Le Mans 2015

It’s that time of year again, who’s planning on watching this at the weekend? Anyone planning on watching all 24 hours?

I’m interested to see how the new Nissans fare (I don’t think they’ll trouble the Audis etc but it’d be nice to see if they can last the whole race!) and I’d love to see Audi being given a good run for their money for once.

I’ll be watching quite a lot, pants weather here in Saturday will help!
Love the audi’s but secretly want the nissans to beat them.
One day I’ll go.

Anyone planning on watching all 24 hours?

I’m at Le mans now & will hopefully see all the race from the pits. Last time i saw any times the Nissan was about 20 secs off the pace. Took this picture earlier on this morning.

Nismo paint job looks ace! I’d love to see the Nissan go well as it’s something different. Shame it’s so far off the pace though.

I thought the whole idea of the design was the lack of rear drivetrain meant big venturi tunnels and therefore no need for a rear wing and the associated drag. How come they’re running a wing now?

I’ll be watching as much as I can. Caught a bit of the free practice yesterday and my two young lads were quite into it, maybe because the cars look more like McQueen than Francesco 😉

Yep planning an all infighter watching it on Eurosport with my lads 🙂

I love this event, shan’t watch the whole 24hrs but will catch the start, a couple of hours mid PM, then early Sunday morning and the finish.

Motor race of the year for me, just gutted I couldn’t make it out there as this should be a classic if the weather plays ball.
I’ll be very surprised if any of the Nissans make it to dawn, without running the Hybrid they are massively down on power in what is essentially an old school point and squirt kinda car (ie super quick in a straight line, very tricky round corners).
The porsches are looking immense, the Audis are looking like quickest over a stint, and the Toyotas seem to have gone backwards since last year.
Roll on Saturday!

I want some of those LEDs [?] they have behind the front wheel …. always look cool at night 🙂

Well woodaflippinhooo they’re off..

And a Porsche is in second !

Ok so that’s only 7 laps but hey…

great coverage on QUEST ! (FREEVIEW!!)

Damn, I liked that rebelion 😥

Edit: looks like he’s gonna make it back 😀

now thats a fire!

And the fastest car rebuild of the race goes to….

…Audi (surprise surprise)

Ooof, typical Audi driver overtaking attempt there…

Mates have gone and I regret not going this year, the Eurosport coverage is great though.
Reckon the stewards should be looking into that Audi overtake.

just got to my dads house where I was planning on watching it all night, turns out I left my laptop charger at home so no watching for me! Autosport updates it is!

Porsche still winning but only by 6 seconds. The 5 lead cars are all on the same lap, after 9 hours of racing.

It’s knocks the spots off F1

I’m going to watch the whole race trackside redbull assisted 😳 This was a good place to watch earlier.

Not much overtaking.

GTE pro is so close. 1/2 second between 1st and 2nd place after 250 or so laps

I must pull my finger outs and get over to see this, been talking about it for years. Clashes with my mums birthday and Bol d’Or sailing on lake Geneva but time to commit and do the weekend !

Well there you go. A new winner 😀

You gotta feel bad for the poor Aston Martin 98 crew ….. leading then crashes out with 45 mins to go 🙁
So happy to see Porsche win and Audi put back in their box. Mate and I talked about it on the ride this morning and decided that next year we’ve got to go.
Any advice on how best to go about it would b greatly accepted 🙂

Travel destinations ferry/camping/race ticket package.

Haven’t been for a couple of years, but generally get our tickets from 1st Tickets. Apart from the first year, we’ve always camped within the circuit, Maison Blanche being our preferred site, for ease of access to the circuit, and the fact it’s not too rowdy.

Check out Beermountain.co.uk for the low-down on the many campsites.

MarkBrewer how did you manage to blag the pit access? Jealous! Would love to go there, hopefully next year. I’m off to the Belgian GP this year, and a few weeks back got to Oulton Park for the touring cars!

Was very impressed with Travel Destinations – their site on the Porsche Curves was excellent with catering and clean showers etc, though with the new Porsche Experience Centre, I’m not sure whether the site will still be there. Would recommend taking a bike. If I go back, it’ll be with the boy and I would contemplate staying off-site so there’s somewhere to escape to. Work on Monday was tough, with no sleep from Friday…

Enjoyed following this year’s race on the app. Great to see an LMP1 Porsche win, I just wish it had been a little closer towards the end. Will be catching up on the GTE races over the next couple of days. It’s so hard to take it all in when you’re watching remotely and dipping in and out.

MarkBrewer how did you manage to blag the pit access?

I work for one of Aston Martins sponsors so had passes, was my first time at Le mans and I’m a massive petrol head so amazing to get that close to the action.

Been over with work as we were supporting the Aston heritage race. I’m exhausted today though, was up at 6 on sat morning then stayed up for the whole race and went to bed at 10 last night!

How to do it ?

Stands by for flaming …..

My mates go over on Thursday and book a small hotel. Friday at circuit until early evening then an offsite dinner before returning for night racing until 2 or 3 am, back to hotel, sleep and late breakfast, check results online and return home.

All have done the camping version in the past but no longer

seems Lotus are keen on entering the F1 car in Le Mans as the regulations would allow it
Linky

Although they would not want to use Renault or Honda engine as they dont last much beyond 3/4 of an F1 race…

would be interesting to see how they would compare against the top flight teams though – and how the drivers would see it.

also, i’m guessing , there would be a need to put some lights on the F1 cars 🙂

would be interesting to see how they would compare against the top flight teams though

Very badly I suspect.
Let’s see:
Don’t the LMP1 cars actually have a higher top speed than an F1 car – 340kph vs 320kph
Tyres ….. not sure an F1 car could keep the same set of tyres on for 2 hours
With such long WOT sections on the course the engines would probably expire pretty quickly.

The current engine regulations mean we have an engine and gearbox which could cover the race distance

Yeah right.

I thought that the cars had to have space for a 2nd seat (they don’t have to have the seat in, just the space for)

Running an F1 car at Le Mans would be daft, totally different branch of the sport.

I’ve been half a dozen times & was down for the MotoGp earlier this year – have camped for the 24 hr race but stayed in a B&B close by for the bikes this yr.

Normally they open the pits on Friday so you can go in and amble about.

On speed v F1, I think the pole time at Silverstone for the GP1’s would have got them on the F1 grid but towards the back end, Le Mans and the long straights would alter that but it depends so much on how the F1 cars have their aero set up & yes GP1’s have to be able to take a passenger, even if it would have to be a very small one

Entering an F1 car at Le Mans would be like riding a XC bike in an enduro (do you see what I did there….) it’s the wrong tool for the job and the cost of re-engineering it would be more than the cost of building it from scratch.

In terms of how to “do” Le Mans for the first time I would second travel destinations as the agent of choice – they’ve never let us down. My seventh race this time and I still love it. It’s as much about mates, beer and bbq as it is about the race.

Running an F1 car at Le Mans would be daft, totally different branch of the sport.

Its like comparing apples and footballs.
Both kinda the same shape, both utterly different in function and purpose…
If you’re going to do LM, like everything else in life its cheaper if you do it yourself – Book a camping pitch through the LM24 website when the come out for sale (beermountain is your friend here) book a ferry crossing early, wait for the date to come around, stop off at carefour for booze on the way in and you’re set.
A word of warning – Once you go you’ll end up wishing you were there each year.

On speed v F1, I think the pole time at Silverstone for the GP1’s would have got them on the F1 grid but towards the back end, Le Mans and the long straights would alter that but it depends so much on how the F1 cars have their aero set up…

Now that’s interesting, good work feller. Those big unfaired tyres create a lot of drag on an F1 car, pretty sure GP1s are considerably slippier.

Planning my 2016 trip this week, missed this year, loved last year. If you are going for the first time and want to make it reasonably comfortable make sure you splash the extra cash on a grandstand ticket. No point being at the worlds greatest endurance race if you can’t see any of the action!