RR46
04-07-2021, 10:55 AM
Last weekend we kicked off the 2021 endurance season with Richard and Yvonne's PDG4 GTM. It was in the NASA WERC Series which is just getting more and more enjoyable, and this race was 2h 30min long, a true sprint enduro.
Margins were tight in qualifying and we started from 4th. A 10sec/lap quicker Ligier LMP3 had pole, an AMG GT3 with a pair of open wheel racers sharing the driving duties lined up alongside the Ligier on front row.
Second row inside line was taken by our eternal "nemesis" and good racing friends running their PMG Awareness Porsche 991 GT3 with us on the outside. In fifth a Norma M20FC sports prototype. Further back was a Praga R1 as well in our class.
We haven't yet located any photos from the racetrack but will update if they come. At the bottom I have linked an onboard video that we were livestreaming during the race.
Richard had done a very solid pre-race polishing after noticing that the alignment was exactly on spec from last race.
145813
The race kicked off early Sun morning and only one pacelap (barely) was done making tire warming a true challenge, basically not possible. But it's not the first time we go on cold slicks and we expected our Hankook F200 slicks to be the winning edge in this race, as they have been so many times before. They hold on for almost 2h 30min at full clip and most of our competitors' tires start to fade much sooner than that. We also saw an opportunity to complete the race without a pitstop, while others would definitely have to stop for fuel except may the Norma could go as many laps as us between fuelling.
So after allowing our harder tires to warm in the cold opening laps it was time to attack and it felt like we were about to stick the fork into both the Porsche and Norma when the rear tires mysteriously started to fall off already 30-35 laps into the race. After 65 laps they were worse than what we normally experience after 125 laps. There wasn't much fight we could put up under those circumstances. The race went without any safety car intervention which also meant full fuel burn and we did a quick stop (30-60 sec quicker than our competitors). However with the slipping rear tires we had to settle for 5th place, at least in one piece and with an important share of championship points.
We noticed oil under the car and later found stripped threads at the front of the transaxle where it meets the bellhousing - oil had pushed out there. Those damaged threads are probably a result of many many engine and transaxle swaps over many many years of racing where these bolts have come off and been put back over and over and over. Normally on a streetcar, you bolt in once and that's it so this is very unique to our use case.
145814
Perhaps some of this oil made it onto the rear tires? Perhaps the tires had been exposed to elements at the tire supplier they came from. We've never had a new set of F200 tires drop grip that way since we started running F200 in 2016.
Other than that, the car ran fantastic as usual and we had a lot of fun together with the volunteer crew who executed a great pitstop. Also the series is attracting new cars and drivers which makes it even more enjoyable.
Until next time!
Onboard video from the livestream; pit roll out starts around 8min 30sec. You'll see how cold the tires are, barely able to keep up with the pacecar.
https://fb.watch/4JxrJh9ZF2/
Margins were tight in qualifying and we started from 4th. A 10sec/lap quicker Ligier LMP3 had pole, an AMG GT3 with a pair of open wheel racers sharing the driving duties lined up alongside the Ligier on front row.
Second row inside line was taken by our eternal "nemesis" and good racing friends running their PMG Awareness Porsche 991 GT3 with us on the outside. In fifth a Norma M20FC sports prototype. Further back was a Praga R1 as well in our class.
We haven't yet located any photos from the racetrack but will update if they come. At the bottom I have linked an onboard video that we were livestreaming during the race.
Richard had done a very solid pre-race polishing after noticing that the alignment was exactly on spec from last race.
145813
The race kicked off early Sun morning and only one pacelap (barely) was done making tire warming a true challenge, basically not possible. But it's not the first time we go on cold slicks and we expected our Hankook F200 slicks to be the winning edge in this race, as they have been so many times before. They hold on for almost 2h 30min at full clip and most of our competitors' tires start to fade much sooner than that. We also saw an opportunity to complete the race without a pitstop, while others would definitely have to stop for fuel except may the Norma could go as many laps as us between fuelling.
So after allowing our harder tires to warm in the cold opening laps it was time to attack and it felt like we were about to stick the fork into both the Porsche and Norma when the rear tires mysteriously started to fall off already 30-35 laps into the race. After 65 laps they were worse than what we normally experience after 125 laps. There wasn't much fight we could put up under those circumstances. The race went without any safety car intervention which also meant full fuel burn and we did a quick stop (30-60 sec quicker than our competitors). However with the slipping rear tires we had to settle for 5th place, at least in one piece and with an important share of championship points.
We noticed oil under the car and later found stripped threads at the front of the transaxle where it meets the bellhousing - oil had pushed out there. Those damaged threads are probably a result of many many engine and transaxle swaps over many many years of racing where these bolts have come off and been put back over and over and over. Normally on a streetcar, you bolt in once and that's it so this is very unique to our use case.
145814
Perhaps some of this oil made it onto the rear tires? Perhaps the tires had been exposed to elements at the tire supplier they came from. We've never had a new set of F200 tires drop grip that way since we started running F200 in 2016.
Other than that, the car ran fantastic as usual and we had a lot of fun together with the volunteer crew who executed a great pitstop. Also the series is attracting new cars and drivers which makes it even more enjoyable.
Until next time!
Onboard video from the livestream; pit roll out starts around 8min 30sec. You'll see how cold the tires are, barely able to keep up with the pacecar.
https://fb.watch/4JxrJh9ZF2/