Hendrick to race as Garage 56 at Le Mans in 2023

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Rollo75

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No.
Race organiser the Automobile Club de l’Ouest has confirmed that acceptance of the entry from Hendrick Motorsports for the grid slot – reserved for what it describes as an “innovative car” – is dependent on the Chevrolet Camaro ZL-1 running an energy-recovery system.
That would give NASCAR the chance to test the hybrid technology on its Next Gen machine in competition ahead of its introduction in the premier Cup Series, which could happen as early as 2024.

- Autosport, 18th Mar 2022

I would have expected a V8Supercar to race at Le Mans before another NASCAR Cup car and my suspicion is that this entry will be on a hiding to nothing and won't make it into the top 10 outright, but I guess it is the perfect place to use as a test bed for new stuff.

At 110in (wheelbase) by 76.5in (track) a Cup Series car is an exceptionally wide thing. The VE/VF Commodore was already a massively massive thing and when you compare that on track to the Cup Series cars which haven't changed dimensions, it looks tall and skinny.

The Oreca 07 is 118in (wheelbase) by 61.8in (track) which means that they'll be about as long if you allow for bodywork but at almost 15 inches narrower that's absurd.

I expect the project to be mostly a failure and for the prototypes to us the Cup car as a drafting plug but it will be interesting to see if it survives at all; let alone how they work out changing drivers, brakes and maybe rotors on the fly.
 

muhan78

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Yeah pure next gen nascar go to le mans is a kind of joke. There will be lot of modification to make it endurance car to the point that you can't call it next gen nascar.
About size.
People tend to forget how small lmp car are. porsche-Sports-car-world-championships-in-focus-919-Hybrid-and-911-RSRWorld-premiere-of-the-Ma...jpg
I think next gen in term of size is comparable with BMW M8 GTE, biggest GTE car.
 

Rollo75

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No.
Screenshot 2022-03-18 101104.jpg

VE/VF Commodore was already a big chunky thing which had to be narrowed and shortened to match the Falcon for Supercar racing. You can see how wide the Cup cars are in comparison.

Part of me is wondering why Chevrolet just doesn't built a standard Camaro into a GT2/3 equivalent car, or at least a GT300 compliant car. Maybe its because they want the thing in situ to see how it breaks?
 

mtblillie

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It'll be interesting to the car on the Mulsanne straight. We have yet to see the NextGen cars at a RC (though COTA is next weekend), but traditionally NASCAR cup cars have had a lot of raw speed in straights and then handle like a potato in corners. Le Mans isn't a particularly difficult track in terms of turns (except for maybe two, unless you include the bus stops), but it'll be interesting to see.
 

Rollo75

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Traditionally NASCAR cup cars have had a lot of raw speed in straights and then handle like a potato in corners.

- Oreca 07 weighs 930kg
- Toyota GR010 Hybrid weighs 1040kg
- GT3 car weighs 1300kg
- Supercar weighs 1350kg
- Cup Series car weighs 1496kg

Big, wide, heavy... does not a nice handing car make.
 

Highbank

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don't forget they'll be adding a sealed fuel system and jacks to that fat car, a wing, who knows what else, so it's not really going to be a "NexGen"car at all
 

muhan78

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View attachment 126912

VE/VF Commodore was already a big chunky thing which had to be narrowed and shortened to match the Falcon for Supercar racing. You can see how wide the Cup cars are in comparison.

Part of me is wondering why Chevrolet just doesn't built a standard Camaro into a GT2/3 equivalent car, or at least a GT300 compliant car. Maybe its because they want the thing in situ to see how it breaks?
They have Vette GTE which is equivalent GT2 cmiiw. They never build GT3 car iirc, Vette GT3 build by Callaway.

Really don't know what they want to test in Le Mans, even they can't run nascar engine (5.5l max displacement rule iirc).
 

Rollo75

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No.
As a Garage 56 entrant, they can run whatever the hell they like. Garage 56 is an invitational innovative technology slot.
 

Rollo75

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No.
SEN Radio in Sydney seem to think that someone at Hendrick has had a chat to Triple Eight Engineering re the hybrid system, as Gen-3 Supercar is looking at some kind of hybrid by about 2026. They currently use single spool drive; which means an wholesale replacement of final drive.

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