SPORTSCARS

Startingto write this from the T2 Lufthansa lounge at Heathrow, waiting on an early morning flight to Stuttgart to attend the Porsche Night of Champions in Weissach this evening. My attendance is nothing to do with us being champions, although our own Seb Priaulx attended a digital version of the event last year to pick-up his Porsche Carrera Cup North America trophy, but rather we’ve been invited as a valued supplier of the chassis (“spine”) of the new 963 LMDh prototype race car.

Time for a digression…for those that haven’t totally got their head around the recent magnificent rebirth of international sportscar racing, which debuts at the imminent 2023 Rolex 24 at Daytona (the first race for LMDh), let me elucidate on what could be considered a confusing mess of acronyms and technical minutia. Just thinking where I should start. How about with a recap of where we have recently come from in the top tier of our sport (that being prototype racing cars that have a roof)?

In North America, sports car racing has most recently been led by the Daytona Prototype international (DPi) formula which started life as LMP2 (Le Mans Prototype’s second tier category). LMP2 had hitherto been LMP675 (the 675 being a reference to the car’s minimum weight) in the early years of this century, Multimatic Motorsports winning on the debut of that original category at Le Mans in 2000 (had to throw that in). Over time the class ultimately evolved into a kind of ‘spec’ series with four constructors (Ligier, Dallara, Multimatic and Oreca) building cars to a very tightly controlled rules set, all using identical Gibson 4.2 litre Zytec V8 engines (a nice affordable, reliable piece). Oreca has dominated the category through superior aerodynamics, competitive spare parts pricing, and outstanding customer service (this all enabled by reaching a critical mass sales volume, something the rest of us never achieved). LMP2 has kept the World Endurance Championship (WEC) and Le Mans grids full while the high dollar wars in the top LMP1 class (latterly Hypercar) have been fought out amongst a small group of road car manufacturers.

At one point after the American Le Mans Series was taken over by Grand-Am (I won’t go down that rabbit hole, the “unification” happened in 2012) LMP2 briefly competed directly with the last (third) generation of Daytona Prototypes (DP), the top class in the North American championship for 13 years (2003-2016), a tricky balancing act for which Multimatic undertook all of the engineering work to create parity (the advent of the big rear wings and diffusers on the DP machinery). That era was short lived as a new formula was introduced for 2017 (debuting at that year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona) which somewhat convolutedly combined OEM (Original Equipment Manufacture…i.e., road car companies) body designs and production engine configurations with the existing four LMP2 constructor’s chassis (carbon tubs rather than the DP’s antiquated tube frame configuration). The resulting DPi class has provided some top draw racing for the past six years with Multimatic building and campaigning the Mazda RT24-P which achieved some considerable success running against the Cadillac (Dallara chassis), Acura (Oreca chassis) and Nissan (Ligier chassis) competition. However, the “i” really was lower case in that the formula never became “international” (ignoring the annual trip to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park) as the promise of grid spots at Le Mans in the early days of the new era of cooperation between the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) and Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO) – the sanctioning bodies for sportscar racing in North America and the rest of the world, re- spectively – never materialized.

Back to the present, I’m now on my way to England from Germany after a stonking evening which was held in what I’m told is the Porsche R&D cafeteria/restaurant (The “Casino”) repurposed for the evening. It wrapped-up in the bar behind the stage area sharing stories with all the normal protagonists, including my all-time favourite Porsche racing character Alwin Springer (a true legend and a good friend, picture attached). It was a superb event complete with a big band, exclusively made up of Porsche employees, doing Tommy Dorsey and Glen Miller which was excellent and a little amusing when they all shouted “Pennsylvania 6-5000” in strong German accents. The theme was “We Are One” and despite being an old cynic I was totally bought-in by the end of the speeches and presentations. The event was full-on with all the main Porsche leadership in attendance (not just motorsports people) with both Dr. Oliver Blume (Chairman of the Board of Porsche and now, in parallel, of the entire Volkswagen group) and Dr. Michael Steiner (Porsche Board member in charge of Research & Development, and like Blume, also for the Volkswagen group) making strong speeches about the importance of motorsports at Porsche and how they are fully committed to balancing their factory efforts with customer racing. The latter aspect being well illustrated by the massive prize giving to all of the national champions; it went on forever (for two courses of the excellent meal, and at least six glasses of wine), as well as the 5000th 911 based ‘Cup’ car being prominently displayed (five thousand single make competition cars… any OEM thinking about trying to crack the customer racing market should consider that foundation!).

A highlight of the night for me was Roger Penske’s speech, he was in attendance to mark the beginning of a third chapter in Penske Racing’s Porsche history as they assume competition responsibility for the new 963 LMDh car in both WEC and IMSA. First off, he wasn’t scripted (most of the others were) and he began with a great story about being in Weissach in late 1971 with Mark Donahue to test the protype 917/10 Can-Am car. As we sat in the middle of the Research & Develop complex that now resembles a city, with 7,000 employees, he regaled us with his recollection of it snowing on the first day and that there were no buildings on the property (just the test track); difficult for me to comprehend. He went on to talk about the RS Spyder program in which Penske Racing dominated the American Le Mans Series (ALMS), regularly taking outright wins with an LMP2 car competing against the might of the Audi LMP1 machinery. He ended with a strong speech about his and the team’s strong commitment to the LMDh program and his desire to win Le Mans (something his team has never done). During the LMDh piece he complimented Porsche for selecting Multimatic as their chassis partner as he felt that we were technically the strongest option.

So back to my digression, how did DPi become LMDh (Le Mans Daytona hybrid, lower case “h”)? The answer being that when the former did not ultimately win favour with the ACO and so no “international” aspect was realized, IMSA started working on a second generation of DPi (simply named DPi 2.0…believe me, I’m not making this shit up) which was ostensibly the DPi formula with the addition of a hybrid powertrain. Although that little adjunct makes all the sense in the new “Greta world,” and sounds trivial when considered in terms of full electric racing…it ain’t! Combining internal combustion engines (ICE) with supplementary electric power and all the related complexity of energy storage, braking regeneration, and how to keep everybody on the same competitive page (Balance of Performance already being difficult), the thing starts to become a bit of a monster engineering challenge. However, for context it must be remembered that the LMP1 cars running at Le Mans and in the WEC have been utilizing hybrid powertrains since 2012 (in Audi’s case, in conjunction with a diesel engine!) and the technology has been bleeding edge. But the budgets also bled money to the tune of up to $250M a year (while IMSA’s target is to be able to run a two-car team for around $10M…so that doesn’t square).

Multimatic was very close to the Porsche LMP1 program, and I can attest to the amazingness of the powertrain, the ICE being a diminutive 2.0 litre V4 that looked remarkably like the unit in my John Deere lawn tractor. It utilized the most complicated turbo configuration I had ever encountered (up until that point in time), festooned with actuators and utilizing two turbines, one to conventionally drive a compressor and the other being attached to a large electric machine (referred to as an MGU-H…Motor Generator Unit Heat, or in road car parlance, an eTurbo), which was activated to harvest exhaust energy when the other one was not required to spin the compressor stage (eg: off throttle), in fact the engine was run on throttle even when the driver was not demanding it with their foot, so as to continue charging the energy storage battery. Energy was also harvested, under braking, by the front electric drive (that electric machine being referred to as an MGU-K…Motor Generator Unit Kinetic) which also facilitated four-wheel-drive when the battery had enough juice available. I because this article’s acronym limit is fast approaching.

The moral of that LMP1 story is that it can all be done, but Audi and Porsche both pulled the plug (pun intended) on their programs in 2016 and 2017, respectively, because the financial demands were massive (oh, and they were in the middle of the diesel scandal). It left Toyota to soldier on alone as the only real OEM in the game which netted them five, rather hollow, Le Mans wins. For 2021 LMP1 became LMH (Le Mans Hypercar) with whole new rules that I won’t deep dive here (trying to focus on LMDh) but know that it is even more convoluted and includes non-hybrid cars based on road machinery (not really) …Toyota still dominates, because there is no other serious competition, but Ferrari is coming.

Back in North America DPi 2.0 became LMDh with the adoption of a common hybrid system, the development costs being burdened by the suppliers, Bosch for the MGU-K and controls, Williams Advanced Engineering for the battery and Xtrac for the gearbox required to accommodate the electric machine attached to its input shaft. A relatively simple system that adds a supplementary 50kW (67hp) to the ICE, that is additionally limited to a maximum of 470kW (640hp), the whole lot restricted to a total output of around 500kW (670hp). No four-wheel-drive, no MGU-H, and fairly simplistic controls to harvest the rear wheel energy under braking and deploy it when demanded (when I say “simplistic” it is a relative term). The power output will be monitored by IMSA via torque sensors mounted on the half shafts, so nothing to infer from other data, go over the specified power output and visit the pits for a penalty…no arguments. The all-new hybrid system weighs somewhere around 75 kg (it grows slightly every time a new release hits) and at 50kW doesn’t really hold itself up in the power-to-weight comparisons, but it is a step in the right direction and affordable enough to keep the programs in around IMSA’s guideline running budgets. What I would refer to as a good start to affordable sustainability. The chassis (“spine”) is based on the carbon tub and suspension of the next generation of LMP2 cars, which won’t see the light of day in that category for another couple of years, and so the same four constructors are supplying the OEMs. As Roger stated in his speech, Porsche chose Multimatic. This is a good deal for us as the program includes both factory and customer teams.

Could we make this any more complex? How about having another go at convergence between IMSA and the ACO, which was the goal when DPi 2.0 was conceived, but a misalignment in timing blew that up. The idea is to now allow the LMDh cars to compete at Le Mans (as well as in WEC) and the LMH cars in IMSA. But the former are miles apart from being common with LMH, which includes hybrid and non-hybrid powertrains as well as two-wheel- and four-wheeldrive, whereas LMDh is nicely jammed into a tight rules box using a common hybrid system and closely controlled engine power and aerodynamic performance. Balance of Performance adjustment will continue to be made in both categories to assure a competitive landscape, but now there is a new concept: Balance of Technology (BoT), to make sure that the performance level is well matched between the LMDh and LMH categories. How do I explain that? Not sure that it’s cooked enough to take it on yet. It just feels all a little too contrived but how else to make it all work other than returning to a “run what you brung” approach and see how that turns out? I would predict badly because technology has outstripped our ability to keep it all safe so, hey-ho here we go. And now I have reached my acronym limit and need to wrap it up, hopefully my explanation has brought some clarity rather than creating further obfuscation. Oh, one more abbreviation (had to do it), IMSA has chosen to call its LMDh category GTP (Grand Touring Prototype), a nod to the previous golden age of North American prototype racing (1981-1993). And finally, I would highly recommend reading Gary Watkins’ article in this month’s MotorSport magazine entitled “Believe the Hype,” which runs down all the LMH and GTP cars that will be competing in the coming year(s). He is the undisputed king of sportscar racing journalism and the piece is full of great information on the competitors, but he didn’t really bother with all the minutiae of the new categories’ technical rules…hence me putting this explanation together.

Have a great 2023, the sports car racing will be interesting. IT

By Dave Mathers