In the GTE pro class, qualifying has started for the 2017 Le Mans race, and BoP has reared its head again, with some drivers saying it stifles’ innovation and penalizes manufactures for creating great cars.
For those who might not know, Balance of Performance (BoP) is more than just creating a level playing field for all cars. It actually penalizes some cars for being too fast. The idea is that there is no way the Aston Martin Vantage (a 10 year old design) can be competitive with the new Ford GT unless the Fords power is substantially reduced. As per Chevrolets (Corvette Racing) Doug Fehan, “The whole concept of BoP is to create equality between cars, whether they are front-engined, mid-engined, V8s, V4s, turbocharged or naturally aspirated. The idea is that, in theory; any car on any particular day can win, or be the fastest.”
This make for great spectator racing. Seeing a 10 year old Vantage passing a mid-engine Lamborghini is great for the fans, but is it fair to the manufactures?
Realistically can a Bentley, be competitive with the new Ford GT? The answer is absolutely no, without extensively reducing the Ford’s power.
Aston Martin racing has stated that “Without the BoP we simply could not be competitive in this series”
The FIA and the ACO have reacted again to Ford’s supremacy. There’s a new BoP for Le Mans 2017, or rather there’s a new chart out for the first skirmish before the big race on June 17-18

The Fords have been hit with a 20-kilogram (44-pound) increase in minimum weight and changes to the turbo boost curve of their EcoBoost V6s designed to reduce power. At the same time, their rivals have been given a helping hand by the BoP. The Aston Martin Vantage GTE and Chevrolet Corvette C7.R have been given larger-diameter engine-air restrictors to have the reverse effect.
Ferrari 488 GTE is unchanged for the simple reason that it is the baseline car -- all the others are balanced to the Italian machine.

With this revised BoP, The Aston Martin Vantage holds provisional pole for the French endurance classic after Wednesday night's first qualifying session, Marco Sorensen setting the pace with a 3m52.117s lap in the #95 Vantage GTE he shares with Nicki Thiim and Richie Stanaway.
Sorensen's lap was enough to beat the best of the AF Corse-run Ferrari 488s, the #71 car, by a tenth of a second, while the best of the Chip Ganassi-run Fords, the #67, was two seconds off the pace in fifth place.
The Corvettes were ninth and 10th in class during first qualifying, nearly three seconds off the pace of the leading Aston Martin.


Sebastian Bourdais, whose Indianapolis 500 injuries ruled him out of defending his Le Mans class title with Ford, believes it's wrong that the Vantage - whose roots can be traced back to 2008 - can be allowed to outpace newer machinery from rival manufacturers. "At some point there should be a healthy dose of raising the level rather than trying to bring it down," Bourdais told Autosport. “We always take the example of the Aston Martin. How in hell is it OK to say a Ford GT should only be going the same pace as the Aston Martin? Aston Martin has had basically the same bloody car for how many years now? Eight? 10?
They're trying to balance performance between cars that probably aren't comparable even if they came from the same era."


Sebastian has a point in my opinion. I believe instead of trying to manipulate power among various manufacture, they should create four classes and limit engine size of each class.
1) Front-engine naturally aspirated cars
2) Mid-engine naturally aspirated cars
3) Front-engine turbo or supercharges cars
4) Mid-engine turbo or supercharged cars
Then let the drivers and manufacture race.

My two cents

 

Balance of performance is a necessary evil - I don't think anyone likes it, but you couldn't have a GT class based on production models without it. Otherwise, how could a 500 hp Aston Martin or Porsche compete with a 650 hp Ford GT? If you just define a set of criteria for engine size, and let manufacturers have a free hand, it is no longer a production based GT class - it becomes another prototype class like LMP1. Personally I'd rather have BoP and a full grid of GT cars, rather than only one or two manufacturers and a set of prototype-lite cars (which is pretty much what the Ford GT is).

Incidentally, Aston Martin's GTE Pro car just set the Le Mans GT lap record during qualifying and is on pole for the race. Not bad for a 10 year old car (even with BoP)!

 

Meh. Seabass drives for Ford and they've been *****ing about the BoP since the beginning of the year. They gamed the system last year and got a BoP adjustment in their favor right before the race. Then ran away with the race. So they got the BoP this year to bring them back to the rest of the field. They tried to say "poor me" this year by being 2 sec off the pace in the first qualifying, but magically picked up those 2 sec in the second qualifying when they realized they weren't going to get anything.

Class proliferation is not good for anybody. It dilutes the classes and just makes it more confusing for the fans. All the GTEpro cars are within 2 sec of each other, the top 6 within a sec. I'd say that's a pretty good job of balancing performance. The Fords were not only way faster than the Astons, but the other cars in the class as well. Ford is just *****ing because they made a car that is way faster than any of the other cars in the class and then got the inevitable BoP adjustment. Nobody else seems to be complaining as much as them.

Edit: The forum marks out bi*ch. Really?

David

 

I get why BoP exists but I don't like it either, makes racing boring in my opinion. I'm way more interested in seeing cars very close to stock racing than cars with crazy mods that have been balanced out so they will all essentially turn the same lap time. If the cars on track were the same as a car you could buy on the show room floor then you'd know what your getting in terms of reliability and performance. Luckily there are some classes like this but they don't get much attention compared to the GTE and GT3 classes. Break the classes down by power to weight, limit mods to safety and minor suspension/brake up grades, require a certain production number, and call it a day, let the best car win.

 

BoP works both ways. While Ford is currently the big loser, consider the following hypothetical scenario.
The Aston Vantage arguably has a better designed engine than the Corvette. If engine size is the same, then a double overhead cam engine will make more horsepower than the Corvette,s pushrod engine. So BoP gives the Vantage more weight and limits its revs to 7000 RPM.
Personally I believe BoP sucks. As I mentioned before create different classes and let them race. If the Corvette is not fast enough, then so be it. The big issue for me as I watch these races is they are not believable. I see a Corvette blow by a Ferrari or Lamborghini while is real life, off the showroom floor that wold never happen.
I just believe there has to be a better way.

 

Apologize for the mis spelling, I blame my Ipad

 

Without BoP, there'd be runaway arms races and the classes would become meaningless. All the cars have reduced horsepower (~500 bhp) compared to what they could have, so it isn't just the newer cars to bring them in line with the older ones.

BoP just keeps things relatively even within the classes. But there's so much more to racing than just weight, power, and aero. Tire and fuel strategies, car prep and setup for the track, the ridiculous amounts of work done by the techs to get the cars ready, the drivers' performance, and luck... so much luck... BoP keeps things competitive, but the real racing has far more involved than just that.

 

That said, if one manufacture or team excels at having better drivers, better setups, better tire and fuel strategy, better tire management etc, BoP will penalize that manufacturer for being too successful. That's the inherent problem with BoP in my opinion.

 

Definitely agree with that

 

Despite the previous discussions, the last 15 minutes of the race was quite exciting.

 

So now they need BOT Balance of tires?

 

Win on Sunday; Sell on Monday.

 

I hate it. It is endurance racing not sprint racing. Pole means nothing. I am against using Bop in this race. (actually any endurance racing)

Build the fastest thing you can allowed by the rules and show us it will run 24 hrs.

GOVCO motors getting whacked was amusing

chr

 

They already have that - they're called prototypes.

 

On Prototypes =>

Return Mulsanne - dump the chicanes.

chr