FIA WEC 2017 - Monza Prologue Diary: Saturday Morning

With apologies to the inimitable Jock Simpson, I have put down a few 'jottings' this weekend. Here is the first batch of waffle.

It has been a while since I visited Monza. The last time was for a Le Mans Endurance Series race in 2004, the second incarnation of an international Le Mans series after the false start of the original ELMS in 2001. It is always a joy to arrive at the cradle of Italian motorsport although the journey to the circuit is sometimes less joyful due to its unlikely location in a large public park in a busy suburb of Milan and the consequent traffic carnage. Today however is the somewhat low-key 'Prologue' of the 2017 WEC and we breezed into the track at 7:30am through the delightful avenue of trees lining the approach to the tunnel. Low-key perhaps but not without excitement. Yesterday afternoon we arrived in time to catch the unveiling of the new Porsche 919 Hybrid on the start/finish straight, but missed the morning event where Toyota Gazoo Racing revealed the 2017 TS050 Hybrid. Thankfully our intrepid photographer Kristof (AKA 'Dottore' on the CA Forum) who has been here all week covering the ELMS testing, was there to record both events (qv earlier bloggage).

The Prologue has no points at stake and only 'bragging rights' on offer but it is an important first impression of the relative performance of new cars under new regulations. 

Track action started with the morning session promptly on Saturday at 9am. The sky was overcast but it was at least dry. On Friday we had sunshine but the weekend forecast was a bit gloomy. Toyota started as they meant to continue by holding P1 and P2 in the opening minutes. Porsche on the other hand seemed to be steadily running a couple of seconds behind until Nick Tandy in the #1 car seemed to wake up at 9:20 and was briefly fastest before Nakajima in Toyota #8 posted a 1:32.627 to retake P1 and continued to improve with a 1:32.519 the following lap. By 9:30 the class positions had Toyota #8 at the top of the screen followed by Porsche #1 and Toyota #7. In LMP2 it was the #3 Vaillante Rebellion ahead of TDS Racing #28 and G-Drive #26. In the GTE classes, the Ford #67 led the Porsches #92 and #91 in Pro, and at that point the Gulf racing Porsche #86 was considerably quicker than the #54 Spirit of Race Ferrari and #61 Clearwater Racing Ferrari. 

At 9:40 the sun finally penetrated the clouds and the track started to warm up. By 10:00 there had been an hour of green flag practice with no incidents apart from harmless minor excursions including an early short-cut at Rettifilio (T1) by the #35 Alpine, and a test of the full course yellow (FCY) system. The LMP1 positions after the first hour were Toyota #8 (1:32.308) with the Porsche #1 only 0.234s behind, followed by the #7 Toyota. In P2 it was still the #31 Vaillante Rebellion followed by G-Drive #26 and #28 TDS Racing. In GTE Pro it was #92 Porsche, #67 Ford, #91 Porsche, and in Am #86 Porsche, #54 Ferrari, #77 Porsche.

At about 10:20 it became clear that the apparent slight lack of pace of the #2 Porsche was only temporary and Hartley promoted it to P3 behind Porsche #1 with a lap of 1:33.079. At 10:30 the LMP1, LMP2 and GTE Pro positions were unchanged, but the top three in GTE Am had reversed order with the Dempsey Proton Porsche #77 fastest from #54 Ferrari and #86 Porsche. 

At 10:40 Tandy improved the best time of the Porsche #1 to 1:32.274, putting it at the top of the timing screen. 

By 11:00 we were wondering what had happened to the ByKolles CLM #4, which had yet to be seen on the track. Tony popped down the the ByKolles box and reported that they were confident that the car would participate in the afternoon session. It has to be said however that the CLM was in its component parts and looked like a very large jigsaw puzzle. 

Just before 11:00, Jani improved the time of the #1 Porsche 919 Hybrid to 1:32.068, keeping it in P1 ahead of the #8 Toyota and #2 Porsche. Business as usual in LMP2 with the top three still unchanged (#31,#26,#28) and similarly in GTE Pro (#92,#67,#51) and GTE Am (#77,#54,#86). By this time the early overcast sky had almost completely burned-off to be replaced by hazy sunshine and a few innocent looking cumuli. 

At 11:30 we entered the final 30 minutes of the first session. Top two in all classes had remained unchanged although the #2 Porsche slipped to 4th fastest behind the #7 Toyota. In GTE Pro the #66 Ford GT was promoted to third quickest, displacing the #51 AF Corse Ferrari. Sweaty looking photographers returning to the press room testified that it had warmed up a bit out there.

Ten minutes before the chequered flag of the first session, Barker the GTE Am #86 Gulf Racing Porsche put in a time of 1:50.315 raising it from third to fastest in class. The session closed at 12:00 with Porsche #1 fastest (1:32.068) from Toyota #8 , Toyota #7 and Porsche #2. In LMP2 it was still the #31 Vaillante Rebellion quickest with a time of 1:36.094 with sister car #13 now second, displacing the #26 G-Drive to 3rd. Quickest GTE Pro was #92 Porsche from Fords #67 and #66. In the GTE Am class the Gulf Racing Porsche retained its last gasp top time to finish with the best time in class, followed by #77 Dempsey Proton Racing Porsche and #54 Spirit of Race Ferrari.

Full timing and results can be found HERE

Keen eyed timing enthusiasts will notice that the top five top speeds were set by LMP2 cars.

Dave DAVIES.

FIA WEC 2017 - Monza Prologue: Friday gallery

More pictures on the link below:

 

Kristof Vermeulen.

New Porsche 919 Hybrid presented at Monza this afternoon

After the presentation of Toyota's challenger this morning, Porsche took the honours in the afternoon to present its 2017 Porsche 919 Hybrid for the FIA World Endurance Championship.  The 2017 model 919 Hybrid deploys a range of new innovations, particularly in the vehicle’s aerodynamics, the chassis and the combustion engine. 60 to 70 percent of the car has been newly developed. 

With the revised technical regulations,  the Porsche engineers designed two brand-new aerodynamics packages for the 919 Hybrid. In 2016, Porsche delivered three aerodynamics packages for the season, but the new regulations have also imposed limits on numbers. To achieve maximum top speeds on the extremely long straight sections, the package design focuses on minimising air resistance. The second aerodynamics package compensates for a higher level of drag with greater downforce for tracks with twists and turns. Track- specific fine-tuning is still permitted, but in general, 2017 will involve a higher level of compromise than was the case with the three aerodynamics packages of the previous year. 

A key focus for the engineers was to design the front end of the vehicle to be less aerodynamically sensitive. When comparing a front view of this year’s 919 to the previous year’s model, the higher, wider and longer wheel arches immediately catch the eye. To the side, the new channel from the monocoque to the wheel arch is visible, along with the redesigned rear air intakes for the radiators. Porsche is expecting to see a three to four-second increase in lap times at Le Mans, following the new regulations. 

Next to the aerodynamical changes, the efficiency and performance of the drivetrain also has been boosted by the Porsche engineers.  The transmission on the front and rear axle, the combustion engine, the electric motor and the energy recovery systems have all been optimised, but the basic principle behind the drive system is unchanged. The rear axle of the 919 is driven by an extremely compact two-litre V4 combustion engine which delivers just under 500 hp (368 kW). Two different energy recovery systems – a braking energy recovery system on the front axle plus an exhaust energy recovery system – feed a lithium-ion battery, which in turn powers an electric motor capable of supplying additional power of over 400 hp (294 kW) to the front axle on demand. Combined the 919 Hybrid achieves a system power of more than 900 hp (662 kW).

The 919 will start again in the highest energy efficiency class prescribed by the regulations. This means that the car can use 8 megajoules of recovered energy over the 13.629-kilometre (8.4 mile) track in Le Mans, subject to the restriction that it may only consume a maximum of 4.31 litres of fuel to do so. 

After three years, the Porsche LMP team lines up with two newly assembled driver trio's. Neel Jani is the leading driver in the #1 Porsche 919 Hybrid. He will be joined by André Lotterer who's coming over from Audi and Nick Tandy. In the #2 car Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley will be joined by another Le Mans winner from 2015: Earl Bamber.

Quotes: 

Fritz Enzinger, Vice President LMP, faces the season with a great deal of respect: “Each and every one of the nine endurance races presents a challenge. Reliability is the basic requirement; six hours of navigating around the many cars in the different categories, each driving at different speeds, makes each race unpredictable – and ultimately it is often only seconds that separate the winner from the rest of the field. At four times the duration of the other races, Le Mans forms the pinnacle of the series. This 24-hour race pushes both men and machine to their absolute limits. Toyota is set to be a very strong contender in the top-tier LMP1 category for the 2017 season. We will face up to them with a meticulously enhanced Porsche 919 Hybrid and a team of six first-class drivers.”

Team Principal Andreas Seidl, who continues to serve as acting technical director, reports: “For the 2017 season, 60 to 70 per cent of the vehicle is newly developed. The basic concept of the 919 Hybrid still offers scope to optimise the finer details and further boost efficiency. The monocoque has remained unchanged since 2016, but the optimisation potential of all other components was analysed and, in most cases, adjustments made accordingly.”

Kristof Vermeulen.