ALMS/ FIA WEC, 12 Hours of Sebring - Notes From The Sebring Paddock

Fabien Giroix confirmed that his #28 Lola Nissan, badly damaged in free practice yesterday by Maxime Jousse, should be back on track for the warm-up session tomorrow – Obviously then it will miss Qualifying and thus will start from the back of the grid.

Richard Lietz described the 2012 Porsche 997 GT3 RSR as “A step forward, very much in the right direction – What we don’t really know yet is how far the competition has moved forward though!”

Some interesting aspects around the Deltawing design – a long chat with Ben Bowlby revealed that a huge amount of work has gone into testing car’s behaviour if it gets out of shape – It has been wind tunnel tested reversing up to 200mph.  It’s also got an as yet unrefined but clever bit of NASCAR style ‘tech’ with a pressure sensitive area on the trailing edge of the rear bodywork that leads to ‘air brake’ style flaps deploying if the car is moving fast backwards.

Marino Franchitti, when asked what area of the car needs most improvement at the moment unhesitatingly said “gearbox” – Pointing to an issue relating to the software used to define the operation of the ‘box’ rather than any mechanical issue.     

Another aerodynamic issue that might (literally) throw up some issues is the new ‘big honking holes’ in the LMP wheel arches, designed to help reduce a car’s propensity to take flight in an accident situation.  Looking at the cars after this morning’s practice session it was clear that some were seeing chunks of rubber being thrown forwards, the greaves Zytek post session had considerable marking from rubber debris on the mirrors (the mirror not fairing side) bodywork and on the top of the cockpit edge – That seems to be a situation that could see the driver being struck by rubber debris!  There must be further questions too about how the new holes perform in the wet – Just where is that water going to go?