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Le Mans: Pruett’s Official Test Day Blog
Written by: Marshall Pruett   
06/01/2008
Le Mans, France
 
It was a soggy day in France. Pruett's still drying out after wandering out without a rain coat... (Photo: Marshall Pruett) » More Photos


What better way to start off our 2008 Le Mans 24 Hours coverage than with a witless collection of Pruett's blog entries? Read at your own peril.

Cougar Attack on Virgin Atlantic Flight no 020

The flight from San Francisco to London was amusing on many levels. A particular blond cougar was on the prowl for young and willing men in my part of the cabin. My wedding ring rendered me ineligible to participate in the hunting ritual, but the poor chap next to me only managed a few hours of sleep during the 11 hour flight as he was chatted up at every opportunity. As it turned out, had she been able to keep him awake the entire time, I’d have been much happier.

Bio-hazard at Forty Thousand Feet

It might have been a natural defense system he’d deployed to keep the cougar off of him in his sleep, but my neighbor managed to make me every thirty minutes—almost like clockwork, with a burst of noxious fumes. I don’t know the chemical compounds involved other than methane and sulfur, but whatever the concoction was, I was awoken at least twice an hour to the smells of the rankest fumes imaginable.

The situation was made all the more comical by the fact that the man at the source of these eruptions snored blissfully unaware of his eye-watering outbursts. Let’s hope I don’t sit next to ‘Agent Orange’ on the flight home.

TC of Varying Degrees
The Dome S102 uses a highly effective but acceleration-crippling degree of traction control. (Photo: Marshall Pruett) » More Photos

With rain dominating the Official Test Day, watching and listening to how each team made use of their traction control was of great interest. If we were to award a ‘Best’ and ‘Worst’, the best TC appeared to be found within the Audi R10’s.

Allan McNish charged the final chicane leading onto the front straight over and over again, with barely a whisper of TC keeping the rear wheels under control. That’s not to say TC was being used, but its integration into the electronics was seamless, and caused ‘Nishy’ no disruptions.

The Dome LMP1 team was at the other end of the spectrum, utilizing the most aggressive traction control I’ve seem in some time. While they did experience electrical issues at certain points of the day, when they did have everything in working order, their TC came on like the Judd V10 engine was firing on five cylinders, and wouldn’t return to full power until there was no wheelspin whatsoever.

Rather than program their TC to reduce gradually
as wheelspin abated, it remained engaged for far too long and crippled its ability to launch properly off the corners anything like its rivals were capable of doing.

Audi’s ‘not a wing’ Wing Returns

Audi showed up again with their massive rear ‘Gurney flap’ below the rear wings of all three Audi R10’s. According to Audi Sport’s Ralf Juttner, it isn’t a wing, and does indeed lack the true profile of a wing in the same manner the Porsche RS Spyder’s have ‘not a wing’s’ mounted midships on their LMP2 cars, but it clearly affects the R10’s primary wing and how air is routed below the wing and above the rear of the engine cover.
Audi's 'not a wing' runs between the rear wheel enclosures, parallel with the brake lights. (Photo: Marshall Pruett) » More Photos

The ‘not a wing’ acts to focus and channel airflow at the rear, effectively accelerating and compressing the passing air as it travels beneath the main wing’s underside. It also serves to control and concentrate how air is sent behind the car, improving aerodynamic efficiency.

On a track like Le Mans that prizes top speeds so heavily, it’s a smart move, but if testing times are an indicator of how much progress is still needed to catch the Peugeots, the Audi boys will be working around the clock to develop new bits and pieces over the next 2 weeks.

JMB’s Crash: Predictable

A discussion had started between a few journalists on what cars would do the best, the worst, and so on during the Test Day. I chose the JMB/Aucott Racing Ferrari F430 as the first to crash during the test, and as if they’d overheard my prediction, the car was soon off track in a minor scrape with the barriers.

No one was hurt and it barely impeded their progress, but it was rather funny to pick a name out of the air, only to find it come true minutes later. I’m willing to pick the race winner for those wanting to place bets on Le Mans, but will need a fair slice of the winnings…

Rumors and Rumblings

I’ve heard from a usually reliable source that the Corvette Racing team has a new car undergoing scale model wind tunnel testing. Where it gets interesting is that as I’m told, it’s not a GT car.

OK, I have to run and make a 7hr trek back to the UK. I’ll post part two of the test day blog on Monday.

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