Have you ever seen a Le Man car in action? If you've ever looked at images of one up close you'll see that this obtuse lumbering oddity is in fact an amazing piece of cutting edge technology. When you see the level of attention lavished on each carbon fibre element you could be forgiven for thinking that it seemed to share the same workings of an F1 car but with a different suit on. And I don't mean in a road-car way. I mean in a "this car could have a serious go at showing an F1 car how it's done" kind of way. Which brings me to the title of this blog, just how far apart/close are these two spheres of motorcraft? F1 and Le Man cars are conceived and born in totally different manners and yet the ultimate difference between the two is remarkably small. A Le Man car is designed to go extremely fast, for up to 24 hours at a time and usually designed for just one circuit, namely Le Mans. When you count up the cost of the R&D, manufacturing and overheads of such an operation it seems even more expensive next to the already ludicrously expensive F1 series. An F1 car is designed around a much tighter set of rules (such as wing lengths and tyre types), is the result of a progression from previous designs in F1 seasons and are expected to last for up to 2 hours around a variety of global circuits. So which is faster? For those of you expecting an upset, I'm sorry. The F1 car is in real terms faster. Around a twisty track the F1 car will run rings around a LMP (Le Mans Prototype). However; the one saving grace for the LMP is that it probably has a higher top speed than an F1 car and could also run at higher revs for a longer period. A track with a good mixture of straights and turns is the beloved Spa Francorchamps Circuit in Belgium so a look at the lap times from there would be useful. The Pole time at this year's Le Mans Series was set in a Peugeot 908 HDi with a time of 1m 57.884s. The Pole time at this year's F1 race was set by Mark Webber's Red Bull at 1m 45.778s and that was set in a borderline wet conditions. So that's a difference of around 12 seconds, how? Before I go into the details let's not forget that being 12 seconds slower than a state of the art F1 car around a long circuit is not to be sniffed at! The LMP cars weigh more and have less power which effects acceleration, cornering and braking. Le Mans cars also prefer not to overstretch the engine for endurance events and will therefore have less wing to ensure less revs on the straights. So there you have it folks: An F1 car is indeed faster than a Le Mans car but it would not last long in an endurance event. Who knows, perhaps in ten years time when the F1 law makers tighten regulations up even further (smaller engine capacity, grooved tyres etc.) we may see the day when the mighty Le Man car can match an F1 car for pace as well as endurance!
It's nice to be able to talk about a Grand Prix in terms of it's significance to the overall Championship as opposed to the merits of the race itself because very often the former is inapplicable. Yet again somebody, somewhere, jumbled the numbers up to ensure that there are still 5 players in the chase for this year's crown. Following his straightforward victory in Monza 2 weeks earlier Alonso again engineered a calculated & determined push to the finish line which puts him in the unlikely position of 2nd in the Championship having thrown points away in China and Monaco before. As the for the race itself I was slightly reluctant to get too involved in what was sure to be a very very long race, in fact the maximum cut-off time for a race of 2 hours was avoided by all of 2m 7secs. However; what emerged was a race of strategy, getting the best from a bad start and another sharing out of the points. Vettel finished 2nd despite having a quicker car but was surely happy to bank solid points instead of embarrassing headlines. Webber would've been more happy with his performance having taken a safety-car gamble to jump him from 5th on the grid to a podium. Button made the most of a McLaren that seems to be losing the technical war as the season reaches a crescendo by finishing 4th. As for his team mate, well... Hamilton will be angry and miserable in equal measure after he was punted out of the race after a passing move on Webber when he didn't leave enough room for 2 cars to emerge from one apex. So what do you need to know coming out of this race? 25 points separate the top 5 drivers in the table, there are 4 races left and still no team leader roles have emerged from Red Bull or McLaren. At this point in the season it's worth recalibrating our mental arithmetic bearing in mind the points system was changed at the begining of the season. Using last year's system the top 5 drivers would be separated by 10 points. Unthinkable! But it's a reality, may the good times roll on. Media friendly Lewis Before and After: 
