It's been a couple of hours after the race and I'm posting my final views upon this week. First of: what a great race this was, I'll remember this for some time for sure!
Always love the way this week starts, scruteneering on Sunday and Monday is always exciting, loved the reports of Radio le Mans on that and really couldn't wait for the first practice session. I love the way how the tension builds during the week, it starts with practice and qualifying and finally ends up with the race starting at 3PM on Saturday. Didn't wake up a single morning without thinking about it, to be honest.
The first session I was in for a pretty big surprise as I had estimated both Audi and Peugeot to be close. Truth was, Peugeot was miles ahead. Both the Peugeots and Audis had improved over last year, but Peugeot had certainly made a bigger leap. The difference between them and Audi became less on Thursday's session which gave a bit more confidence for a pretty close race.
Race day. John Hindhaugh shouting through my speakers when all cars cross the start finish line. The initial thought was that the race was going to be close, the difference between the Audis and Peugeots was definitely less than last few years. After just fifteen minutes the cars were split by a very unlucky safetycar due to the crash of Nigel Mansell. At that moment I honestly thought the race was run. The Peugeots started to build a pretty big lead but then suddenly reduced their pace to Audi's pace. The cars weren't running as fast as they could. A broken tub meant the early end of a very unlucky race for the #3 Peugeot but the rest of them managed to continue pretty well, but at reduced pace. I think they discovered, either during the race, or during the earliers testing, that they would run into trouble when they pushed hard. As Mr. Truswell said, "Some needle is going into the red when that car is pushed to its limits."
The number one and four car ran into trouble early in the middle of the night, giving the lead to the number two Peugeot. Montagny pushed pretty hard in his first few laps but ran out of luck right after a pit stop. Engine gone, Peugeot #2 out. The race for the lead became very interesting again when Alexander Wurz was clearly on a mission to second place (or perhaps even third) when the last works driven Peugeot went as well. I think we all knew it would be just a matter of time before the Oreca car would have the same problems. This meant a 1-2-3 for Audi, who albeit having some very bad luck (safety cars, camera-man driven over, puncture, TK vs Art car) ran virtually with no problems, certainly no mechanical ones.
And that's the great thing about le Mans, things always run different than you'd expect them to do. I honestly thought this was a 99 percent certain win for Peugeot just because I thought their reliability would be as good as last year's. But as it showed up, it wasn't.
LMP2 gave a surprising victory to the Strakka team, even though Nick Leventis did mess up once during the safety car. I'd expected the car to be more vulnerable and had estimated the #26 Highcroft to be superior. GT1 wasn't really exiting in its last year ever. GT2 gave some nice battles but it was a shame that the top runners al ran into problems. Also quite surprised by the number of flat tires during the race and the number of retired cars, which was certainly higher than normal!
Note on Anthony Davidson, the accident with the corvette is debatable, one could say he wasn't to blame there but his reaction after he got out of the car was just ridiculous. No respect or whatsoever for the driver in the GT2 car. This isn't a single seater race, it isn't all about his car being on the podium.
Ending with the fact that we won't see most of the cars again next year because of the new regulations, and that's a shame in some ways. Especially the Peugeot is a car that is so familiar with le Mans and every time the car gets there you just know it was build for one thing only: Le Circuit de la Sarthe. Awesome car, and brilliant livery this year! (I wasn't too keen on that previous years). I love the tail lights of the R-15, especially at night. Hopefully they'll be back on the R18.
Congratulations to Audi, deserved win, and a big thank you to Radio le Mans who delivered awesome coverage of the whole event!
That's it for the best week of the year, thanks to all people here, greatly enjoyed being on here during the race.
Good night and see you next year!!