Not looking great for French manufacturers at the top categories of motorsports. Let's hope this does not affect negatively the reputation French road cars have among consumers 🤔
most of not AMG mercedes engines use parts coming from same factories where renault engines are made... german cars are basically a joke nowadays (I've always liked german cars)
It’s more than that, all diesel Mercedes-Benz cars from the A to C ranges (and the xxA to xxC variants + vans) use Renault engines (completely, not only parts)
I think this program will not last long, or they need to go back to the drawing board because I doubt the Stellantis heads like to see that car barely making the points every race.
>I doubt the Stellantis heads like to see that car barely making the points every race.
2 races ago they were challenging for a win. Now they bring a new car to two races and you think they should throw it in the bin? If you’re slightly off the pace then you will struggle for points because it’s such a close competitive field. But they’ll join the party no doubt
Nissan brought an unfinished car to Le Mans and decided it wasn’t even worth finishing when it underperformed. Companies won’t hesitate to can a program if it isn’t living up to expectations.
Well having the BoP with the highest weight and lowest power to weight ratio certainly doesn't help them get their car up to the speed of the others fastest.
Sure it doesn't, but having almost the most allowed power and lightest weight car hasn't helped the caddy win or get podiums either. The teams still need to maximize the potential of the car and Peugeot has not had enough time to do that.
>but having almost the most allowed power and lightest weight car hasn't helped the caddy win or get podiums either.
As we saw Saturday, that's less a matter of performance of the car and often the performance of the driver.
They had good pace Saturday for sure but struggled at other tracks such as Imola with essentially the same BOP. They have the potential for podiums and wins, and show glimpses of pace at certain tracks, but their car is definitely not as well optimized as the Toyota, Ferrari and Porsche which seem to be fairly strong everywhere.
So I do think BOP may play a part in it, but I see comments like this where people are saying it is all BOP when it is not. Teams still need to get the maximum from the car and they are likely nowhere near that goal.
Previous car wasn’t bad because of the BoP, but you can’t deny the past 2 races this car has had a terrible BoP. It’s now a lot more reliable and drives better, so the car is fine it’s just slow. They had a good BoP at the first race and then got slammed for the following 2.
No. That is not how BOP works in Hypercar. Teams still need to find performance. They may help the slower teams gradually by giving a better BOP, but they aren't going to make a huge adjustment after two races with a new car.
Le Mans BOP is different, so they might for that, but for the rest of the season, teams need to maximize their package. The FIA and ACO have so much data that they can tell who is and isn't maximizing their car and establish the BOP with that in mind as well.
That’s how the BoP used to work and was intended to work, but midway through last year when Toyota was dominating they decided to move towards the typical BoP model. Set up etc still counts for a bit, but it’s nowhere near as significant as it was at the beginning of last year. I mean, look at Alpine who debuted their car this year and they’ve been the 4th fastest car. Looking at how they perform in F1 and early WEC seasons, you can’t seriously think they’d be performing better then Peugeot, BMW, and Cadillac who have had time to understand their car.
Some manufacturers get good BoPs, others get bad ones, and in the past 2 races Peugeot has gotten bad BoPs. It’s not a case of maximising potential anymore, the ACO has moved away from doing things like that after the complaints last year that things weren’t close like they were in IMSA. It still plays a role, don’t get me wrong, but not to the extent you’re making it out to be.
So if they still need to find performance why putting a BoP in the first place? I thought the whole point of BoP was to avoid a race to performance...
So what is the difference between a car that is already at the top because of favorable BoP and a car that needs to find performance?
It is strictly to stop a development war but even then, limited upgrades are still allowed. 5 performance jokers for each car can be used.
As I understand it, there are so many things on these cars that can be optimized and tweaked (including the software in addition to mechanical tuning) without actually doing any costly development. Most of the things I am referring to would be handled by the engineers already working on the cars, and not constantly prototyping and creating new parts which is what caused the LMP1 Hybrid era to die.
A cost cap has its own issues. At least in the way that F1 has implemented it(still have 1 team domination). I don't think we would have gotten as many manufacturers on board with a cost cap as well. The draw of BOP is that teams can add stylings from their brand and NOT need to continually develop their car to find performance, which with cost cap, if you don't get your car just right, you are a back marker after you just spent millions to win le mans and will have no shot( we would also have all cars looking basically the same like the old lmp1 days).
With BOP, the thought is that you at least will be given a proper shot at being competitive after spending millions. Additionally, the business model in the WEC is totally different. None of the participants are making money whereas in F1, all teams are getting a slice of the pie, which helps offset the costs of continuous development(which would happen in cost cap regs or manufacturers will just leave) and gives an incentive even when you don't have the pace for podiums or wins.
Porsche didn't upgrade their car and jumped the field from one year to the other. You can't explain that just on setup. There's also 5 Porsche in the top 10 in WEC. 4 in the top 7 and 3 in the top 5. So it's not just specific to Team Penske either...
Cadillac is fighting for wins every race in IMSA. It's nowhere in WEC. It's not just setup or the team or whatever.
BoP is just a complete mess in WEC.
1/2 That is super unfortunate that you believe that this entire sport is drilled down to BOP being the only metric that matters for car performance. I can tell you for sure that it is not. Porsche's jump in performance is not due to BOP, but on maximizing the performance of the car as I have been saying. They have done a ton of testing and software updates to the car. additionally, having 4 cars between the two championships allows them to optimize their pace that much faster.
Since you clearly don't trust or care to listen to anything I am saying, let's take a look at the BOP tables from this past weekend for IMSA. As we can see, the Porsche is given less weight and a bit less power than the Caddy, but generally they are pretty close. The Caddy had the pace to win Laguna Seca but lost it on strategy and getting passed in traffic, so nothing to do with BOP.
https://preview.redd.it/e2pdfwm5o80d1.png?width=667&format=png&auto=webp&s=00b6e0ea98429ea92fefd943f4c0f6c4cf28860d
I am going to create a separate reply for the WEC BOP(limited by 1 image per reply).
In the end not what I'm saying.
Just that BoP is a mess in WEC and will never work as long as we have 2 classes racing as one.
For example the gap betwenn Cadillac and Porsche is far greater in WEC than it is in IMSA. Same teams. Same cars.
I don't think you realize how close GTP is in IMSA.
In Laguna Seca, if you take the fastest lap of all GTP cars, they all stand within 0.6s.
2/2 Now, let's look at the WEC BOP where you have just declared that the, "BoP is just a complete mess in WEC." As you can see, the caddy is 11kg lighter than the Porsche(1037 + 4 = 1041kg), while having 9KW's of more power than the Porsche. On paper, the Caddy's BOP is WAY WAY better than the comparable BOP in IMSA. I find this, "it's all BOP's fault" as an incredibly lazy excuse and a scapegoat for the real reasons that caddy does not perform well in the WEC. The only fault for the caddy not performing is their own fault. They are running a 1 car operation which in and of itself is a handicap and are likely just not optimizing their car very well on top of that. If the BOP tried to fix that, then is this even sport? Why even have engineers set the car up if BOP can just give away performance?
I have said this on this subreddit before and I will say it again. BOP is only PART of the performance of the Hypercars. The biggest performance gains are coming from the teams themselves, just as motorsports should be and all of this BOP nonsense is just diminishing the hard work that the teams and manufacturers are putting in to be competitive in this sport.
https://preview.redd.it/ipa77760p80d1.png?width=679&format=png&auto=webp&s=7e433c7c28d33e9cd6a641020e62d10aacb5dac9
Same potential level. If the team aren't getting the most out of the car, which they realistically aren't after 2 races, that'll still show. Plus it makes complete sense to bop a brand new car that hasn't taken part in any official test sessions conservatively.
While I suspect that Peugeot may receive a BOP break for Le Mans, it wouldn't solve everything.
First of all, by debuting a winged version of 9X8, basically they start the learning process again, since majority of the 2024 9X8 is brand new.
Secondly, reliablity is still an issue. Peugeot continues to have problems with gearbox/drivetrain. Even this year in Qatar, despite installing a supposedly fixed version of it at Portimao last year. Peugeot started their WEC operation at Monza nearly two years ago. By this time they should figure out many aspects. With car's rework for 2024, they are only making it all even more convoluted.
Sadly, I don't have high hopes about Peugeot for Le Mans this year. In my opinion, it's going to take whole season at best to get 2024-spec 9X8 to work properly in racing conditions. They can do that. I am less convinced about fixing reliability issues. If that's not rectified by Le Mans in 2025, then maybe it will never happen.
Qatar was with the old version of the car. I don’t think they’ve had any issues since then bar some minor gremlins in 1 car at Imola which is to be expected with a new car.
Yes, they need to learn it from scratch again, but they’ve been given a terrible BoP. They have the worst power to weight ratio that they need to overcome. Also, being a new car isn’t a sole explanation for being as bad as they are. Alpine is also brand new, yet comfortably the 4th quickest car, quicker then BMW and Cadillac. You can’t seriously say Alpine is a good enough team to hit the ground running better then BMW, they’re LMP2 stint proved they’re not and their F1 team doesn’t help inspire confidence. Not to mention, Peugeot have just gone through this process and would have some idea of where to start. That’s just to show that BoP does still play a large role, not just how good the team is at setting up the car. I wouldn’t expect Peugeot to be fighting at the front, but you’d expect them to be somewhere behind the midfield (which would include Cadillac and BMW, not Alpine and BMW), and the back markers. How much of an advantage and how good they are as a team would determine whether they’re close to the midfield or back markers.
Eeek. I've said for a while that nothing Peugeot are the most likely big name to bail on WEC first. The 9X8 still not delivering isn't going to be helping that.
After how well #93 did at Qatar (before the refueler decided to go on strike), they probably should've stuck with the wingless concept and just focused on reliability and the tyre set-up
I don't care much about Peugeot.
You can't deny. That's how the serie works.
Shouldn't all car be leveled? That's why BoP is there isn't it?
Give to everybody the opportunity to be competitive.
Peugeot isn't competitive so BoP isn't beneficial enough yet for them.
all cars are levelled. that’s how BoP works. Peugeot are literally 2 races deep with a new car, they’re hardly going to be fighting at the sharp end are they?
BoP doesn’t ‘benefit’ anyone, the fact that phrase has been normalised now is quite crazy.
No they are not. Peugeot is nearly 2 second off pace. That's not leveled.
Why would you put BoP if its to still have an unbalanced category?
I thought the whole point was to bring constructor by giving them a chance to win with BoP.
They will leave if they can't compete because BoP isn't favorable enough to bring their car to the level of the conpetition.
racing is racing buckaroo, not every car is going to post the exact same times. after BoP is applied to equalise all the cars setup and car characteristics then define how fast a car will be on a weekend.
No you can't call 2 second off pace balanced.
We should see the the Hypercar class within a second if it truly was balanced.
And every car should have a chance to win if it was done properly.
It's simply not the case.
good grief.
Balance of Performance equalises all cars *before* a weekend. the setup of the car and the skill of the team end up defining how fast their car is. in essence, Peugeot need to improve. but first of all, learn about their new car.
Yes and 2 second off pace can't be justify by setup alone.
If BoP is done as it is supposed to be, all car should equal chance for the win.
So what is it then? BoP should balance the performance so everyone have the same level but not to the point where everyone has the same performance. So like in a normal non BoP championship?
Not looking great for French manufacturers at the top categories of motorsports. Let's hope this does not affect negatively the reputation French road cars have among consumers 🤔
feel like that's a bit harsh on the WEC Alpines tbh even if I enjoyed joking about the Mechachrome moment they look solidly on path so far
The reputation is already bad (at least in Germany).
I think that was the jokeÂ
Maybe it went over my head lol
That’s what being German does to you.
ah yes, avoid cars that start with F - Fiat, Ford, and French
That’s the most german response ever.
Yet in reliability metrics they are these days more reliable / and cheaper to fix than German counterparts :D
most of not AMG mercedes engines use parts coming from same factories where renault engines are made... german cars are basically a joke nowadays (I've always liked german cars)
It’s more than that, all diesel Mercedes-Benz cars from the A to C ranges (and the xxA to xxC variants + vans) use Renault engines (completely, not only parts)
Modern German cars are anything but cheap to fix and reliable.
Exactly what i said ?
Alpine have been quite good in WEC actually
Painfull to see this beautiful car, not performing
Definitely. It's so outlandish and spectacular I just want it to succeed!
Have they tried turning the wing off and on again?
Maybe they should’ve kept the wing off 😂
It’s starting to feel that way 😂
I think this program will not last long, or they need to go back to the drawing board because I doubt the Stellantis heads like to see that car barely making the points every race.
>I doubt the Stellantis heads like to see that car barely making the points every race. 2 races ago they were challenging for a win. Now they bring a new car to two races and you think they should throw it in the bin? If you’re slightly off the pace then you will struggle for points because it’s such a close competitive field. But they’ll join the party no doubt
Nissan brought an unfinished car to Le Mans and decided it wasn’t even worth finishing when it underperformed. Companies won’t hesitate to can a program if it isn’t living up to expectations.
This is the whole problem though. The car works well occasionally, and terribly most other times.
It's been around for all of two races, we don't know how it will work
Or maybe the FIA should give them a BOP that isn't shit compared to others.
They have had two races with an entirely new concept car, so yeah, all BOP's faults.
Well having the BoP with the highest weight and lowest power to weight ratio certainly doesn't help them get their car up to the speed of the others fastest.
Sure it doesn't, but having almost the most allowed power and lightest weight car hasn't helped the caddy win or get podiums either. The teams still need to maximize the potential of the car and Peugeot has not had enough time to do that.
>but having almost the most allowed power and lightest weight car hasn't helped the caddy win or get podiums either. As we saw Saturday, that's less a matter of performance of the car and often the performance of the driver.
They had good pace Saturday for sure but struggled at other tracks such as Imola with essentially the same BOP. They have the potential for podiums and wins, and show glimpses of pace at certain tracks, but their car is definitely not as well optimized as the Toyota, Ferrari and Porsche which seem to be fairly strong everywhere.
the caddy without the silly qualy tires was rapid tho
Theu have the heaviest car and worst weight power allocation/weight ratio... it's hard to think the BoP doesn't have a part in this...
So I do think BOP may play a part in it, but I see comments like this where people are saying it is all BOP when it is not. Teams still need to get the maximum from the car and they are likely nowhere near that goal.
Sure, but it doesn't beat the cheer amount of people calling the car bad and the program to be shut down, which is equally annoying
Previous car wasn’t bad because of the BoP, but you can’t deny the past 2 races this car has had a terrible BoP. It’s now a lot more reliable and drives better, so the car is fine it’s just slow. They had a good BoP at the first race and then got slammed for the following 2.
Yes BoP should bring all the car to the same level. So yes.
No. That is not how BOP works in Hypercar. Teams still need to find performance. They may help the slower teams gradually by giving a better BOP, but they aren't going to make a huge adjustment after two races with a new car. Le Mans BOP is different, so they might for that, but for the rest of the season, teams need to maximize their package. The FIA and ACO have so much data that they can tell who is and isn't maximizing their car and establish the BOP with that in mind as well.
That’s how the BoP used to work and was intended to work, but midway through last year when Toyota was dominating they decided to move towards the typical BoP model. Set up etc still counts for a bit, but it’s nowhere near as significant as it was at the beginning of last year. I mean, look at Alpine who debuted their car this year and they’ve been the 4th fastest car. Looking at how they perform in F1 and early WEC seasons, you can’t seriously think they’d be performing better then Peugeot, BMW, and Cadillac who have had time to understand their car. Some manufacturers get good BoPs, others get bad ones, and in the past 2 races Peugeot has gotten bad BoPs. It’s not a case of maximising potential anymore, the ACO has moved away from doing things like that after the complaints last year that things weren’t close like they were in IMSA. It still plays a role, don’t get me wrong, but not to the extent you’re making it out to be.
So if they still need to find performance why putting a BoP in the first place? I thought the whole point of BoP was to avoid a race to performance... So what is the difference between a car that is already at the top because of favorable BoP and a car that needs to find performance?
It is strictly to stop a development war but even then, limited upgrades are still allowed. 5 performance jokers for each car can be used. As I understand it, there are so many things on these cars that can be optimized and tweaked (including the software in addition to mechanical tuning) without actually doing any costly development. Most of the things I am referring to would be handled by the engineers already working on the cars, and not constantly prototyping and creating new parts which is what caused the LMP1 Hybrid era to die.
Why not do a cost cap instead?
A cost cap has its own issues. At least in the way that F1 has implemented it(still have 1 team domination). I don't think we would have gotten as many manufacturers on board with a cost cap as well. The draw of BOP is that teams can add stylings from their brand and NOT need to continually develop their car to find performance, which with cost cap, if you don't get your car just right, you are a back marker after you just spent millions to win le mans and will have no shot( we would also have all cars looking basically the same like the old lmp1 days). With BOP, the thought is that you at least will be given a proper shot at being competitive after spending millions. Additionally, the business model in the WEC is totally different. None of the participants are making money whereas in F1, all teams are getting a slice of the pie, which helps offset the costs of continuous development(which would happen in cost cap regs or manufacturers will just leave) and gives an incentive even when you don't have the pace for podiums or wins.
Porsche didn't upgrade their car and jumped the field from one year to the other. You can't explain that just on setup. There's also 5 Porsche in the top 10 in WEC. 4 in the top 7 and 3 in the top 5. So it's not just specific to Team Penske either... Cadillac is fighting for wins every race in IMSA. It's nowhere in WEC. It's not just setup or the team or whatever. BoP is just a complete mess in WEC.
1/2 That is super unfortunate that you believe that this entire sport is drilled down to BOP being the only metric that matters for car performance. I can tell you for sure that it is not. Porsche's jump in performance is not due to BOP, but on maximizing the performance of the car as I have been saying. They have done a ton of testing and software updates to the car. additionally, having 4 cars between the two championships allows them to optimize their pace that much faster. Since you clearly don't trust or care to listen to anything I am saying, let's take a look at the BOP tables from this past weekend for IMSA. As we can see, the Porsche is given less weight and a bit less power than the Caddy, but generally they are pretty close. The Caddy had the pace to win Laguna Seca but lost it on strategy and getting passed in traffic, so nothing to do with BOP. https://preview.redd.it/e2pdfwm5o80d1.png?width=667&format=png&auto=webp&s=00b6e0ea98429ea92fefd943f4c0f6c4cf28860d I am going to create a separate reply for the WEC BOP(limited by 1 image per reply).
In the end not what I'm saying. Just that BoP is a mess in WEC and will never work as long as we have 2 classes racing as one. For example the gap betwenn Cadillac and Porsche is far greater in WEC than it is in IMSA. Same teams. Same cars. I don't think you realize how close GTP is in IMSA. In Laguna Seca, if you take the fastest lap of all GTP cars, they all stand within 0.6s.
2/2 Now, let's look at the WEC BOP where you have just declared that the, "BoP is just a complete mess in WEC." As you can see, the caddy is 11kg lighter than the Porsche(1037 + 4 = 1041kg), while having 9KW's of more power than the Porsche. On paper, the Caddy's BOP is WAY WAY better than the comparable BOP in IMSA. I find this, "it's all BOP's fault" as an incredibly lazy excuse and a scapegoat for the real reasons that caddy does not perform well in the WEC. The only fault for the caddy not performing is their own fault. They are running a 1 car operation which in and of itself is a handicap and are likely just not optimizing their car very well on top of that. If the BOP tried to fix that, then is this even sport? Why even have engineers set the car up if BOP can just give away performance? I have said this on this subreddit before and I will say it again. BOP is only PART of the performance of the Hypercars. The biggest performance gains are coming from the teams themselves, just as motorsports should be and all of this BOP nonsense is just diminishing the hard work that the teams and manufacturers are putting in to be competitive in this sport. https://preview.redd.it/ipa77760p80d1.png?width=679&format=png&auto=webp&s=7e433c7c28d33e9cd6a641020e62d10aacb5dac9
Same potential level. If the team aren't getting the most out of the car, which they realistically aren't after 2 races, that'll still show. Plus it makes complete sense to bop a brand new car that hasn't taken part in any official test sessions conservatively.
They just did that last month.
They can't. Car is homologated for 5 years.
While I suspect that Peugeot may receive a BOP break for Le Mans, it wouldn't solve everything. First of all, by debuting a winged version of 9X8, basically they start the learning process again, since majority of the 2024 9X8 is brand new. Secondly, reliablity is still an issue. Peugeot continues to have problems with gearbox/drivetrain. Even this year in Qatar, despite installing a supposedly fixed version of it at Portimao last year. Peugeot started their WEC operation at Monza nearly two years ago. By this time they should figure out many aspects. With car's rework for 2024, they are only making it all even more convoluted. Sadly, I don't have high hopes about Peugeot for Le Mans this year. In my opinion, it's going to take whole season at best to get 2024-spec 9X8 to work properly in racing conditions. They can do that. I am less convinced about fixing reliability issues. If that's not rectified by Le Mans in 2025, then maybe it will never happen.
Supposedly the gearbox is even more fixed because they could afford a little more rear weight with the new tire setup.
Qatar was with the old version of the car. I don’t think they’ve had any issues since then bar some minor gremlins in 1 car at Imola which is to be expected with a new car. Yes, they need to learn it from scratch again, but they’ve been given a terrible BoP. They have the worst power to weight ratio that they need to overcome. Also, being a new car isn’t a sole explanation for being as bad as they are. Alpine is also brand new, yet comfortably the 4th quickest car, quicker then BMW and Cadillac. You can’t seriously say Alpine is a good enough team to hit the ground running better then BMW, they’re LMP2 stint proved they’re not and their F1 team doesn’t help inspire confidence. Not to mention, Peugeot have just gone through this process and would have some idea of where to start. That’s just to show that BoP does still play a large role, not just how good the team is at setting up the car. I wouldn’t expect Peugeot to be fighting at the front, but you’d expect them to be somewhere behind the midfield (which would include Cadillac and BMW, not Alpine and BMW), and the back markers. How much of an advantage and how good they are as a team would determine whether they’re close to the midfield or back markers.
The BOP is not helping
Time for the comments to play the blame game
I honestly hope Peugeot could get back into the fight for wins and podiums. But they need time to improve and learn about the new car.
Eeek. I've said for a while that nothing Peugeot are the most likely big name to bail on WEC first. The 9X8 still not delivering isn't going to be helping that.
Didn't they have a podium at Monza last year?
After how well #93 did at Qatar (before the refueler decided to go on strike), they probably should've stuck with the wingless concept and just focused on reliability and the tyre set-up
Just ask for better BoP next race. That's how this serie works.
me when de bop bad becuz i don’t get good result bop bad 😢😢😢😢😢😢
I don't care much about Peugeot. You can't deny. That's how the serie works. Shouldn't all car be leveled? That's why BoP is there isn't it? Give to everybody the opportunity to be competitive. Peugeot isn't competitive so BoP isn't beneficial enough yet for them.
all cars are levelled. that’s how BoP works. Peugeot are literally 2 races deep with a new car, they’re hardly going to be fighting at the sharp end are they? BoP doesn’t ‘benefit’ anyone, the fact that phrase has been normalised now is quite crazy.
No they are not. Peugeot is nearly 2 second off pace. That's not leveled. Why would you put BoP if its to still have an unbalanced category? I thought the whole point was to bring constructor by giving them a chance to win with BoP. They will leave if they can't compete because BoP isn't favorable enough to bring their car to the level of the conpetition.
racing is racing buckaroo, not every car is going to post the exact same times. after BoP is applied to equalise all the cars setup and car characteristics then define how fast a car will be on a weekend.
No you can't call 2 second off pace balanced. We should see the the Hypercar class within a second if it truly was balanced. And every car should have a chance to win if it was done properly. It's simply not the case.
good grief. Balance of Performance equalises all cars *before* a weekend. the setup of the car and the skill of the team end up defining how fast their car is. in essence, Peugeot need to improve. but first of all, learn about their new car.
Yes and 2 second off pace can't be justify by setup alone. If BoP is done as it is supposed to be, all car should equal chance for the win. So what is it then? BoP should balance the performance so everyone have the same level but not to the point where everyone has the same performance. So like in a normal non BoP championship?
2 seconds is WELL within a performance range including setup, team and driver talent, and conditions.