Tag: Scrutineering

Ferrari and Porsche play to the crowd on Day 2 of Le Mans Scrutineering

Day 2 of Le Mans Scrutineering at the Place de la République again brought out a large crowd. After the bulk of the Hypercar factory teams visited the city center for technical checks yesterday, just three remained today, with the Porsche, Ferrari …

Day 2 of Le Mans Scrutineering at the Place de la République again brought out a large crowd. After the bulk of the Hypercar factory teams visited the city center for technical checks yesterday, just three remained today, with the Porsche, Ferrari and Toyota Hypercar teams headlining the schedule.

Porsche was first through, with the trio of Penske 963s trailed by the No. 99 from Proton, sporting a tweaked FATurbo Express livery for this race that features green accents.

At Penske, the mood within the camp as they passed through Le Pesage stood out. It was the polar opposite to last year, when the team turned up with the dream of celebrating the 75th anniversary of Porsche with a 20th overall Le Mans win, only to struggle all week long with a set of 963s that clearly needed work.

As we know, it’s a different story now. Porsche Penske Motorsport came out swinging after a productive off-season, winning the IMSA and WEC season openers at Daytona and Qatar and showing race-winning speed at a variety of circuits.

Laurens Vanthoor, who drives the WEC championship-leading No. 6 963, agrees confidence is high this year.

“I thought about that a bit this morning,” he told RACER when asked about being one of the favourites for the win heading into the race. “I mean, I remember last year, coming here was a dream come true.

“You know, being in Hypercar, being a Porsche Penske, driving these cars in Le Mans, and now a year on we’re here, leading the championship. And I agree we are one of the favorites indeed, which is pretty cool.

“I told myself, ‘Enjoy it! It might be a week or a weekend which you’ll remember for a long time. So enjoy the moment.’”

Meanwhile, Proton Competition’s new-look 963 is ready for action. The family-run German team is looking to build on its impressive performance at Spa, during which it led a considerable chunk of the race and was in the mix for a podium finish before the red flag.

Harry Tincknell, who is back with the team after being forced to watch the Spa race from afar due to an IMSA clash, said it was fun but hard watching on TV.

“I really wanted to be there!” he admitted. “The team and drivers executed so well and it was amazing to see how far we’ve come. In general, we are preparing for events better now. For instance, we did a session on the Multimatic sim in Detroit before Spa and that was really useful to get us started with a setup. And we’ve done that again for this race.

“We just want to be the underdogs, quietly going about our business. That’s how we will get a good result.”

For Proton the Test Day tomorrow is set to be especially important, as it has not been able to go testing in private this year. It will push to complete as many laps as possible as it has yet to turn a lap with the 963 on the Circuit de la Sarthe.

“We haven’t tested since Qatar, but for us it’s created an underdog spirit,” Tincknell said. “You see online other teams going testing here, there and everywhere and then we rock up and are quick straight away. But on this occasion, we will test with everyone else. We’ve seen what happens when things are stacked against us, so it will be interesting to see what we do on a level playing field.”

Ferrari arrives at Le Mans with three Hypercars for the first time, the No. 83 privately entered 499P adding to the team’s prospects for the race.

Robert Kubica, who shares the No. 83 with Robert Shwartzman and Ye Yifei, is keen to finally claim a breakthrough win at Le Mans on his fourth attempt. Back in 2021, his WRT ORECA retired from the lead on the final lap, then in 2022 and 2023 he finished second.

“Every year this race is very demanding,” he said. “It’s one of the biggest challenges in motorsport. I will try to repeat what I did in the past, with improvements here and there. We know in a field like this we will have to execute the race perfectly to have a chance.”

However, to achieve a dream result, he will have to beat the factory cars from AF Corse — a task that will be far from easy. Both the No. 50 and No. 51 crews carry extra motivation with them to win after a rollercoaster ride of a start to the season.

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Alessandro Pier Guidi, who proudly returns to the event as an overall winner, feels it could be a different story this year, with the new “Two Stage” BoP system in play and no tire warmers this time around.

“Statistically, it’s so difficult to win twice in a row,” he said. “It’s nice to come back as a winner but we need to forget what we did and try to repeat last year’s result if we can. I don’t think expect to be as quick as last year, I think Toyota and Porsche will be quick here. After the Test Day we hope it will be easier to understand where we are. We believe it will be a fight between three or more manufacturers.”

Specifically on tire warmers, Pier Guidi and the other Ferrari drivers continue to express safety concerns, a year on from the re-introduction of tire warmers for Le Mans after multiple high-profile incidents at Spa in cool temperatures trackside.

“The only difference (compared to last year) for us is safety,” he told RACER. “I hope the weather is warm because then it won’t be a big issue. But it will be if it is cool or damp. The problem is you have long straights, few corners, not a lot of energy, so it will take a long time to heat the tires, longer than every other circuit.”

On the subject of BoP, while few personalities are keen to discuss anything in-depth on the record (by regulation), in the background there is plenty to discuss ahead of track action.

It seems teams at the top end of the championship standings, like Porsche, are particularly eager to hit the track to see what effect the latest round of Balance of Performance changes, and the addition of the “two-stage” system, have had on their cars.

Opinions are split, though the majority appear to welcome the two-stage BoP process — which regulates power output below and above 250 kph, handing the rule-makers greater control over the top speed of the cars.

In practice, the hope is that at Le Mans it will prove to be another significant tool to help the rule-makers balance the cars on a circuit which features lengthy straights from Tetre Rouge to Mulsanne Corner, from Mulsanne Corner to Indianapolis and from Arnage to the Porsche Curves.

The objective is clear: reduce performance gaps in the field. Will it prove a success? We will have to wait until next weekend to truly find out.

Later in the day, Toyota headed into the city with its GR010 HYBRIDs ahead of its 13th consecutive Le Mans 24 Hours as a top-class contender. All eyes were on Jose Maria Lopez, who has been called up late to replace the injured Mike Conway.

Over at AKKODIS, Lopez’s replacement, Jack Hawksworth, was also present after making a rapid journey to France. But he wasn’t the only LMGT3 driver in a new environment to report on, as IMSA GTP regular Jordan Taylor headed to the square with his new teammates at Spirit of Race ahead of his first Le Mans start in a Ferrari.

“I’ve raced against Ferraris for many years here, and they’ve always been strong competitors so it’s been good to be on the other side,” he told RACER.

“The deal came about because I knew Marco Sorensen and he knew Johnny and Conrad (Laursen), so he reached out to see if I was available (as Kevin Magnussen, the team’s first choice, was not able to take part). Thankfully, I got approval from my team in America.

“The biggest thing was being present for a test in Paul Ricard with the team. It was a really good first chance to get to know everyone and get some mileage in the car. The car is impressive and user-friendly, but there’s a lot to learn with over 40 pages of system information to read.”

With scrutineering wrapped up by mid-afternoon, the next significant item on the schedule included 17 of the cars on the entry and the 1924 winning Bentley 3 Litre Sport completing a road run through the city. The turnout was huge.

Test Day follows on Sunday.

Official scrutineering launches Le Mans week

The build-up toward the Le Mans 24 Hours got underway today in the city center, with just over half of the field passing through the traditional scrutineering route in front of the public. Held in bright sunshine and in front of a sizeable crowd, …

The build-up toward the Le Mans 24 Hours got underway today in the city center, with just over half of the field passing through the traditional scrutineering route in front of the public. Held in bright sunshine and in front of a sizeable crowd, day one of scrutineering saw many key teams and drivers get a first taste of the pre-race atmosphere.

Team WRT attracted the most attention in the opening hours, as its quartet of BMWs paraded through town, three of them in new-for-Le Mans liveries, including the No. 20 M Hybrid V8 “art car.”

In the Hypercar ranks, just three of the team’s full-season WEC drivers were present — Rafaelle Marciello, Robin Frijns and Dries Vanthoor — due to the clash with the DTM round at Zandvoort this weekend.

That scheduling conflict will be tricky to manage, with Marco Wittmann, Sheldon van der Linde and Rene Rast set to make the 435-mile journey to Le Mans on Sunday directly after the second race of the weekend which is due to finish at 2:30pm.

Nevertheless, all three here in France were keen to speak ahead of what is a hugely significant week for the Bavarian brand at La Sarthe, which is celebrating 25 years since it took its famous win in 1999 with the V12 LMR.

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For Marciello, the initial goal is to finish well and get points on the board for the first time this season. The former Mercedes-AMG factory driver, who made a high-profile move to BMW in the off-season, is yet to hit his stride in Hypercar since his debut at the start of the season in Qatar, and is hopeful that things will turn around soon.

“We are going to try to ensure the car can handle 24 hours,” he told RACER. “It’s difficult to predict the level of performance because Ferrari, Porsche, Toyota and Cadillac are very strong. But we have a new (two-stage) BoP here (which provides the rule-makers with two levels of power control, below and above 250 kph) so you never know what will happen.”

In general, the entire team is expecting to take a step forward in performance terms for Le Mans. WRT boss Vincent Vosse told RACER that its pre-Le Mans test at Paul Ricard was successful. He also hinted that minor upgrades on the software and systems side of the M Hybrid V8 should see it emerge more in the fight.

“We were not happy with Qatar, but the step was quite big in Imola. We made another step in Spa too but we didn’t put that on paper with the result of the race,” he said. “We qualified P6 with Robin, which is good.

“To me, the season is starting now we are at Le Mans. We are expecting to have made a good step, but we don’t know what the others have done or if they have been hiding things. We won’t know until Thursday night.

“We tested recently at Ricard, then did a roll-out in Spa and both went well. We had some rain like we have at I think every test so far, but we expect to be stronger now. It will be a different challenge here for the car compared to Rolex, but progress has been made. We have updates here and we will have to see where we are after Le Mans.”

WRT’s pair of M4 LMGT3s were also present today in their new color schemes. After a disastrous outing at Spa — where both cars retired as victims of multi-car incidents not of their making — the team is looking to secure a strong result at Le Mans and regain ground in the title battle.

For MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi, who shares the No. 46 M4 with Ahmad Al Harthy and Maxime Martin in the WEC, a podium is the target for his Le Mans 24 Hours debut. It wouldn’t be his first trip to the podium on the full Circuit de la Sarthe though, as last year he scored a famous victory with WRT in the Road to Le Mans support races.

“I’m very excited because the atmosphere is so special,” he said. “Last year’s drive was very important, so for me, this year is not the first time (on the Circuit de la Sarthe) and last year I really enjoyed it.

“It’s difficult to (have expectations) because the class is different from track to track. This season we have been quite competitive though so hope to fight for the podium, we hope to be fast and after we will see.”

WRT wasn’t the only LMGT3 team that generated buzz during the morning, as the Aston Martins were present and TF Sport passed through with its pair of Corvettes. Tom Ferrier, the TF Sport team owner, is hoping that the team will be in the mix during the race after a successful recent test at Silverstone.

“Speed-wise we are getting there,” he said. “At Silverstone, we completed engine development stuff which everyone was positive about. It concerned torque controls and software.”

While TF is still waiting for its first standout result since its partnership with Corvette began, Ferrier made it clear to RACER that his team has been extremely impressed with the factory support it has received so far.

He also revealed that the team has taken delivery of its third car from Corvette, which is on-site at the circuit in France and will be on display in the fan village. After this event, the team is looking to put that car to use in an expansion of its Corvette effort, with programs in both the Asian Le Mans Series over the winter and the European LMS next season both under evaluation.

Later in the day, two of the key French factories made their way through Le Pesage – Alpine Endurance Team and Peugeot TotalEnergies.


For Alpine, it’s almost a year to the day since it launched the A424 in public at the circuit on the eve of the centenary race. Reflecting on the journey the Signatech team that operates the program has been on, boss Phillipe Sinault told RACER that he feels a huge amount of pride to bring Alpine’s new challenger to the bumper Hypercar class.

As for expectations, they are modest at this stage. “Getting to the finish with both cars is the number one priority — it has to be — then we will see where we are,” he said. “It’s crucial to the project. We have to focus on reliability.

“The Sunday test will be crucial to evaluate the car, as it will be the first time we will run the car with a low-downforce profile.”


One of the storylines within that effort to follow this week is the performance of the returning Ferdinand Habsburg. The Austrian is back in the lineup after missing Imola and Spa due to injuries suffered in an accident during testing.

Jules Gounon, who filled in for Habsburg, is listed for the Test Day on Sunday but according to Sinault will not drive.

“Ferdi is here because he is ready, no doubt. It’s our responsibility and his responsibility to make sure he is OK,” Sinault said. “We have made a common decision that he is ready and we are focused on getting him laps here.”

It appears that Gounon will not be the only driver listed against a Hypercar he will not drive on the Test Day, as when COOL Racing passed through Scrutineering, 20-year-old Peugeot reserve Malthe Jakobsen explained to RACER that he is unlikely to drive either 9X8.

“The plan at the moment is to focus on LMP3 and COOL Racing, which makes sense,” he said. “I feel confident going into this race, more than last year because I have so much more experience.”

Jakobsen expects to be fighting for overall honors in LMP2 this year with Ritomo Miyata and Lorenzo Fluxa, who he competes with full-time in the ELMS this year. He is one of a number of ELMS contenders in the LMP2 ranks hoping to impress at the biggest race of the year.

Another is IMSA GTP racer Louis Deletraz, who is driving the beautifully presented AO by TF ORECA dressed in “Spike the LMP2 Dragon” colors. With no WTRAndretti or Acura/Honda at Le Mans, he is gunning for the LMP2 Pro/Am victory with PJ Hyett and Alex Quinn.

“To be able to do this and the six ELMS races alongside my IMSA program is very important,” said Deletraz. “The level in P2 Am is so high now because the quality of Bronze drivers is the same and we have factory drivers from IMSA like Filipe (Albuquerque) in the class too.

“The dream program, though, is to do WEC and IMSA together. I hope there are no clashes next year because I’d love to do both. The more races you do, the better — imagine doing all the IMSA and WEC races in the same car!”

Towards the end of the day, it was Cadillac’s turn to pass through the tunnel, the pair of Ganassi V-Series.Rs and the single example from Action Express. They generated, as expected, plenty of attention from V8-loving locals.

While Alex Palou (who is a guest driver in the No. 2 WEC entry alongside Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn) was unable to take part in today’s festivities due to his IndyCar commitments this weekend, newly-minted reserve driver Tristan Vautier was on site, as was Action Express’ new third driver Felipe Drugovich.

Aston Martin F1 reserve Drugovich, who has been honing his prototype racing skills this year in the ELMS with Vector Sport, heads into Le Mans with a test at Laguna Seca under his belt with Cadillac. At the California circuit, his performance was evaluated after a run of some 30 laps in the car.

“There were not many laps because it was really a test for Pipo (Derani) and Jack (Aitken), but I think I did well in my two outings,” related Drugovich. “I was good enough to fill in for this race. It wasn’t good enough to get fully up to speed, but it was enough to show what I could do.”

Scrutineering continues tomorrow when the remaining cars will complete their inspections ahead of Test Day. Porsche Penske Motorsport, Ferrari AF Corse and Toyota Gazoo Racing are among the teams that will be present.

Should F1 change its post-race technical procedures?

Picture the scene: You’ve just been to watch a thrilling race, where any one of three drivers looked to be in with a shout of winning for much of it, and there was uncertainty about the outcome right up until the final lap. Then you’ve made your way …

Picture the scene: You’ve just been to watch a thrilling race, where any one of three drivers looked to be in with a shout of winning for much of it, and there was uncertainty about the outcome right up until the final lap.

Then you’ve made your way onto the grid, watched the podium ceremony surrounded by thousands of others, slowly walked off after a few photos, sat in traffic for a while but still made it downtown to grab some dinner while buzzing about the day you’ve had.

Suddenly you start to overhear strange comments and shouts of annoyance or unusual laughter… And then you’re pretty sure the word “disqualified” was said. You grab your phone and check online and there’s the news.

So it turns out there wasn’t uncertainty about the outcome right up until the final lap — there was uncertainty about the outcome right up until over three and a half hours after the checkered flag had been waved to call off the battle.

It just doesn’t seem right, does it?

Podium ceremonies are a big part of the fan experience at F1 races…which makes their being rendered irrelevant by subsequent revelations all the more of a buzz kill. Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images

I’m sure at this point some of you are already busy typing “Do you not know motorsport?! Cars take time to go through technical checks!” And yes, they do. This is not a dig at the FIA, which cannot be expected to check everything on every car within seconds of a race finishing.

In fact, the technical brilliance that is inherent in Formula 1 is something that needs to be protected, but that doesn’t mean the time it took for the result to be changed on Sunday night can’t be looked at and learned from.

In some ways, it’s a tougher challenge than sporting penalties, because of how complex F1 machinery is and the level of detail that needs looking into during post-race scrutineering to ensure that cars are conforming with the technical regulations. But in other ways, it’s much easier.

As we evidenced by the decision that came out from the stewards on Sunday night, there is a zero-tolerance approach to technical breaches.

“The stewards note that the onus is on the competitor to ensure that the car is in compliance with the regulations at all times during an event,” the decision said. “In this particular case, the rear skid in the area defined in the Technical Delegate’s report was outside of the thresholds outlined in Article 3.5.9 e) of the FIA Formula One Technical Regulations, which includes a tolerance for wear. Therefore, the standard penalty for a breach of the Technical Regulations is imposed.”

And it’s not as if Mercedes or Ferrari argued that case at all. Mercedes technical director James Allison has since admitted there is embarrassment within the team for such an error that led to it being disqualified as the rules are so clear cut.

“Of course the disqualification is a significant blow,” Allison said. “It’s a miserable feeling. It hurts and everybody here feels it. Everybody is upset, embarrassed to a degree as well because we absolutely don’t like like being on the wrong side of the rules and just lamenting the lost points.

“Austin is a track with a very bumpy surface and therefore you are a bit more vulnerable to bumping the car on the ground. We just simply didn’t take enough margin at the end of Free Practice 1. When we had done our setup we checked the plank and everything all looked fine, untouched after the FP1 running.

“But the results of the race speak for themselves. We were illegal, so clearly, we should have had our car set a little bit higher up to give ourselves a little bit more margin. It’s of course a mistake — it’s an understandable sort of mistake in a sprint weekend where it’s so much harder to get that stuff right, especially on a bumpy track. But a lesson for us in the future to make sure that we take more margin, especially at a track like that with all its bumps.”

The issue I have is that if there are aspects of a car that can be worn during a race and need to be checked in terms of tolerances, and then a certain car — or two in this week’s case — is proven to be the wrong side of the line, why does it still take so long to be decided upon?

A lesson to be learned from an organizational point of view would be to inform teams they will be called immediately during parc ferme checks to discuss what has happened. There was nearly an hour and a half between Mercedes and Ferrari being summoned and the decision to disqualify both cars being published.

In cases like this, it doesn’t need to take that long. It’s obviously not going to be as simple as the FIA dropping everything to handle that specific situation at a certain time but that’s where resource and investment continues to be required. In a week where the governing body increased the maximum fine amount to competitors in F1 to over $1 million — money that is intended for grassroots motorsport — there surely can be other revenue streams found.

The Remote Operations Center (ROC) in Geneva that was established in the aftermath of the Abu Dhabi 2021 debacle has been up and running for more than a year but doesn’t appear to have had a hugely noticeable impact so far. Perhaps those in the ROC could be tasked with hearing from a team representative as quickly as possible when an issue with a car is found, allowing post-race checks to continue uninterrupted but a decision to be made more quickly.

And perhaps more importantly, there’s got to be flexibility when issues occur. Thresholds surely should be in place for when random technical checks produce multiple infringements of the same type, as was the case at COTA.

Four cars were checked across the top four teams — those of Hamilton, Leclerc, Max Verstappen and Lando Norris — and two of the four were found to be in breach of the regulations. With a 50% hit rate, checking the planks of at least one car from each team should surely become the required follow-up.

The counter argument is everything needs packing up to take to Mexico City, but then we’re in danger of seeing the desire to chase more revenue by constantly adding more races be to the detriment of the actual sporting competition itself. Maybe we’re not quite at that point yet, but that balance needs to be kept in mind.

Austin wasn’t a case of the FIA doing anything wrong — in fact, doing it right by finding discrepancies that then act as deterrents to all teams — but lessons can certainly be learned to ensure fans have a better chance of actually knowing the outcome of a race before they’ve left a track, and teams feel they’ve all been judged equally.