DOME S102 DOME AT LE MANS
Since 1979 Dome has been a fairly regular feature of the Le Mans 24 Hours, either under its own name or that of Toyota. Here are some of its more memorable entries
The S102 made up for what it lacked in traction in outright top speed, the combination giving it eighth position on the grid, the second fastest of the petrol entries. Dome believes it could have substantially improved on that
Dome’s first Le Mans car ran in 1979. It qualified 15th but did not finish
The Red Bull RB7 rear end could serve as an inspiration for a revised S102 or an all-new Le Mans car from Dome
this with the ACO and they let us mount the engine with an overlap. But now we don’t need this layout with the smaller engines because that approach made the chassis slightly heavier than it could have been, [and this is] one of the ways we can save on chassis weight. Doing
Yuchi is still keeping to himself, perhaps to employ on any new Dome LMP1. Suffice to say, he is already thinking about some advanced concepts. ‘Looking at the rear of the Red Bull F1 car, there are some ideas there – like the suspension. You could even do a blown diffuser, but it would
“for our knowledge, we destroyed a car”
that did mean we could put more weight on the front axle, and we achieved 48 per cent of the weight on the front. We had already started discussing with Michelin about using larger front tyres in 2008 because we had experience of it from our work in Super GT. Then, when the rear wing size was cut, that actually suited us, and the balance on the car would have been much better.’ Other teams independently
discovered many of the developments planned by Dome for the S102, such as wider front tyres, but there are some that
www.racecar-engineering.com • Le Mans
destroy your fuel consumption. But as Le Mans is such a long lap, maybe it is something you could consider for the end of a stint. I suspect the ACO would not be too happy about it, even though it is within the rules!’ Dome continues to work
on other racing projects, notably designing, building and developing the Super GT Honda GT500s. And whilst many of its other projects are confidential, we can now say with certainty that rumours of it being involved in the Toyota Le Mans project are wide of the mark.
In 1984, Dome forged a partnership with Toyota and built the 84C. It did not compete at Le Mans, though its successors, the 85C, did and qualified 22nd. One of the chassis entered finished 12th
In 1982 Dome entered the RC82, which qualified 20th and failed to finish
The best ever finish for the S101, which raced at Le Mans between 2001 and 2007 in both LMP1 and LMP2 categories, was sixth in 2003
JAD SHERIF
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