Frustrating that Audi won't be around to challenge Peugeot in what should have been another good race, but the GT field looks as deep as ever.

Huge crash for the Field prototype today:
http://www.americanlemans.com/index_news.php?n=14567

Bummer about Audi, but it should be a great race as always. Anyone know why Audi has been Sebring-averse in recent years?

Wow, thats a huge shunt for Field. I can't imagine he's the sort of outfit to have a spare car either....... Bad news

One of my favourite races of the year, but yeah, a shame Audi's not competing this year.

Neil

Pictures and story of Field's shunt.

http://www.americanlemans.com/index_news.php?n=14567

Shocker.

ouch :x

Creation withdraws from the race, cites sponsorship issues.

Just catching up on some reading, Autoweek March 8 says Audi did not get the changes it made to the R15's aero done in time to conform to the 2010 rules.

After that severe accident, Intersport have also withdrawn their entry, so we're left with only 5 LMP1s.

Spotters guide available here

http://www.spotterguides.com/images/storie..._sebring_sg.jpg

Have to say i'm struggling to get excited about this with audi being absent.

http://radiolemans.com/
ALMS season preview on at 10pm gmt,

That was the initial thought on the reason for their lack of an entry, but now it's clear that they will indeed be at Sebring with fully 2010-compliant R15s this weekend... but they won't actually run them until the day after the race for a 24 hour test. How pathetic is that? I'm going to the race on Saturday, and I intend to walk up to the transporters and tell anyone on the team that I can get a hold of how disappointing their lack of participation is. Has the ALMS become so irrelevant to the Audi bosses that they no longer see the marketing benefit of winning the 12 hours yet again? I blame the ALMS for absolutely atrocious marketing and going overboard with the BS "green racing" push in the last year or two, but I equally blame Audi for doing a disservice to fans of the marque and racing in general who are being denied another epic battle between the two best sportscars in the world when it would be so very easy for them to enter the race.
BTW, here's a pic of the compliant version of the R15, with the original nose modified heavily-


Anyway, I'm still excited to go to the race, mostly for my first chance to hear the Lola Aston in person though it has little hope of actually challenging the 908s for the win.

sounds like a f1 car, does the aston. itll be the corvettes that will make you grin ;)

Well, to each his own. I've heard just about every sportscar and F1 car of the last 20 years in person, and the high pitched noises are always the ones I seem to enjoy the most, especially the V12s. I'll never forget the sound of the 642 Ferrari F1 car I heard a couple years ago at a historics event, or my favorite sportscar sound, the BMW V12 LMR... The big V8s do have an appeal, my favorite of that breed was the Panoz LMP from '99-'04. As for the Vettes, I was happy to discover that the GT2 car is just as ground shaking as the GT1, though obviously it's got a lot less power so it isn't quite as impressive.

That'll make about 250 thousand other people really happy as well for LM. The Corvette rolling thunder lives on.

For those of us in the UK, the race will be shown live on Motors TV (Sky Channel 413) from 2pm on Saturday.

That's what's most frustrating about the whole deal, especially for a series with potential, no spec cars, good road circuits. Hopefully there will be some competition at Petit Le Mans later this year (last year the rain screwed everything up there).

Believe me, the rain sucked! I was there, waiting around for 4 hours of downpour, hoping it would dry enough to bring the cars back on the track. Anyway, the series was formally free of spec cars, but this year with the LMP "Challenge" class and the GTC Porsches there are effectively 2 "spec" classes... just a sign of the times, I suppose.

LMPC car regulations are possibly where LMP2 is heading in 2011, only that Oreca will not be the sole chassis maker and they'll be using other engines instead of the Chevy V8. As for the GTC Porsches... it could also be a sign that IMSA is thinking of expanding to a full GT3 class alongside the GT2s/GTs. So they might be spec now, but they won't necessarily be spec in the near future.

Only testing huh. That sucks. Yes it's Audi's decision but I see this decision as just how irrevalant the US racing market is to any car manufacturer. It's even fallen for the domestics with all the disenfranchisement of the people from all the shading dealings with our tax dollars. Audi was using Sebring as the feather in their cap on the way to Le Mans and now it means nothing. Sad sad sad. They want the 24 back so bad, I understand, but if the Lion runs in a market where they sell ZERO cars why can't Audi???

Look on SpeedTV.com. There is an inboard with Adrian Fernandez in the Aston. Ohhhh baby......drool.

Redstorm and Dan333sp, thanks for the answers regarding Audi. Good to know that Sebring is at least nominally on Audi's mind. I was increasingly worried that Audi had sworn off Sebring as the traditional warm up for the 24hrs.

PS: Good call about the LMR 12, Dan, that was a fun car to watch, especially its bouts with the Panoz LMP1 in ALMS. Those were wonderfully entertaining brawls. By the way, great name! The 333sp, the chassis that absolutely, positively refused to die.

I guess if there is a little variety in the LMPC class I could accept it as a regular fixture on the grid rather than just a field filler in tough times, but I'll never fully embrace a class in sportscar racing that doesn't allow any real technical development beyond a couple different chassis/engine combos. That is too much like Grand Am, and I've always hated those awkward Daytona Prototype turtles. One of the appeals of Le Mans type racing is seeing new cars every few years that are pushing the envelope of technology and speed like the Peugeots and Audis. As for GTC, I did hear that IMSA was thinking of expanding the class next year with the inclusion of at least the Audi R8 GT3 car and possibly the Ford GT. If they could get a grid similar to the FIA GT3 races in Europe, that would be spectacular!


That's what makes the least sense to me... Audi's biggest market is the US, and they have been increasing their marketing budget for this country recently, but massively cutting their racing here, while like you said, the French manufacturer with no interest in the US domestic market still races at Sebring. So odd. Last year when it became clear that Audi were only going to participate in the ALMS at Sebring and the Petit Le Mans, someone on the ALMS forum broke down the additional cost for them to run a 2 car team for the whole schedule beyond those 2 races, and amazingly it was just about what they apparently spent on that giant stand/audi world thing at the Frankfurt auto show last year. Sad that their priorities have shifted so far from what made them the best sportscar team in the world for the last decade.

I do love the 333, especially the noise! I remember being at the PLM in '99 when at one point in the race all 5 of the Ferraris entered happened to be running in a group on their own. The site of all 5 of those lovely cars shooting flames as they downshifted into turn 10 and then the sound of them echoing under the bridge as they accelerated away is one of those racing memories you'll never forget.

As for a chassis that refused to die... I think the car that takes the cake for that would have to be any Courage in recent years. Look at the development of the C60- Started out in 2000 in its original form, raced that way for a couple years until it morphed into the C65 hybrid rules car in P1 and P2, and morphed further into the Pescarolo LMP1 and P2 which retained the same basic chassis and still races today in the LMS, 10 years later. Even the LC70/75 is getting into that league, as it's gone from the original car to being the bassis for the Acura P2 effort, the ORECA AIM 01, and now the Formula Le Mans/LMPC car. Remarkable that such a tiny company could build such versatile cars.

Well there will be development if this class's overall chassis regulations form the base for LMP2 2011, you can be sure, competition between chassis builders does lead to development. The thing is that the ACO wants LMP2 to be a class solely for privateers, which it was indeed originally... until the RS Spyder came along.

the le mans challenge cars arent bad, shame there spec, but otherwise there fine pretty much, it is a proper lmp1 chassis with some changes i guess, and a really nice sounding engine, and they look pretty decent aswell. grand am has near spec cars that are ugly
around gt1 laptime, like a grand am car

I think Drayson are going to spring up a massive upset at this race. If Peugeot don't go for a quali set-up, then I'm honestly expecting that Lola to be plonked on pole by signor Pirro...

Live streaming of qualifying: http://stream.speedtv.com/

sweet

Surprise surprise, Peugeot locks out the front row. 3 minutes left and all the big prototypes are in the pits.

Faultless streaming from Speed. Wonder if they'll be doing similar for the race tomorrow? Sincerely hope they do.

If they do as they did last year, only a segment of the race will be streamed. The bulk of the race will be broadcast on Speed proper, but when they cut away to cover Nascar's Saturday events they'll broadcast Sebring via the web.

I agree, they do a very good job with the endurance races.

Yup, that's it - only stream for the two hours during Speed's Nascar break. There was some hearsay from Sebring winter tests couple of weeks ago that Scott Atherton had promised streaming this year. I hoped that meant something else (whole races) because this (qualifying + partly race) has been the case for past two years already.

Pretty close qualifying all around, nice to see that the Lolas are just a second off the pace of the Peugeots, but that's probably deceiving as the 908s lapped 2 seconds faster in the race last year than they had in qualifying, and that was with a strong Audi challenge so they definitely have something in reserve in case the petrol cars have a strong run tomorrow. P2 is separated by 2 tenths of a second and the top 3 in LMPC are within 1 tenth... not bad! I just can't seem to get onto the ALMS site to check the GT qualifying results, anyone have a link? I leave for Sebring in about 14 hours, can't wait!

Oh, well better than nothing. I'll have to go on one of my illicit live feed hunts to watch the remainder I guess.

I think that the official ALMS site will be streaming the whole race, and registration for that, I believe, is free. Unfortunately, they had pretty severe issues with the stream today.

Only 34 cars will start. They will be lucky to have 25 running at the end.

That's great news that they've made the jump to a video stream! It will be interesting to see if they have the track PA/radio commentary or the Speed commentary on their stream. I've always enjoyed their audio stream, so I actually wouldn't mind if the audio stream doesn't mate up with the video they're streaming.

Well from what I could catch there, it was the Speed TV commentary. However, you can always mute that and fire up the Radio Le Mans stream at the same time if you want to. Tested it today and the Speed TV stream was lagging the RLM one by just about 2-3-ish seconds.

That'll do very nicely.

And I think that they should do it, but unfortunately it's not enough: http://americanlemans.com/primary1.php?cat=news|14592

The 2010 American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón will start in an exciting new fashion at Sebring. In concert with television partner SPEED, americanlemans.com will stream Friday’s qualifying session starting at 1:45 p.m. ET AND two hours of Saturday’s race coverage live from noon to 2 p.m. ET for the 58th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Fresh from Florida.



I'm still optimistic that this could be some sort of testing for future. Altough they have done that for two years already but the video platform is different now... and as everyone saw, there were technical problems.

They'll probably stream the full race live when it comes to the 1h30 at Long Beach or the other 2h45 races. As for Laguna and Petit... well, the jury's out on those.

At least thank someone there's Radio Le Mans.

GT2 pole-sitting BMW has been kicked to the back of the grid!

What the twang is a "Stall test"?

The air inlet restrictors are covered and the car is supposed to stall as that should be the only source of air for the engine. If it doesn't, that means it must be getting air into the combustion chambers from some leak in the system which supposedly gives the car a horsepower advantage, though it's almost always just a crack in the airbox because of the pounding the car takes on the track or a loose seal and really is no advantage at all. Still, rules are rules and there have been many cars sent to the back of the grid or DQ'd for this very reason in ALMS history.

Fair enough, ta.

The worst thing about Grand Am, is that they named it after a lame Pontiac (Grand Am).

At least Trans Am was a good Pontiac named after a great series!.

May Grand AM die a Pontiac death.

I think the majority of Grand AM (Daytona Prototypes) are quite the ugliest racecars around, off the top of my head, with the possible exception of NASCAR.... On the other hand an LMS/ALMS P1 is blessed with beauty.

i think there worse than nascars tbh, plus theres a good reason for the boxyness of the cot, the wedge shape fronts of the older cars lift the rear wheels up of the car infront if they touch...

Couldn't agree more about the oxymoronic Grand Am stock prototypes, they look like brightly colored horseshoe crabs. They'll always have a warm place in my heart for supplying one of the funniest moments in modern motorsports, when they lost the 24hrs to a GT3 911RS

Anyone got a full live english speaking stream so I don't have to steal the TV all day?

http://rlm08.0157.org/nplayer.php

Radio Le Mans stream (commentary only).

And the stream on the ALMS site is here: http://www.americanlemans.com/primary1.php?cat=live (Might require registration, but that registration process is free).