[WEC/IMSA] 2021 - 2024 Hypercars LMH/LMDh (all Hypercar cars untill now)

[MonteCristo]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Nice.

[Everso Biggyballies]

I will give them their dues, BMW/WRT are putting in a lot of work to get ready for 2024. I was reading their testing schedule and it is very comprehensive and at many circuits. Good luck to them. They deserve it.

[erwin greven]

[MonteCristo]

That's a nice looking bit of kit.

Welcome to the club Alpine.

[Nononsensecapeesh]

If there's a Hypercar that hasn't looked awesome since the category was introduced in 2021 then I would like to see it.

[MonteCristo]

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/other/we ... 0e72a&ei=8

From Autosport:

It seems certain, however, that the full-season WEC grid next year will be made up of 19 cars in Hypercar and 18 in LMGT3.

There should be 20 applications in Hypercar if Ferrari pushes forward with its plan to run three cars.

That number includes only one entry from WEC newcomer Isotta Fraschini, which has confirmed that it has dropped plans for a second of its Tipo 6 Competizione Le Mans Hypercars

[Everso Biggyballies]

Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6 road car version takin' it to the streets.
Cool to nip down to the Supermarket or do the school run in! I want one. Until you get to a speed bump in the road

[MonteCristo]

Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6 road car version takin' it to the streets.
Cool to nip down to the Supermarket or do the school run in! I want one. Until you get to a speed bump in the road

I wouldn't say no.

But my favourite car ever is still the Koenig C62, based off the Porsche 962.



And the very similarly named, and rather more practical, Koenigsegg CCR comes second.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6 road car version takin' it to the streets.
Cool to nip down to the Supermarket or do the school run in! I want one. Until you get to a speed bump in the road

And now the video of the road trip from Milan to San Remo.

The first road model of the new millennium from Isotta Fraschini on the catwalk from Milano to Sanremo. Over 1000 hp for less than 1000 kg, with an Elite performance and aggressive style.

Tipo 6 LMH Strada | From Milano to Sanremo

[erwin greven]

Lamborghini test sessions at Daytona.

[erwin greven]

THE HOMOLOGATION PROCEDURE

[erwin greven]

Designing an LMDh Car
What are the challenges of designing the A424...

What goes into designing a Le Mans race car? There’s styling cues, practical concerns, brand elements and much more that all needs to be considered. A car’s design needs to convey the brand’s identity and be instantly recognizable, even if it thunders past a grandstand at high speeds, but also needs to be practical for the team to operate.

To find out what it takes to design a car that’s set to battle for overall victory in the FIA World Endurance Championship and the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Sportscar365 sat down with Alpine Design director Antony Villain to talk about some of the challenges involved in the design process for the ORECA-chassised Alpine A424.

Villain explained that the A424, which will debut at the Qatar 1812km in March, was designed simultaneously to Alpine’s radical Alpenglow concept car (the design process for both cars began on the same day) and thus takes a lot of inspiration from it. But Villain has also worked to incorporate links to the brand’s road car products in the prototype racing car.

“For instance, the light signature of the Alpine on the A110, the four rings,” he says. “We have four rings at the front. We have four [lights] in the Berlinette from the ‘60s. So, we wanted to play with these four graphics. I say graphics because on the A110 it's round, but here it's straight line. Because we used some modules. From very far you see four spots. The four eyes. It's a detail, but it's identical.”

Those additional lights, Villain says, don’t just deliver a nice bit of brand recognition, but also serve a practical purpose for the drivers.

“I don't want to lose Le Mans or lose the car on the Hunaudieres because there are no lights,” he laughs. “The two headlamps more inside, underneath, under the blade, are used to lighten the corners on the track. So, there is a real function. The positioning, everything is made to get a better light in the corners.

“There are still things like that. But most of the other main risks or important things were really evaluated very early in the process. So there is no bad surprise. There are no things to change. It looks like the car is on its way.”

Villain further pointed to the V-shape seen on the A424’s front end to another element of Alpine’s design language that was carried over, both from the Alpenglow as well as some of the marque’s previous road cars like the A310 from the 1970s and ‘80s.

“We reinterpret all these details in order to keep the DNA of the brand, but project it onto something much more modern with a different execution,” he says.

Of particular interest were the A424’s distinctive rear lights, which have drawn attention because of its unusual A-shape, a direct reference to the brand’s logo.

“We wanted something that is really unique and different,” he explains. “We started to do some graphics and at one point we said, ‘Let’s try to put the A, just as it is.’ We started with that. Maybe it’s a bit naive, but it works pretty well.”

As Villain explains, although the A-shape worked well from a visual standpoint, his team soon ran into practical concerns that had not been considered.

“The air was not able to get out of the wheel arches,” he says. “And the rubber from the tires, the balls were [stuck] inside. They said, ‘After a few laps, you will have five or ten kilos of rubber inside.’”

The solution for Villain and his team was to alter the dimensions of the rear lights to alleviate these issues, while at the same time trying to retain the intended design.

“We started to open up the center,” he says. “You see it's a bit stretched, [but] you still read it.”

The concerns regarding the rear lights wasn’t the only instance where the wishes of the design department were met with questions from the racing team. As Villain explains, Philippe Sinault’s Signatech operation, which will be operating the pair of A424’s in WEC this season, were intimately involved in the design process.

“They have to love the car,” Villain says. “They have to be sure that they know the car very well, that it suits their needs. So it's a real team effort on this and it was a real challenge. Because [there is] ORECA, Signatech, us, and Alpine Racing. So, to make it work was challenging.

“What is interesting, in designing race cars, is we have constraints from [the] technical point of view, from [the] regulation point of view, but we also have constraints in terms of performance and operations.

“We also had a long discussion with mechanics because they have to jump on the car. They have to get the tear-off for the windscreen. They need to refuel. So, you can’t just do a nice styling. The guy that [needs] to do the fuel, imagine each time he has to do a kind of double movement [to attach the fuel hose]. You can’t afford that during a race.

“So, we change the shape [of the body]. We work with them in order to find the right [shape]. So, it's details. But these are kind of new constraints. But I think that makes this kind of car super exciting to do.

“That's quite unique to design a race car for designers. So far, it was more designed by pure engineering or aero. Here, it's kind of a good compromise between styling and performance.”

According to Villain, the design process for the car that would become known as the A424 began in May 2022, more than six months after Alpine’s initial announcement of its LMDh program in October 2021.

“We did a design competition with the designers in-house,” he explains. “There were five guys sketching pretty freely. Everything from the first sketch to the final data [took] one year and after that we had to build the car.

“We presented the show car at Le Mans. The original idea was to present the real car, but actually we were too short [on time]. So, that's why we decided to say we couldn’t miss [the 100th anniversary of] Le Mans. So, we decided to do the show car, which was 95 percent the final car, just a few details changed.

“But the car is the same and at the same time we were presenting that car, the carbon body and chassis of the real car were in the process of being built, which appeared in August.”

Source

[erwin greven]

[Everso Biggyballies]

I like it. Best looking Hypercar there is.But then I thought that in its wingless guise as well.
Love the livery too. I wish them the very best.

[DoubleFart]

I like it, but I was also a fan of the wingless. The most colourful version was my favourite livery