Amazing Le Mans 24 Hours (15th June 2008)
Having seen Eurosport’s coverage of the Le Mans series during this year, I knew they were showing the entire Le Mans weekend. Crushingly I missed the Group C race on Saturday morning. But I watched nearly all the actual 24 hour race, taking a few naps during the night.
Drama
It was an incredibly dramatic weekend of racing. There have been several quite frightening crashes this season where air has gotten under a car, making it flip over and tumble through the run-off area. Reminded me of the Mercedes CLK GTR which did that in the late 1990’s whilst in the slipstream of a Toyota GT-One.
Amazingly the drivers have been alright and no spectators got hit by debris. But if there had been a grandstand on the inside of Curve Grande at Monza, all manner of components would have showered the crowd. Instead, they just showered the trees and grass.
Racing
Although qualifying had quite big gaps between the front-runners in each class, endurance is a very different ball game. Fast drivers tended to wear the cars out, so the slower but more consistent teams caught up.
After 24 hours of racing and 381 laps, the 1st and 2nd place cars finished on the same lap.
In other good news, Aston Martin won their class!
Gran Turismo 4
The lack of day/night transitions in Gran Turismo made my dream race less atmospheric than it could have been. The track looks so different at night. From the on-board footage you could see how you had to drive by memory as much as by eyesight.