the big one would be a great fillip for the sport stateside.

When Peugeot brought in a traditional wing to their design I was already concerned that it would be a compromise and it seems my intuition bore out. The philosophy of the car was around ground effect wasn't it? Having to now adapt to a traditional rear wing for downforce would inherently mean the car is likely neither here or there in terms of maximising its potential. I wonder if they'll have to do a real thorough rework of the design to be able to get on pace with the other contenders. Worry is with any set of regulations, if your bold design decision turns out a bummer, you're left playing catch up throughout.

Correctly put: Alpine really need to have a long hard look at their entire racing operation. I'm amazed they don't make more of their race engines at Viry-Chatillon instead of roping in Mecachrome to do it.

Was a shame the BMW hypercar with the art livery got dinged up.

I wonder if anyone has done an analysis of how the LMDh fared vs LMH cars. Out of the top 3 marques only the Porsche is the LMDh spec right?

[Sensible_Speed]

Originally Posted by ads11

Correctly put: Alpine really need to have a long hard look at their entire racing operation. I'm amazed they don't make more of their race engines at Viry-Chatillon instead of roping in Mecachrome to do it.

I wonder if anyone has done an analysis of how the LMDh fared vs LMH cars. Out of the top 3 marques only the Porsche is the LMDh spec right?

I suspect the problem being Renault. It is a long shot, but hear me out. Renault is a state-owned entity. It comes under France's public sector affairs. The French economy seems to be trending towards unserviceable debt of late. Their recent pension scheme revision, which drew the ire of their masses, was to cut down government spending. Alpine, being wholly owned by Renault, might be facing budget constraints due to this. Of course, I could be completely off, but I strongly suspect this to be the case. They just don't have the money to spend on development. The Alpine F1 team is suffering too.

As far as I know, I think Porsche, Cadillac, BMW and Lamborghini are LMDh spec. Ferrari was in the IMSA series last year, but this time around, they chose to focus on the FIA WEC, which races in the European circuit, closer to their fanbase. But the concept still looks to be based on the LMDh from last year, as the IMSA and WEC have an interoperability agreement in place. That is why we see all the above teams in the WEC too.

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Details on Astons Hypercar programme


Interesting that Aston are going with the full fat Hypercar spec rather than the LMDh - given their usual money problems I figured they'd slap a Valkyrie bodyshell on top of the Dallara spec chassis. Also looks like they won't be using any hybrid element, just a big stonking V12. That's bound to gain them fans.

I'm also surprised they're entering a full programme into IMSA but I guess they desperately want those US sales.

Given the inept race management at the F1 team and how useless Lance Stroll is, I can see either Fernando rage quitting and moving back to WEC or Lance being quietly shuffled to these endurance programmes instead (if only..).

Aston Martin have begun testing the new 'hypercar' with which they will return to Le Mans in 2025.

The British outfit, whose cars will be overseen by the Heart of Racing works team, join several manufacturers who have returned to the World Endurance Championship following the introduction of the new hypercar class.

Two AMR-LMH Valkyries will compete at next year's Le Mans 24 Hours, which was won in 2024 by Ferrari's 499P car for the second year in succession.

The last outright win for Aston Martin at Le Mans came in 1959, with 2025 set to mark their first tilt at the top-tier race since 2011.

The team will also take one step further than many of the returning manufacturers and run their own factory-made chassis in the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship - the equivalent series in America, which includes the Daytona 24 Hours.

Adam Carter, Aston Martin's head of endurance motorsport, said: "The Valkyrie is a pure, leading edge racing machine, and while it is very early in the testing cycle, we are satisfied that it is achieving the targets."

Sportscar racing has seen a resurgence in popularity and participation with hypercars, with manufacturers able to compete with divergent design philosophies all under a 'balance of performance', which limits the power output of the cars.

Competitors can buy in a customer chassis and integrate it with their own power units, or build a fully original factory chassis from scratch.

Porsche, Ferrari, Peugeot, General Motors, Lamborghini, Alpine, BMW and other independents have joined the ever-present Toyota in recent years, producing several unpredictable outcomes in races.

Aston Martin, who produced the Valkyrie with Heart of Racing at a newly rebuilt facility near Silverstone alongside the Formula 1 team, will run their own chassis with a 6.5-litre V12 Cosworth engine.

Several Formula drivers have turned to sportscars, including 2009 champion Jenson Button, who says the cars are "more technically advanced" than those in F1.

Aston Martin's current driver, two-time champion Fernando Alonso, has won Le Mans twice with Toyota, whilst ex-Aston driver and four-time F1 champion Sebastian Vettel tested a Porsche hypercar earlier this year.

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Looks like Jota will be ditching their Porsche hypercars to instead become the factory Cadillac team.

https://x.com/onlyendurance/status/1...o6OWNLiVA&s=19

Good to see Jota become a factory outfit. The Cadillac probably isn't on par with the Porsche yet but hopefully they can close the lap. Jota are a professional outfit and this means Cadillac well have a pair featuring in the whole season

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I was ruefully watching Isotta Franchini this year so no surprise when I came across this announcement:

https://x.com/onlyendurance/status/1826306254009946488

They're immediately pulling out of WEC Hypercar.

On another note, the algorithm spat out this:

https://youtu.be/VMNSXFpi4Ig?si=CJ-aIYhyoR-IyRI0

I'm about halfway through and sure it's clearly an exercise in Cadillac marketing but it's still good to see that there's a concerted American factory effort in the premier class of sportscar racing. And the way I see it, if Cadillac do indeed manage to finagle an entry into F1 alongside Andretti, FOM cartel permitting, then all this work will feed into that project as well. I will say it's interesting for me to watch this after knowing that Cadillac are gonna be run by Jota now instead of Chip Ganassi.