ACO and FIA have made some minor changes to BOP following the test day, ahead of this years 24 Hours of Le Mans.
All GTE Pro teams have been allowed a slightly bigger fuel tank size – probably to keep them clear of the GTE Am category during the first round of pitstops.
Corvette Racing in GTE Pro will have a slightly smaller restrictor of 0,2 mm, so they will have slightly less horsepower. Corvette drove the fastest laptime and had the highest top speed at the test, but they matched the times of the other manufacturers quite good.
The GTE Am is overall not affected – only the Ferrari 488 GTE models will have a slightly higher boost level for the turbos as well as a slightly bigger fuel tank for them and Aston Martin too. The Ferraris were a little behind on both laptime and top speed during the test.
Photo: JJ Media
Hopefully this will be the last change before this years race, but it is possible for ACO and FIA to adjust all the way up to the race, if they find anything unusual regarding pace, compared to what they have seen until now.
With this BOP change it looks like that the organizers either have full proof or suspect that Ford didn’t drive flat out at the test day. To drive 7 seconds slower than last year, with only minimal changes to their BOP compared to last year, smells a bit fishy to many. Some have suggested that the BOP changes have hit the Ford engine so hard, that it’s simply not performing anywhere near to optimal any more.
But we will see in the coming days.
