1/4 Thinking a bit about how you do quantitative analysis of pace at Le Mans. The tricky question is: what is the time value per lap of having your stint go one lap further (which generally means 12 laps rather than 11 for LMP2 and 13 rather than 12 for Hypercar)? There's an easy way to answer:
Catching up on the F2 feature. There's something about drivers whose names begin with G and stopping on that bit of grass in Barcelona.
Mercedes you now have even less excuse for not sending Doriane.
(they won't even go probably they didn't last year)
Though I imagine AF Corse might well send Lilou Wadoux along under the circumstances
2/4 The winning Hypercar did 381 laps. If you did them in 13-lap stints that would have been 29 stops plus a splash, and if you did them in 12-lap stints it would have been 31 plus a much bigger splash. The difference is about 2.44 stops. A stop without tyres was ~75s, so you save 183s or 0.48/lap.
4/4 The car doing 12-lap stints is ahead for more laps - 206 vs 175 - but the average margin is 0.29 seconds for the car doing 13 lap stints because the gaps it has are much wider. HOWEVER it depends on when you think an SC is most likely. In the middle of the race the 12-stinter is ahead by 0.18s.
Given this ruleset is basically a Porsche wishlist I'm surprised they couldn't manage to be more positive. Still mad with the ACO apparently.
...and given that's the dark bit which is usually when the bigger crashes happen, I can see the point of the strategy. So I'd guess going one lap longer on your stints is probably worth anywhere between 0.2-0.7 seconds a lap, depending on SC luck and if the rest of your crew can do it...
3/4 BUT that's not right. A race as long as Le Mans is definitely, 100% going to have a safety car. So we have to consider how doing one less stop positions a car when an SC comes out. So here's a quick sim of the gap between a car doing 13-lap stints and a car 0.48s/lap quicker doing 12s
