LeMans Week

[Oscar Racing]

I hope Chappy is staying dry, it has been very wet in France the last couple of days....

Looks like some wet racing and temps in the 60s, this weekend....

[Audi1]

Dry martinis to the rescue - chappy!

Allan

[CJR]

Wow! What a finish.

[proxieken]

I am confused how the Ferrari ignored his drive through. It seemed a stupid penalty but the Audi had been hit by the same penalty earlier. If the Ferrari had been forced to obey the stewards it would have given Ford a possible 1-2-3 finish. I guess to avoid that the Ferrari was given a pass?

[Audi1]

Wow - tough Le Mans.....................!

Hard to watch Toyota loose the LMP-1 class with 3 minutes left to go in the race................although it did put an Audi on the podium....................wrong place, but there none the less.

The Alpine-Nissan ran like a top in the LMP-2 class and, in addition to winning the class, finished 6th (maybe 5th) overall - good drive!

The Ford GT wins it's first Le Mans on the 50th anniversary, which is nice. But, whereas the Corvette looks like a race-modified C7, the Porsche looks like a race-modified 911 and the Ferrari looks like a race-modified 488, the Ford looked more like a P-class car skinned with a GT body, so it felt a little like racing apples against oranges - to me. I'm sure that the above will be an unpopular comment, but............

The Ferrari 358 Italia looked strong throughout the race and was well driven.

Maybe next year for Audi..............if there is a next year for Audi. I don't know how the same company can afford to support 2 separate WEC teams......................?

Anyway, good job for Porsche! Since luck is, generally, the residue of diligence, they did their job well.

Allan

[goosenapper]

[proxieken]

[Audi1]

Uughh........too ugly. Let it stand as the cars finished. If the rules need to be tightened next year, then so be it, but let the drivers race the cars.

Allan

[Oscar Racing]

You just raced 23 hours / 55 minutes and your car just dies??? With all of the electronics on those cars they had to know they were playing with fire....Because the #5 did not do a run off lap they were bumped from second to 45th overall????

It was stated during the race that the GT40 and 488 were going to drive away from the CR7, while the body style is only a couple of years old the announcers were saying the CR7 technology was old??? The CR7 strategy was to hope for attrition (sometimes our Cloverleaf strategy, but it is usually our motor dying) then the #64 sacks into a tire barrier....

Still it is a fun race to watch, you could check in any time and get driver views of the track on foxsportsgo.com....

[DrumPhil]

[Audi1]

Yes, follow the process, levy the penalties, but don't change the outcome............not an atypical French outcome (I also happen to agree with it). Will be interesting to see what the outcome is to the 7% performance protest against the Ford GT cars...............

Allan

[chappy]

Hi Lads , What a Fantastic trip, we only got 2 hrs of rain right at the start, and then it was all very nice.
I have downloaded some pics on my lap top and will post some soon.
Audi, Porsche, Toyota, Corvettes and the Ford GTs.
The LMP 2 winner was driven by our hosts best friend during his stints.
Corvette was unfortunately out powered by the Fords and Ferrari in GT Pro, due to alleged sandbagging on the qually to avoid added weight.
Poor old Toyota had just crossed the line on the last lap when it all went wrong for them. Even though they had a lap or 2 on the rest of the field except Porsche, it took them over 11 minutes to finish the lap.
Apparently this was below the required time and therefore didn't count , moving them to, the Back.
Hand was a force to be reckoned with a superb drive , but his co drivers couldnt maintain his pace.
Briscoe drove an impeccable race and under a lot of pressure from Ferrari.
Porches had the interesting GT car in Gulf Livery there, and it was unusual to see on that particular car.
Anyway, Stories and pics will come and tales of French Wine and food, and my renewed use of my High School French which may have caused an incident or 2. Oh and the Chunnel crossing held for 5 hrs in a secure compound with 10 foot fences and razor wire top while Gengarmes and Police dogs patrolled .
They dont like to be petted by the way.
More to come
Bob

[Retro Racer 44]

Hope you got a pic with you in it, otherwise you were never there. :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Z-carfan]

Glad you had a good time Chappy, sounds like it minus the Chunnel.
That's a bucket list item for me to go to LeMan.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Retro Racer 44]

The biggest problem with Lemans is that they change the rules as they go along, and often in a discriminatory way. If a Ford had ignored the penalty, it would have finished off the podium as the penalty would have been assessed to bring that result. Europeans, and French in particular, don't have much respect for US race teams, and this is one example. The changing of the rules covering the Daytona Prototypes for next year is another. By the time they monkey the rules enough, no one will enter, and that is their desire.

Not that Lemans is the only culprit in this. Think back to the Indy 500 in 2002, Castroneves was an IRL driver and Paul Tracy was a Champ Car driver. Paul Tracy passed Helio before the yellow came out and should have been the winner, but it was ruled the other way. To this day, I believe that if PT had been the IRL regular and Helio the one-off from the rival series the results would have been called the other way.

Keith