24 Hours of Le Mans: News, Photos and Travel Tips

Audi Grabs First Four Places at Spa

admin — Sun, 06 May 2012 20:31:42 +0000

Audi grabbed the first four places at the second FIA World Endurance Championship at Spa. It was the first rollout of a new generation of top class Le Mans prototypes from the German manufacturer, the diesel powered R18 Ultra and the diesel hybrid R18 e-tron quattro. Both cars performed remarkably well for a first performance, with the R18 Ultra no. 3 taking the win and the R18 e-tron quattro no. 1 achieving the fastest lap time of 2’01.851. The extra torque provided by the electric engine in the hybrid has probably helped with that.

McNish, Kristensen and Capello arrived 4th despite having left from the pole position and their best lap time was the slowest of all the Audis.

The two Rebellion Racing Lola-Toyota arrived 5th and 6th, right after the Audis.

McNish Takes Pole for Audi in Spa

admin — Sat, 05 May 2012 06:53:24 +0000

Allan McNish stormed through the qualifying sessions of the World Endurance Championship Spa race this week, at the wheel of his brand new Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro, securing the pole position for his team. It will be interesting to see how the car behaves in the 6 hours endurance race. This will be the first participation of the e-tron in an official World Endurance Championship race.

Weather forecasts are not brilliant to say the least, with cold weather and almost continuos rain being expected during the event. Wishing all contenders best of luck.

Sebastian Loeb to drive for Oreca

admin — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 21:31:46 +0000

Oreca are proudly reporting that Sebastian Loeb will be attending the official Le Mans test day at the weel of their very own Oreca 03. Looking forward to see how this works out.

Audi Back in Business

admin — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 22:08:15 +0000

Audi’s first and second place at the 12 Hours of Sebring last week must have felt really good and reassuring, as the Germans haven’t scored such a performance in the American classic endurance race since 2005. It was just like the old times, with Kristensen, McNish and Capello holding the cup. And you should probably get used to it, because with Peugeot out of their way, Audi will probably sweep everything away.

Sebring was also the first round of the brand new FIA World Endurance Championship.

Pescarolo finished in an honorable 6th place overall, 3rd in LMP1.

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.

Pescarolo Team leads the 8 Hours of Le Castellet

admin — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 12:49:09 +0000

Pescarolo Team is leading the pack at le Castelet after the first two hours. The Le Mans made prototype is followed shortly by the Lola-Toyota. Way to go Pesca, nice yo see you guys back on the track and leading!

The Pescarolo-Judd started the race last on the grid despite the having scored the second best time during qualifying, as the car was disqualified for not complying with regulations.

The 8 Hours of Le Castelet is the opening race of the 2011 Le Mans Series season.