Le Mans Series

The polemic louvers and how they can lose you a race (part 2)

© Planetlemans - Gabriel Portos

One of the advantages of the digital era is the speed and quality of the interaction with your readers. A few weeks ago Planetlemans discussed an incident which had costed Quifel ASM a win in the Le Mans Series, an incident which had seen a race official forced them to change the louvers (or louvres in their UK spelling) rather than tape them as other teams have done.
Right after our original article we had one of the teams referring similar incidents occurring to their car and sharing the same perception of the bottom line issue: lack of alignment criteria of the LMS race officials when it came to what action needs to be taken if the louvers are broken. So the question remains, can they be taped or do you need to replace the whole se of louvers..?

A few days after that, a well known and multi talented paddock regular referred to Planetlemans that the RML team also had to change the full set of louvers not once but twice during the season: firstly at Valencia and then at Silverstone when the British team had to replace rear panel and louvers with a total cost of six minutes. The same reader suggests that rubber debris and not vibration seems to be the main cause of broken louvers, adding that off-line driving to pass traffic aggravates the problem at certain tracks. Point taken.

What all this seems to suggest is that there is a clear need for unified criteria by race officials on what to do in these cases. A press colleague saw the holes (literally) above the rear wheels of one of the top finishers at Silverstone, louvers almost completely gone. They were allowed to continue while others needed to change the panels in the same circumstances and this is what (in my humble opinion) cannot be happening. Both the Quifel ASM and RML incidents are proof that a strong and crystal clear message is needed from the organization to race officials. Avoiding these polemic incidents should be a priority to ensure fair racing decides the podium.

(with special thanks to our readers)
gabriel@planetlemans.com