Last year, at the Le Mans Test Day, the fastest stint (of 11 laps) was done by Dindo Capello at 3m 33.1s. In the race, Benoît Tréluyer completed 10 laps in 3m 28.8s. This average is worked out from pit out at the start of the stint, until pit in at the end - thus including the out an the in lap, but excluding the time spent driving up the pit lane.
This year, the fastest stint on the Test Day was by André Lotterer, who did 3m 31.5s for 12 laps. In the race, this improved to 3m 27.1s - over 12 laps by Allan McNish. Remember that the cars this year had less fuel available and less power.
I was interested to compare this with Toyota, but of course by the Sunday morning 'happy hour', when McNish was in his 'purple patch', both Japanese cars had retired. Looking at the best average lap time for an 11/12 lap stint up to 8pm Saturday evening though, gives the following:
| Position | Number | Car | Driver | Time | No. of laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7 | Toyota TS030 Hybrid | Lapierre | 3m 29.8s | 11 |
| 2 | 1 | Audi R18 e-tron quattro | Lotterer | 3m 30.1s | 12 |
| 3 | 2 | Audi R18 e-tron quattro | McNish | 3m 30.4s | 12 |
| 4 | 3 | Audi R18 ultra | Dumas | 3m 30.5s | 12 |
| 5 | 8 | Toyota TS030 Hybrid | Buemi | 3m 30.8s | 11 |
| 6 | 4 | Audi R18 ultra | Bonanomi | 3m 31.0s | 12 |
I think the remaining races in this year's WEC could be quite close. Silverstone is next, on 26th August. With the chance of some family time on Bank Holiday Monday!
I posted a similar analysis on the 10/10 forum and I noticed that the opening stint from Lotterer is the fastest (3m29.4) if you exclude the first lap which was a 3m38.9. Of course that does not count like a real full stint.
ReplyDeleteI guess that there is a typo in the average lap time of Buemi's fastest stint. That should be 3m30.8 instead of 3m29.8.