This year 28 of us headed down to Le Mans for the 24 hour race and it promised to be very close one. Allan Mcnish predicted that Audi and Peugeot would finish within tenths of each other which quite frankly is ridiculous when you consider that the cars will have done more mileage than an entire formula one season by the end of the race!
One drunken attempt at night photography at 4 in the morning!
Le Mans really turned out to be much better than I expected, we arrived on Thursday night and had a barbeque and drinks in the campsite. At about 8 pm the cars began practice and the sound was like nothing I have ever heard before. We were camped in the section inbetween the Porsche curves and the Mulsanne straights so we bore the full brunt of the sound. But it was definitely worth it! The GT cars sounded sublime providing plenty of eargasms! The prototypes sounded very strange but I guess it takes a while to get used to diesel race cars. A few drinks turned into a lot and it got pretty messy before we finally went to bed!
Peugeots LMP1 2011 car
Audis showstand
On Friday we were allowed in the pit lane and had a look round all of the cars. Friday in Le Mans is known as Friday Madness and we were definitely dressed the part! 28 WWF wrestlers stormed the pits and we even had a few rumbles in the pit lane itself! I could see where the day gets its title from as we headed to the main road coming into the campsite, all the fans go crazy with plenty of burn outs and general madness! It was awesome to see Astons, Corvettes, Ferraris, TVR’s, Porsches and a large amount of Jap and American metal coming down the road and letting off some ‘steam’ for the crowd! Everyone headed into the city on Friday night, we were still dressed as wrestlers and proceeded to have a full blown match in the city square much to the amusement of the crowd, one or two even joined in!
Saturday was the start of the race, we positioned ourselves on a great spot at the Porsche curves and watched the beginning of the race. We didn’t get to watch for long as Mcnish smashed his Audi in spectacular fashion causing the safety cars to come out for a long time. We made our way to the bottom of the Mulsanne straight and watched from there for the rest of the day. Razorlight performed that night but for us it was all about Philippe Reda who was pumping out the beats and generally causing mayhem in the crowd! By about 4 in the morning it was time for bed but I don’t think I slept at all.
My personal favourite, a Ford GT driven by a husband and wife amateur team! They finished third in class!
The winning Audi R18, number 2 driven by Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Faessler
We watched the rest of the race on Sunday and it turned out that Audi won by only 13.854 seconds ahead of Peugeot! It was the fourth closest race in the history of Le Mans, immediately after the race we stormed the track and got into the pit lane to watch the prize giving. I’ll definitely be going again next year!
Watch the videos to see some of the action;
24 of the 28 WWF wrestlers to make the event!