So, there we are, a day after the 79th running of the 24 hours of Le Mans. I usually reflect upon the race at raceday, but I was simply too tired to do a proper reflection, lol. Unlike usually, I wasn't able to follow everything right from the start of scrutineering, and the habits of listening to all previews, scrutineering reports and watching truth in 24 were lost due to a busy schedule. I was able to watch most of practise and qualifying, and luckily, the whole race.
Last year I said I was going to remember the race for some time, but this year was a true classic, possibly even greater than in 2008. Compared to last year, it would be the first time for both Audi and Peugeot to run their new cars at the Circruit de la Sarthe. The months before the events, everyone had been speculating about what we were going to see. Some said that the Peugeot would continue their domination, others insisted that Audi had finally built a car able to beat the 908 on raw pace. Myself? Didn't have a clue. In qualifying and practise, the two candidates for the overall title were very closely matched. Benoit Treluyer impressively set the pole at 21 laps old tyres.
Raceday. Love the building up towards the race starting with the warm-up in the morning, quickly followed by a great legends race. Last time we could see sir Stirling Moss live in action. The clock slowly ticked towards 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Timing screen, check. Live feed, check. Radio le Mans, check. The 79th running starts as all cars roar past the grand-stands. In the first few laps something becomes very clear: Audi seems to be able to match the pace of Peugeot, and is perhaps even faster. Then the first of two "I scared myself to death" moments arrived: the crash of Allan McNish. Favourite car, favourite driver. My stomach turned as I saw his car being totally destroyed. Miraculously, McNish managed to get out unhurt.
The race continued, and whilst that happened some other things became clear: Peugeot had an advantage over Audi as far as fuel consumption was concerned, but Audi had (unlike other years) an advantage over Peugeot as far as tyre wear was concerned. The #2 car even managed to do a quintuple stint, amazing. Then, the second big crash of the race. To be honest, I was even more scared here than I was with McNish's crash. I had no idea that Rocky was out of the car and looking at the wreck from what was left I genuinely thought he would be seriously wounded, if not worse. Thanks to all that's holy, he managed to get out and survive this horrific accident. Have to say, the safety car periods were a bit difficult to get through, especially because of their extensive lengths.
Then, the race to the flag, to what would become one of the closest finished in the Le Mans history ever. Audi escaped trouble when with a slow puncture on the #2 car in the last hour, where they could just take enough fuel for the overall victory. What a drama, what an emotion, what a race.
I don't think Peugeot expected Audi to be this fast, compared to previous years. I'm amazed that all top cars finished without mechanical failures. Also delighted not to see the #7 crew on the podium after that silly drive from Gene. Very unsporting from him to deliberately ignore blue flags and even block the leading car.
Delighted to see the Corvettes take win at Le Mans! Unfortunately, GTE was never as exciting as GT2 was last year. I think performance-wise, the cars were a bit more apart as well. Amazing to see the LMP2 runners doing such a good job, quite a lot of finishers!
That's it for this year as far as the greatest motorsport event in the world is concerned. A true classic, this year. I enjoyed every second from it, because it had everything: drama, emotion, joy. Congratulations to Audi for their tenth win at Le Mans. Thoroughly deserved, especially after the two horrendous crashes.
Big thanks to Radio Le Mans for the stunning commentary and also to everyone in this thread. Enjoyed following the race here, we even managed to get more posts than in 2010! See you all next year