46 replies to this topic

[aerogi]

I have this question that bothers me for quite some time.

It is purely hypothetical though. Imagine the frontrunner has a lead of 10 laps on number two. At 15.45pm this car breaks down and retires.

The car in second place, which is 10 laps behind, can never 'overtake' off course and do more laps.

So the car that retired had the most laps, is classified, but did not finish.

[Leif Snellman]

As the car doesnt take the flag it isn't classified. Yep, as I understand it the second car wins.

[VDP]

There was also a problem at Spa The two first didn't reach finishing their last lap,
The first was the third one.
It happens in 1925

Robert

[Holger Merten]

Yes Leif, easy and correct. Only the car, that makes all the 24 h in Le Mans is qualified. Imagine, there are fatal tecnical problems in the LMP 1 class and all the Audis, Pescarolos and so on are out of the race at 15,45. Than the car, that finishs first is the winner! It's so easy.

[SEdward]

Only cars that are running at the finish are classified. There was a mild controversy in 1977, when the winning Porsche was a long way ahead but on its last legs as the finishing time approached. IRRC, they car sat in the pits for much of the last hour of the race and managed to do just one lap at the very end with a seriously sick engine.

Edward

[Arjan de Roos]

That is clear, but may I follow up with another question?

Le Mans 1991 was an event that saw one of the last entries for the Lancia LC2 (Veneto Equipe Jolly Club) with Giorgio and Coppelli. We saw they were having many troubles and had the car more in than out of the pits. At a point they waited with the car in the box, possibly succesfully repaired and send it out again, just minutes before the flag fell.

At the time we thought indeed it was waiting to be running at the finish in order to be classified.

It covered only 111 laps and was NC. However the official listing puts them on pos 15. On pos 16 was listed the Spice SE89C of Piper/Iaccobelli/Ricci. This car covered 280 laps. Why was it listed in this way? Or are the NC cars placed between the Classified and the DNF cars in random order?

[ensign14]

Originally posted by SEdward
Only cars that are running at the finish are classified. There was a mild controversy in 1977, when the winning Porsche was a long way ahead but on its last legs as the finishing time approached. IRRC, they car sat in the pits for much of the last hour of the race and managed to do just one lap at the very end with a seriously sick engine.

Jurgen Barth went off for a final lap on one cylinder. The team told him to time it so he crossed the line after 4pm if he felt it was terminally ill, and they would argue the toss later - the final lap had to be something like within 400% of the fastest race lap and as the lap started at something like 3.15pm when it came into the pits the Porsche would never have made it. However Jurgen thought it was OK, crossed at 3.58pm or something, and completed a genuine final lap in 6 minutes, so the controversy never arose.

[gerrit stevens]

Originally posted by Leif Snellman
As the car doesnt take the flag it isn't classified. Yep, as I understand it the second car wins.

That was also the rule in the early days of the WCD racinng. Several times cars which completed more laps than finished cars were not classified.
In Belgium 1960 Graham Hill retired with one lap to go. Under today's rules he would have classified third. In 1960 he was a non-classified.
However I don't know the exact rule because that year there were more retirements (in other GP's) and they were actually classified even in points paying finishes.

At Le Mans do you have to finish the race (take the flag) to be classified or is a certain amount of laps sufficient. How long after 4 o'clock will the the chequered flag be shown.

Hypthetical.
The leading car passes the finish line at 15.59.50. It still needs to do one lap. Suppose the car has a mechanical failure in the last lap. Ergo the car does not take the flag. Still it has run more than 24 hours, and is technically finishing the 24 hours. Is the car noted as the winner?


Gerrit Stevens

[BRG]

IIRC there are some quite complicated rules about this for Le Mans.

The basic rule is that to be a finisher, you must cross the finishing line after 4pm. But then there is a time limit in which that last lap must be completed (that is, you can’t rebuild the car and finish the race the following Thursday). I think there is also some requirement to complete a certain number of laps in the last hour or so, to stop someone parking up at 10am and waiting until 3.59pm before popping in a final lap. Over the years, ACO have gradually ironed out all the loopholes.

(Of course, none of the rules apply to French cars, especially those actually built in Le Mans )

[aerogi]

Thanks for the info and views here! So here the rule ' to finish first, first you have to finish' must be applied here.

So even if you have 10 laps in advance, but you retire (crash or whatever) and do not finish under he chequered flag, you will not be classified and thus not win the race.

It's clear now

[Holger Merten]

It's not only important to be fast, it's also important to be reliable over 24 hours.

[Arska]

Do they start waving the flag at 24 hrs, or do they start flagging with the leader and then the rest after 24 hrs?

If the latter, what do they do in aerogi's scenario? Does the car 10 laps behind the previous leader have to keep racing after 24 hrs until it has more laps? I suppose this question could be extended to F1 and other series where a time limit may be used.

[ensign14]

No, they are all just flagged off. So the winner would have (say) 350 laps whereas the chap with 360 would not be classed. Once the time limit for the final lap had passed the race is over.

[aerogi]

Originally posted by Holger Merten
It's not only important to be fast, it's also important to be reliable over 24 hours.

well, that's exactly the problem as described in my example. If the car that is 10 laps behind, it could have lost those 10 laps in the pits... so the car that is leading until 10 minutes before the end has proved to be more reliable in 'time'...

anyway, if wonder what kind of politics and discussion such a situation could cause... even if the rules seems to be clear

[bill moffat]

..a couple of other rules in the ACO Monopoly game.

1) At 10am on Sunday morning all cars have to have covered a minimum percentage (?50%) of the class leader's distance. You can thus have the paradox of a repaired car running very strongly but being black-flagged off the circuit with 6 hours still to run, not sure that I agree with that one.

2) To be classified as a finisher a car's final lap at fall-of-flag has to be completed in less than 8 minutes (from memory). So the paradox arises of a car leading by a country mile, suffering fuel feed problems on its final lap and struggling around in 9 minutes. As the driver mounts the podium and shakes the Moet he is quietly told that he is not classified....similarly a last lap conducted under safety car conditions would probably result in no classified finishers !


2 other unwritten ACO rules go like this :

1) WR will continue to be guaranteed 2 entries every year despite their hopeless performance.

2) When a Pescarolo hits gearbox troubles sent the safety car out for a few laps to slow the Audis down.


Such rules ensured that Colin Chapman and many others have had an enduring love affair with the ACO...

[Holger Merten]

Originally posted by bill moffat
..a couple of other rules in the ACO Monopoly game.

(...))


2) When a Pescarolo hits gearbox troubles sent the safety car out for a few laps to slow the Audis down.

Wonderful. I'm just looking over the Rhine to France and I could say: You are right.

[Disco Stu]

During the Speed Channel coverage of the race they said that the race officially ends at 4pm, regardless of where the cars are on the track. The rest of the last lap is irrelevant. That sure sounds odd, is this true or did they make a mistake?

[roger_valentine]

One slightly unusual feature of Le Mans (in recent years, anyway. I don't know for how long this has been the case) is that there is no 'slowing down lap/lap of honour/whatever you like to call it. Cars are flagged off to parc fermé immediately after crossing the line. Quite what happens if there is a close finish and cars are racing up to the line, I don't know.

So, the leading driver usually treats his last lap as a lap of honour - drives very slowly, waves to the crowd, etc. Everyone else does likewise, and there seems to be an (unwritten?) agreement that everyone gets themselves into line astern behind the leader for a formation finish. I'm sure I can remember occasions when the leader has miscalculated, and driven his 'victory lap' too quickly, crossing the line before 4pm, thus committing himself to another lap. No great harm there. But what if he errs the other way? Spends so long waving and accepting the plaudits of the crowd that his victory lap that he exceeds the time allowed? (And just how long is that? 8 minutes? 6 minutes? 400% of fastest lap? Some recent victory laps have been exceedingly slow).

[bill moffat]

Originally posted by Disco Stu
During the Speed Channel coverage of the race they said that the race officially ends at 4pm, regardless of where the cars are on the track. The rest of the last lap is irrelevant. That sure sounds odd, is this true or did they make a mistake?

They're wrong. If you don't cross the line after 4pm and before ? 4.08pm then you are not classified. Another media balls up I'm afraid, similarly Radio 5 Live converted La Sarthe to a 10 mile circuit (perhaps a lap of the 24hr Circuit and then a quick spin around the Bugatti circuit for luck). Nice to know that the French driver "Eric Coombes" did so well also.

The business about ushering the cars into Parc Ferme without a slowing down lap is partly to prevent the terrific track invasions that yours truly amongst others used to mount (regrettably often before 4pm...)

[RTH]

Originally posted by BRG
IIRC there are some quite complicated rules about this for Le Mans.

(Of course, none of the rules apply to French cars, especially those actually built in Le Mans )

It did look to me as if Darren Turner kept getting 'Stop & Go' penalties.............for being English !

Wasn't the '69 finish a close fight right up to the finish line.......which they both crossed at racing speed.

[Ray Bell]

Indeed it was... right to the line...

But that's accepted as being a very rare event.

It also raises the question, has it ever happened before that two cars ran in the lead of a 24-hour race and on the same lap for the whole event?

This happened, of course, at Bathurst in 2003.

[HistoricMustang]

Lets not forget the Ken Miles thing at LeMans and we lost him a few weeks later.

Henry

[D-Type]

Originally posted by Disco Stu
During the Speed Channel coverage of the race they said that the race officially ends at 4pm, regardless of where the cars are on the track. The rest of the last lap is irrelevant. That sure sounds odd, is this true or did they make a mistake?

That is true, but like any other race it can only finish at the finish line. So they average a finisher's distance back to exactly 24 hours.
In 1966 when the two Fords crossed the line in a 'dead heat' they ruled that as Amon and McLaren had started further back they had travelled marginally further in 24 hours.
In 1969 had Hermann been ahead at the flag the race would still have gone to Ickx acording to the regulations. As Ickx was leading on the previous lap and they crossed just before 4pm. The averaging would have put ickx ahead and the verdict would have gone to him. Logical, but nobody would have understood. Mercifully things didn't happen that way and we've been spared years of controversy. After that they changed it to 'First over the line after 4pm' but they still calculate the distance based on the notional position after exactly 24 hours.

I doubt if that's clear. I understand what I mean (I think).

[Holger Merten]

I think, there are two scenarios for the last lap to the finish line:

1. Everything is clear, Pos.1 is clearly in front, without complications, so the last 10-15min. are a slow way back to the finish line taking honors by the spectators for the teams.

2. Nothing is clear, there is a hard fight until the finish line. Remember 2004. The Audi Sport Japan R8 made 5169.97km, while the Audi Sport UK R8 made 5167.703km. Seemed to be a closer finish inside the Audi team, than the years before, when the Audi teams used the time from 3.45h on to form a parade of a 1,2,3 finish picture for the press around the whole track.

BTW: What a about the lower classes, I could remember, that there was a hard fight until 4 pm in one of the lower classes, two cars passed the finishing Audi parade with maximum speed on Mulsanne, to finish their race.

[HistoricMustang]

Originally posted by Holger Merten
BTW: What a about the lower classes, I could remember, that there was a hard fight until 4 pm in one of the lower classes, two cars passed the finishing Audi parade with maximum speed on Mulsanne, to finish their race.

Yes, saw this happen several years back at the Rolex 24 with one Porsche going high and the other low as the lead group lined up for the finishing photo "opportunity".

Henry

[ensign14]

Originally posted by HistoricMustang
Lets not forget the Ken Miles thing at LeMans and we lost him a few weeks later.

Henry

That MUST be urban myth, the shots of the finish show Bruce McLaren clearly ahead of Miles for whatever reason.

[Jesper O. Hansen]

Originally posted by D-Type
That is true, but like any other race it can only finish at the finish line. So they average a finisher's distance back to exactly 24 hours.
In 1966 when the two Fords crossed the line in a 'dead heat' they ruled that as Amon and McLaren had started further back they had travelled marginally further in 24 hours.
In 1969 had Hermann been ahead at the flag the race would still have gone to Ickx acording to the regulations. As Ickx was leading on the previous lap and they crossed just before 4pm. The averaging would have put ickx ahead and the verdict would have gone to him. Logical, but nobody would have understood. Mercifully things didn't happen that way and we've been spared years of controversy. After that they changed it to 'First over the line after 4pm' but they still calculate the distance based on the notional position after exactly 24 hours.

I doubt if that's clear. I understand what I mean (I think).

If I understand it right you're actually able to calculate the elapsed time of every finisher in past Le Mans'?

The '66 winner covers 360 laps of a 13.461 km track = 4845.96 actual kms, but is only credited with 4843.09 of those kms covered within ecxatly 24 hours: 4845.96/4843.09 = 1.000593 of a day = 24:00:51.2 elapsed time (rounded off to nearest 10th of a second). To this calculation the second placed Ford spend 24:00:51.6 elapsed time - a difference of 4/10, but is this correct? Does anyone actually know the elapsed time of the '66 (and other) Le Mans race(s)?

By the way I end up with a 24:03:35.5 elapsed time for the winning Ford and 24:03:37.6 for the second placed Porsche during the '69 race.

Jesper

[Catalina Park]

Originally posted by HistoricMustang
Lets not forget the Ken Miles thing at LeMans and we lost him a few weeks later.

Henry

D-Type
In 1966 when the two Fords crossed the line in a 'dead heat' they ruled that as Amon and McLaren had started further back they had travelled marginally further in 24 hours.

There was no dead heat. It is a myth.

[Arjan de Roos]

Originally posted by bill moffat

2 other unwritten ACO rules go like this :

1) WR will continue to be guaranteed 2 entries every year despite their hopeless performance.

2) When ......

Bill, I also wondered this year were the Deborah was, it should have been able to at least make the start....!!

[Leif Snellman]

Originally posted by Jesper O. Hansen
If I understand it right you're actually able to calculate the elapsed time of every finisher in past Le Mans'?

I'm not sure about that Jesper. From D-Type's Ickx story it sounds like they weren't recalculating using all the race but just using the time between last and second last lap otherwise there shouldn't be any risk for any "Ickx paradox".

An easy example: A car does lap 360 at 3.59 pm and lap 361 at 4:03 pm
4.03 pm - 3.59 pm = 4 minutes (= laptime). 4.00 pm - 3.59 pm = 1 minute. 1 minute/ 4 minutes = 1/4
Result: 360 1/4 laps

Or?

[D-Type]

That's the way I understood the article.

To carry it further taking Leif's simplified figures. Had Hermann been 2 seconds ahead at 3.59 and 2 seconds behind at 4.03 when they took the checquered flag, on count back he would have been calculated as being 1 sec ahead at 4.00, having lost 1/4 of the 4 second difference, so he would have been the winner despite being second at the flag. Totally logical as you would expect of the French, but how do you explain it to your average fan.

As I said, thank heavens it never happened.

But note the health warning for both incidents. I can't remember where I read it and don't know if it was a knowledgeable writer or not.

[ensign14]

Maybe they just take it from who is ahead at the line, and extrapolate back to see how much distance they have covered. So if you do 24 hours and 4 minutes, and the last lap was 4 minutes 30, they basically take the distance covered in 24 hours as 30 seconds into that lap - regardless of who was in the lead.

[roger_valentine]

Had Hermann been 2 seconds ahead at 3.59 and 2 seconds behind at 4.03 when they took the checquered flag, on count back he would have been calculated as being 1 sec ahead at 4.00, having lost 1/4 of the 4 second difference, so he would have been the winner despite being second at the flag.

Amazing! But, from the club which gave us the Index of Thermal Efficiency, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised at anything.

As a child I always thought that the race ended precisely on the stroke of 4pm, but as I reached adulthood and the age of reason, I realised that 'obviously' it must be the end of the lap after 4pm. Now it appears that my childhood instincts may have been right all along.

[Ray Bell]

But what about their relative starting positions?

Wouldn't that also come into play?

[Jesper O. Hansen]

Originally posted by Leif Snellman
I'm not sure about that Jesper. From D-Type's Ickx story it sounds like they weren't recalculating using all the race but just using the time between last and second last lap otherwise there shouldn't be any risk for any "Ickx paradox".

An easy example: A car does lap 360 at 3.59 pm and lap 361 at 4:03 pm
4.03 pm - 3.59 pm = 4 minutes (= laptime). 4.00 pm - 3.59 pm = 1 minute. 1 minute/ 4 minutes = 1/4
Result: 360 1/4 laps

Or?

I think I can confirm your version with data from the 2004 race.

The winning Audi crosses the line after 24:00:55.345 and 379 laps of the 13.650 km track with a last lap completed in 3:43.512.

This means that lap 378 (5159.700 kms) was in the books at 23:57:11.833. From this time to 24:00:00.000 there's a gap of 2:48.167.

2:48.167 / 3:43.512 = 0.752385 x 13.650 km lap = 10.270 km + 5159.700 km = 5169.970 kms.

Those 5169.970 kms fits the official result, so...

All of this makes some sence, but thankfully ACO seems to recognise number of laps and elapsed time these days.

But thinking about it, has any lower positions in the past been reversed by these calculations from what actually happened on the track?

Jesper

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Jesper O. Hansen
.....But thinking about it, has any lower positions in the past been reversed by these calculations from what actually happened on the track?

No need to... Team Lotus don't run there any more...

[HistoricMustang]

Originally posted by Catalina Park




There was no dead heat. It is a myth.

A couple of Carroll Shelby quotes in Art Evans book, "Ken Miles":

"What we decided was that all three of them would go over the finish line at the same time. That was a decision made by Leo Beebe and myself. It was passed by Mr. Ford. There was never any thought that we didn't want Ken Miles to win. We slowed Ken up to let the others catch up. Ken was not asked to let McLaren win. We decided to have all three cars cross the finish line at the same time. The Le Mans officials made up a rule that said that the car that had traveled the farthest by ten feet would win. It was a rule that wasn't in the book. This is what cost Ken the race. I felt very bad about it. I felt very guilty because Ken did deserve to win. I felt worse about it after he was killed."

"I know McLaren was ahead just before the finish line, but they were all damn close together when the flag dropped. They were so close that the Frenchman had to make a decision. The photograph shows them about 75 or 100 feet before the line. I dont't believe Ken backed off to let McLaren get ahead."

Albert Bochroch's quote from the same book:

"To my eyes and to no less an authority than John Bond, the respected publisher of Road & Track, McLaren seemed to speed up for the last few yards, reaching the start-finish line a good car length in fron of Ken Miles."

Henry

[fines]

I'm puzzled by all your complicated calculations! Every race finishes with the chequered flag (or any other signal to that effect), and thus of course it can only finish at the line. If all goes well it will be the first time the winning car crosses the line after 24 hours, every other car crossing the line after 24 hours will have to continue for at least one more lap if the winner hasn't arrived yet. And cars that don't cross the line after the finish are not classified, since the race is scheduled for a duration of 24 hours, as opposed to a scheduled distance. It's easy to classify cars that don't finish in a distance race by laps completed, and that is done since about eighty years, but it's different with a duration race.

As for the final classification, it's simple: calculate the average speed per hour and multiply with 24. No need to compare lap times, and no "Ickx paradox"!

[Ray Bell]

So you're saying, Michael, that the results may actually give a greater race distance to the second place man while not giving him the win?

[fines]

Why, no. Race distance is directly proportional to average speed, so the second place car can't have a greater race distance - it's simply impossible!

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Jesper O. Hansen
I think I can confirm your version with data from the 2004 race.

The winning Audi crosses the line after 24:00:55.345 and 379 laps of the 13.650 km track with a last lap completed in 3:43.512.

This means that lap 378 (5159.700 kms) was in the books at 23:57:11.833. From this time to 24:00:00.000 there's a gap of 2:48.167.

2:48.167 / 3:43.512 = 0.752385 x 13.650 km lap = 10.270 km + 5159.700 km = 5169.970 kms.

Those 5169.970 kms fits the official result, so.....

And this example, fee-nes?

[fines]

According to my calculations, the exact lap distance should be 13.64982 km...

[Jesper O. Hansen]

Originally posted by fines
According to my calculations, the exact lap distance should be 13.64982 km...

Miles to metric conversion? I don't know if the French actually invented the metric system, but I would asume that they would always measure Le Mans in metres and then convert it to miles (or somebody else does it). The 13.65 kms is from the official results...

Regarding how a race result is published every single race organiser can, in theory, make up their entire own and unique way of doing so. There will never be just one way of doing things!

Jesper

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by Jesper O. Hansen
.....I don't know if the French actually invented the metric system.....

Oh but they did...

Wasn't the metre based on the addition of Napoleon's forearm length to the girth of his head?

[Macca]

I thought a metre was meant to be a millionth of the diameter of the Earth as it was then calculated....................


Paul M

[Ray Bell]

Sorry, Paul, it was intended as a joke...

[fines]

Originally posted by Jesper O. Hansen
Miles to metric conversion?

No, average speed to duration of race!

Since I'm not much into sports cars, I have no idea of the actual length of the Le Mans circuit - could be anything between 10 and 20 km for all I know. Lap distances measured to the centimeter are not usual, but there are precedents. In theory, you are right and every organiser is free to set up his own rules, although I believe there would be certain leads by the FIA - not that the ACO wouldn't be above to ignore them! But a rule like that seems very strange to me - and could actually open the door to a scenario like the "Ickx paradox" (= "Paradickx"? Somehow, I like that... )

P.S. Actually, the meter is based on my height: 1 meter = fines/2