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24 Hours of Le Mans 2011 – At Night Fall

admin — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 21:31:22 +0000

It’s been a difficult race so far. Both Aston Martin LMP1s gave up, first one after only laps. We all knew the Astons were not ready for a 24 Hours race but we would have expected a bit more than 2 laps. Anyways, the Aston Martin Racing boss apologized to fans and asked them to have faith in the future.

And it looks like this race is turning into a nightmare for Audi. First Allan McNish crashed in the most spectacular way and broke his car into pieces. He was lucky enough not to get hurt. Man, did you see that crash?

And now Mike Rockenfeller also crashed, in a quite spectacular way too, not sure if the car is out or not. The four Peugeot are going steady without taking any chances, as Sebastien Bourdais explained earlier in an interview.

So now after Mike Rockenfeller brought out the safery car, the Audi R18 no 2 is the overall leader, followed by the three factory Peugeot 908 and the Oreca Peugeot.

Leading the gas prototypes is Pescarolo, followed by the two Rebellion Lola-Toyota within the same lap.

The safety car is expected to stay out until about midnight.

24 Hours of Le Mans 2011 Scrutineering Photo Album

admin — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 12:21:03 +0000

It was rainy and it was crowded and it was great! Been there, seen it, got the pictures!

We are happy to share our 24 Hours of Le Mans 2011 Scrutineering photo album with all our readers who could not be in Le Mans last Sunday and Monday.

Enjoy!

24 Hours of Le Mans 2011 Starting Grid

admin — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 22:35:54 +0000

Audi managed to secure the first to spots on the starting grid at the 2011 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. A couple of factory Peugeot 908s are third and fourth, followed by the third Audi, the third factory Peugeot and the Oreca Peugeot.

Audi could have gotten the first three spots but Kristensen pushed to hard and ended up in the gravel.

As far as the gas powered LMP1s goes, it was a tight race between Pescarolo and Rebellion, with Rebellion taking the lead by less than 200 milliseconds.

The Astons have dissapointed again, ending up 22nd and 25th on the grid.

24 Hours of Le Mans 2011 – Scrutineering

admin — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 21:54:15 +0000

It had to rain. For nearly three months we didn’t get one drop of rain in Le Mans. Not one. But we had to have heavy rain Sunday, on the first scrutineering day, pouring down on the Pescarolo boys who opened this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.

What is impressive, however, is how many people showed up to greet Henri and the rest of Pescarolo Team for their return at Le Mans. The people of Le Mans love Pescarolo and the his team’s spectacular comeback left everybody in admiration. In just one year Henri build a new team, revamped an older car and won the 12 Hours of Castellet, leaving behind teams with many times his budget, such as Aston Martin and Rebellion Racing.

So back to scrutineering, these are our awards:

most cheered team: pescarolo
most difficult car to get a picture of: Audi R18
second most difficult car to get a picture of: Peugeot 908
most beautiful paint work: Flying Lizard

What’s your favorite car this year? Let us know on twitter, send us a message @lemanssensation.

I’m currently processing all pictures and do my best to post a comprehensive scrutineering gallery as soon as possible. Follow @lemanssensation to be notified in time.

24 Hours 2011 of Le Mans Official Tests

admin — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:04:08 +0000

So what conclusions can we draw from weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans test days?

Audi and Peugeut are head to head. This is good news for Audi because it means the brand new closed top R18 drives well. Brute timing shows the fastest Audi, driven by Capello / Kristensen / McNish performed better than the fastest Peugeot driven by Sarrazin / Davidson / Montagny but only by 63 milliseconds. Everybody knows official tests are a cat and mouse game, where each team observes direct competitors and try to only outperform them by as little as possible in order to hide their real potential for as long as possible. So maybe Audi didn’t unleash the full power of the brand new R18 or maybe Peugeot held off just a little, get Audi to feel just a little to comfortable… We’ll never know. A more realistic confrontation between the two diesel teams will happen at Spa, for the Le Mans Series race that’s also part of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup.

As far as gas powered P1s are concerned Pescarolo Team are the big winners and Aston Martin Racing the big losers. Highly motivated, the Pescarolo team proved their success at Le Castelet was no accident. The Pescarolo-Judd no 16 outperformed Rebellion’s Lola – Toyota and everybody else. Aston Martin Racing on the other hand, went through hell. The AMR-ONEs barely set their wheels out of the boot and when they actually made it on the track, the performance and reliability of the newly developed prototypes was so bad they couldn’t even compete with GTE Am teams. The 007 only finished 25th in official tests while the 009′s best lap was the worst across categories – the car driven by Fernandez, Primat and Mayrick ranks 54th ( that’s, last ) on the final test results. Results were so catastrophic and hopes to get he cars running so low that AMR drivers deserted the testing session two hours before the end. As a result Aston Martin Racing decided to cancel their participation to the 24 Hours of Spa and stay home instead, in an attempt to fix the cars.

Spyker Squadron will spend 2011 to develop a new car

admin — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 18:24:28 +0000

It seems that Spyker Squadron have decided to drop out of competition in 2011 and dedicate all their resources at developing a new GT racer based on the Spyker C8 Aileron. PlanetLeMans has all the details.

Looking forward to see these guys back in Le Mans in 2012.

Le Mans Classic 2010 Photo Gallery

admin — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 14:43:11 +0000

Something nice to look at during your winter holidays: Sports Car Digest published some fine pictures taken at Le Mans Classic 2010. Click here and Enjoy!

Pescarolo secures funding for 24 Heures du Mans 2011

admin — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 16:45:17 +0000

Team Pescarolo has partnered with Motul and so secured funding required to enter one car in the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2011, according to a news item posted on the team’s web site.

Henri Pescarolo and his team would need to close another partnership of the same magnitude in order to obtain funding for a second car and maybe race in some Le Mans Series events.

Pescarolo Sport is no more, long live Pescarolo Team

admin — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 21:06:34 +0000

After Pescarolo Sport, the legendary endurance sports car racing team built by multiple Le Mans winner Henri Pescarolo went bankrupt and was ordered into liquidation by the Tribunal de Commerce of Le Mans, its entire property, was auctioned in Le Mans last week.

Jacques Nicolet owner of Oak Racing and Joël Rivière owner of Prestige Racing, two of Henri’s friends, jointly spent 400.000 Euro and acquired the whole lot of equipment and memorabilia. In an incredibly generous gesture, they’ve donated all back to Henri Pescarolo, to serve as a foundation for his new team, Pescarolo Team.

Read Henri Pescarolo’s reaction (french).

You can watch the video of the Pescarolo auction here.

Lotus to develop LM P2 car and race at Le Mans in 2012

admin — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:00:09 +0000

Autosport.com are one of the many reporting on Lotus’ plans expand massively their sports car racing activity. Apparently Lotus is committed to build a closed top LMP2 car to race the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2012. In addition to that there will also be a brand new GT2 car, based on a future model set to be released at the Paris Motor Show next week. Well, we’ll be at the Paris Motor Show and we’ll make sure you get some pictures.

SpeedTV has rendering of the future Lotus LMP2 and also notes the program is being run by the Peugeot 908 HDi FAP mastermind, Paolo Catone.

That’s very exciting news, can’t wait to see a Lotus LMP2 on track. And maybe a GT2 too, who knows.

Watch the Lotus CEO detailing future racing activities: