635 replies to this topic

[jonpollak]

The New Era of Conjoined Sportscar Racing is upon us !!!

 

 

 

Some History

 

Friday and Saturday see each series, at full capacity, race on what was originally Hendricks Field, a United States Army Air Forces base which served during World War II as a Heavy Bomber Training School for B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator pilots.

 

 

The surface remains as pristine as the day it was created /s

#RespectTheBumps.

 

Here's this year's event info !!

 

FULL SCHEDULE

 

TRACK MAP

 

 

Going to the track?

Here's a wonderful track guide and supplimental update videos from willapettinger

 

 

 

Last year's 1000 Miles of Sebring

 

Last year's 12 Hrs of Sebring

 

 

WEC-Entry List    Race on Friday    LIVE TIMING   Race Start 12:00 noon EDT (4 hours ahead of the UK) that's 4 pm UK

 

IMSA -Entry List   Race on Saturday  LIVE TIMING  Race start 10:10 am EDT (4 hours ahead of the UK) that's 2:10pm UK

 

Broadcasting:

WEC- Your best bet is Discovery+ They have all Thursday P&Q sessions and all of the race on Friday

€urosport will also have the race along with the Paid WEC App   and you can Buy It Here

 

USA  : Motortrend+ is now part of the Discovery+ network so that, and the paid app(with restrictions) OR the Good Old Nigerian Streaming Club™ are your options.

 

International :  Coverage is sketchy so check with local provider.

 

IMSA- This is easier SO, unless your country has a linear broadcast (Television) it's on https://www.imsa.com/tvlive/ *

 

USA: Peacock +NBC+USA

 

International : Here are countries with TV Broadcasts

 

* For those of us who suffer unreliablility of IMSA TV on their website  Radio LeMans have their own stream of the race.

 

IMSA SPOTTERS GUIDE

 

GREAT WEBSITES

 

https://www.dailysportscar.com/

 

https://sportscar365.com/

 

RADIO LeMans Player

 

THE FANS:

The people that go to this event are Off the Hook Party Crazed Wild Things.

In race going lore it's like the Snake Pit,The Bog and every other debautched race party combined.

 

HAVE FUN (and that's an order !)

Jp

Edited by jonpollak, 16 March 2023 - 18:32.

[balage06]

So I guess there will be a few drivers doing both races?

[B Squared]

Thanks Jp; a close friend (Greg, who you met at The Dukes of September) has a place in Palmetto. I look forward to the time when I can go down for IndyCars at St. Pete (if they can clean themselves up), go see other friends in Orlando, Ft. Lauderdale and Naples, finishing the trip with my first Sebring. 

[pacificquay]

So I guess there will be a few drivers doing both races?

 

Cameron, Christensen, Fittipaldi, Vanthoor and Blomqvist for a start

Edited by pacificquay, 13 March 2023 - 16:30.

[jcbc3]

I hope everything MSR are roundly booed all the time. Yeah, I'm petty.

[FLB]

I hope everything MSR are roundly booed all the time. Yeah, I'm petty.

It's not MSR that needs to be tarred and feathered; it's IMSA's (lack of) leadership.

Edited by FLB, 13 March 2023 - 18:32.

[jcbc3]

No, the original sin is the bigger one.

[Dan333SP]

It's not MSR that needs to be tarred and feathered; it's IMSA's (lack of) leadership.

 

Why not both? 

 

Definitely agree that the MSR original sin is worse here, but it's a farce that MSR were allowed to keep the win. I hope this doesn't happen, but you'd have to imagine the FIA wouldn't hesitate for a second to throw the WEC Sebring winner out if they were up to some sort of shenanigans manipulating data to contravene the rules... unless it's Ferrari, of course. Then they get a pass 

[highdownforce]

WEC Prologue in numbers








Quick remainder: LMDh will have the same BoP for both races.

Edited by highdownforce, 13 March 2023 - 19:34.

[Dan333SP]

Very excited for this weekend. My first big international sportscar race was at Sebring back in '99 for the start of the ALMS era, and since then I attended in '00, '09, '10, and most recently '19. I've had a bit of a cross section of the eras from LMP900 through diesels to DPi, I'll need to make it next year to see Hypercar/GTP as well. 

 

Here's a smattering of photos I've taken from '09/10/19 if anyone is interested. 

 

 

Edited by Dan333SP, 13 March 2023 - 20:00.

[azza200]

great pics

[Sterzo]

Some History

 

Friday and Saturday see each series, at full capacity, race on what was originally Hendricks Field, a United States Army Air Forces base which served during World War II as a Heavy Bomber Training School for B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator pilots.

Many of those B17 pilots would have ended up in Norfolk in the UK, some operating from Snetterton. And some of the B24 pilots would have gone to Hethel, where Lotus still tests cars on the old runway.

 

In the eighties or nineties, a driver, whose name I have shamefully forgotten, came from the US to race in British F3. He lost a wheel on the main straight at Snetterton, close to where his uncle's bomber once shed a landing wheel. Both were uninjured.

[FLB]

Very excited for this weekend. My first big international sportscar race was at Sebring back in '99 for the start of the ALMS era, and since then I attended in '00, '09, '10, and most recently '19. I've had a bit of a cross section of the eras from LMP900 through diesels to DPi, I'll need to make it next year to see Hypercar/GTP as well. 

 

Here's a smattering of photos I've taken from '09/10/19 if anyone is interested. 

 

 

 

2010. I was there.

 

 

The Lola Aston is quite simply the best-sounding race car I've heard in my life... and I was every year at Montreal for the F1 race from 1985 to 2004.

Edited by FLB, 13 March 2023 - 21:24.

[Dan333SP]

It’s up there. No prizes for guessing what Ferrari prototype I have at the top of my list. Aston would be on my extended Mt Rushmore of sports car sounds with the 333, Porsche RSR ‘17, BMW LMR, and the Z4 GT3.

Still think the Merc V10 in the 2000/2001 Mclaren tops all those though.

[amerikalei]

Given that this coincides with collegiate Spring Break, I hope IMSA has been working the advertising with the local youth market.

[jonpollak]

Jp

[BRG]

 

1964, when men were men and cars still looked like cars.

[B Squared]

Given that this coincides with collegiate Spring Break, I hope IMSA has been working the advertising with the local youth market.

I've never seen young males going to Florida on spring break looking for racecars. 

[juicy sushi]

It’s up there. No prizes for guessing what Ferrari prototype I have at the top of my list. Aston would be on my extended Mt Rushmore of sports car sounds with the 333, Porsche RSR ‘17, BMW LMR, and the Z4 GT3.

Still think the Merc V10 in the 2000/2001 Mclaren tops all those though.

I'd like to nominate the old 4 litre Judd V10 and the 6 litre V8 in the Panoz LMP1 as well in the sound department.  Opposite ends of the spectrum, but as a power trio accompanied by Porsche flat-6s a very solid musical group.

[Dan333SP]

I would love to be a fly on the wall for the IMSA team meetings this week with the whole MSR Daytona situation. IMSA will surely be facing some tough questions, and I bet Mike Shank won't be popular amongst his peers. 

[ARTGP]

Very excited for this weekend. My first big international sportscar race was at Sebring back in '99 for the start of the ALMS era, and since then I attended in '00, '09, '10, and most recently '19. I've had a bit of a cross section of the eras from LMP900 through diesels to DPi, I'll need to make it next year to see Hypercar/GTP as well. 

 

Here's a smattering of photos I've taken from '09/10/19 if anyone is interested. 

 

 

 

The Mazda would have fit right in with today's LMDh cars. Are we SURE they can't just roll it back out with a rotary engine and the spec hybrid?  Did we triple check that? 

Edited by ARTGP, 14 March 2023 - 19:34.

[juicy sushi]

Mazda, IMSA, and the ACO are all not interested in having fun at the moment.  

[Dan333SP]

It's a little ironic that Mazda built their DPi on what was comparatively the least competitive LMP2 chassis of that generation and were a little hamstrung by some of its specs, whereas the "new" Multimatic that the Porsche is built on seems to be quite handy. Off by a generation for them. 

[FLB]

Mazda, IMSA, and the ACO are all not interested in having fun at the moment.  

Mazda going back to Le Mans would be utterly idiotic, IMHO. There hasn't been a single-race win milked out more than the 1991 24 Hours of Le Mans. If they went back, they'd be condemed to win or else everybody would be saying they've fallen as a car company. That's why Moro-san set the bar so high after Joest was signed, almost guaranteeing they'd never reach it (and yet they almost did, so the plug was pulled).

 

Add to that the fact they are very dependent on Toyota nowadays, something they were not in 1991. It would be unwise politically to compete against what is Toyota's flagship international motorsports program, especially considering the prestige Le Mans still has in Japan.

[highdownforce]

Edited by highdownforce, 15 March 2023 - 00:05.

[ARTGP]

The new WEC intro: 

 

New FIA WEC Intro I The Hypercar golden era has arrived! - YouTube

 

 

The sound is like a modern take on the early 2000s WRC intros and I'm okay with that   . 

Edited by ARTGP, 15 March 2023 - 01:03.

[kumo7]

Mazda going back to Le Mans would be utterly idiotic, IMHO. There hasn't been a single-race win milked out more than the 1991 24 Hours of Le Mans. If they went back, they'd be condemed to win or else everybody would be saying they've fallen as a car company. That's why Moro-san set the bar so high after Joest was signed, almost guaranteeing they'd never reach it (and yet they almost did, so the plug was pulled).

Add to that the fact they are very dependent on Toyota nowadays, something they were not in 1991. It would be unwise politically to compete against what is Toyota's flagship international motorsports program, especially considering the prestige Le Mans still has in Japan.

Sometime, this idiotic actions says way more than what is understandable!

[jonpollak]

While we are ‘Getting the Band Back Together’ if a screaming solo is needed after the second chorus I’d nominate that Mazda 787 !!

Jp

[paulb]

While we are ‘Getting the Band Back Together’ if a screaming solo is needed after the second chorus I’d nominate that Mazda 787 !!

Jp

... or EVH's intro to Eruption.

 

This should be a fascinating and hopefully competitive weekend. At the moment, IMSA looks more promising than WEC but who knows what will happen.

Edited by paulb, 15 March 2023 - 12:31.

[Dan333SP]

Maybe I'm soft but I heard the 787's engine in the back of a Kudzu DLY chassis at Sebring that first year I attended and it was just too loud to be enjoyable. I remember crossing the pedestrian bridge over the S/F straight and that thing scared the living daylights out of 14 year old me. 

[Dan333SP]

Videos of the DLY for tax

 

 

[Dan333SP]

While I'm walking down memory lane watching Sebring videos I found this- 

 

https://youtu.be/wUFtcrKu0c0?t=538

 

Classic early 00s weird videography going on there, but some really nice shots of the LMR and the general ambiance of Sebring. 

[highdownforce]

Porsches united

[Venom21]

Sandbags lifted.  Ferrari already into the 1:47s, Cadillac has an ideal lap of 1:47.8 from their best sector times.

[Dan333SP]

Porsches united

 

Fantastic picture. Wish there was a little more variety in the color schemes of their cars, oh well. 

 

Shots like this make me wonder what sportscar operation has the most cars/team personnel across all their various branches. I'd imagine AF Corse are up there between their GT and Hypercar programs for Ferrari, but I also know some of the Porsche squads like Proton have a ton of irons in the fire. 

[Dan333SP]

Sandbags lifted.  Ferrari already into the 1:47s, Cadillac has an ideal lap of 1:47.8 from their best sector times.

All my posting in this thread and I completely forgot it's already Wednesday and the race is just 2 days away so they're practicing! Ferrari are indeed looking very quick all of a sudden. Top 4 currently covered by half a second, Ferrari-Cadillac-Toyota-Ferrari. Tasty. 

 

Kinda funny that 4 of the bottom 5 in LMP2 at the moment are teams that will be running Hypercars either later this season or next (Jota, Vector Sport, Alpine). 

Edited by Dan333SP, 15 March 2023 - 15:42.

[highdownforce]

Kinda funny that 4 of the bottom 5 in LMP2 at the moment are teams that will be running Hypercars either later this season or next (Jota, Vector Sport, Alpine).

Just like top 2

[ezequiel]

Villeneuve in the 1.52s, much better than at the prologue

[Dan333SP]

Just like top 2

 

Fair, I guess most of the P2 teams have immediate or near term plans to move to Hypercar. 

[jonpollak]

FP3 will be live on You Tube tomorrow at 15:45 GMT

 

 

Jp

[jonpollak]

FP1 results

 

 

https://www.dailyspo...ring-Free-1.pdf

 

EDIT:

 

Lanky Turtle to the rescue

 

 

Jp

Edited by jonpollak, 15 March 2023 - 21:43.

[Venom21]

FP2 underway

 

Toyota already setting the pace 

Kobayashi into the 1:46s nearly half a second quicker than Alpine's pole lap last year
Hartley low 1:47s

 

Glickenhaus into the 1:49s 

Edited by Venom21, 15 March 2023 - 20:53.

[highdownforce]

Glickenhaus into the 1:49s

Ahead of both Porsches and Peugeots.

[Risil]

Ooh I like this. I'll see if I can follow the IMSA race while I'm pretending to work very hard.

[ARTGP]

FP1 results

 

 

https://www.dailyspo...ring-Free-1.pdf

 

EDIT:

 

Lanky Turtle to the rescue

 

 

Jp

 

Long live lanky turtle. 

[ARTGP]

I would love to see Porsche vs Ferrari go down to the wire for the overall win here.

Edited by ARTGP, 15 March 2023 - 22:43.

[highdownforce]

WEC Hypercar FP2

Edited by highdownforce, 15 March 2023 - 22:46.

[FLB]

Is it me or are the 963s... disappointing (both Daytona and Sebring taken into account)?

[ARTGP]

Is it me or are the 963s... disappointing (both Daytona and Sebring taken into account)?

Oh sweet summer child . It’s Penske. There is plenty of Florida sand in those 963s.

They weren’t that slow in Daytona, but Acura had everyone covered anyway. Reliability was spec part failures.

Edited by ARTGP, 15 March 2023 - 23:08.

[highdownforce]

Is it me or are the 963s... disappointing (both Daytona and Sebring taken into account)?

So far, yes. But let's see in the race.

Another point is: Taking Daytona as measure, would it be a huge extrapolation to conclude that BMW is running on Vanwall pace?

... but Acura had everyone covered anyway

Put a Earth Dreams livery on it and send it to race in Europe.

Edited by highdownforce, 15 March 2023 - 23:43.