 Looking
at the presentation model we can get an idea of how low the cockpit center
section is. With the side fences meeting the lateral protection rule
(14.2.7), Andy Thorby's group was then free to drop the cockpit center
section as low as they could in order to try and reduce the overall frontal
area. The reality was that the Panoz V8's inlet trumpets were as
high as the old pushrod V8's and therefore the engine frontal area was
no different than the LMP1. So while the passenger section next to
the driver seemed dramatically lower, overall the LMP07's frontal area
was not much different than the preceeding LMP1. Thorby quotes a
5% reduction in frontal area for the LMP07 over the LMP1. |
The
actual car is very similar to the presentation model with a few small exceptions.
The diffuser area is more practically defined and the fillets between the
vertical wing supports and horizontal rear deck were eliminated.
Note that the diffuser width is different from the presentation car above
and is not to the maximum width.