Around Le Mans
The 24-hour race in Le Mans is an amazing event. It's like several different worlds for different people: someone comes here to win, someone to write a chronicle, someone to watch closely what is happening on the track, someone to drink and have fun. Surprisingly, there are even people who come to Le Mans for seven years together with a group of friends to sit around the tent all the time and support the fire. Bertrand, who managed to talk casually, for all seven years on time did not go to the track and did not look a single minute of the race. While his friends are watching the battle on the road to Sarthe, he remains in the tent camp to throw firewood on fire and knows about what is happening only with their words and even on the sounds that come to the camp.
Le Mans is a huge, space-riddled space, reviving on Thursday, when qualifying, and suddenly empty just a couple of hours after the race. Teams quickly dismantle their boxes and guest areas, all kiosks and trays immediately closed, spectators line up in huge queues for exit, and only the winners continue the holiday. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon the honorary marshal gives a check flag to the finishing crews, standing right on the track, and at 6 pm there is almost no one in the paddock, only the delayed journalists, curious spectators, who hope to get into previously inaccessible zones and grab another piece of the incredible event under The name Le Mans, and even the winners. From the side of their guest areas, the cries of joy are heard for a long time.
Inside the huge ring road (its length is almost 16 km) you can go to the museum, go karts, fly by helicopter, visit shops (of course, thematic ones), car dealerships, restaurants, ride on various adrenaline rides and, of course, separately - on the Ferris Wheel , From which you can see most of the route, including the starting and finishing line, the last chicane, and in the afternoon and other stretches of the road. It costs 7 euros. It is curious that after the finish of the race, anyone who wants can go for free on almost the whole route except for a short stretch: in fact, the Sarthe ring consists mainly of public roads that block every year for the event, blowing everyone off and causing those huge traffic jams - however , No one murmurs: it's Le Mans, the subject of national pride throughout France!
All the legendary sections of Le Mans are freely available all year, except for a few days of the race itself: you can visit the Arnage bend, in a bunch of Indianapolis turns, run along the Mulsanne line and see the same chicanes that were built in 1990 to reduce the unlimited Speed at the end of the 5.5-kilometer straight.
On Friday in the center of the town of Le Mans (where the name of the race came from) is a parade of pilots. At five in the evening on the central square, musicians and dancers start, followed by the first crews. By this time, all the streets in the center of the city are blocked, the carriageway is fenced, and on the sidewalks a crowd of spectators gather behind the metal fence. People dream not only to look at the riders and touch the legends, which very often come off their show cars and go to the fans, but also to receive souvenirs for memory, which are abundantly scattered in the crowd from passing cars. These can be sweets, postcards with photo pilots, plastic bracelets, and sometimes something more interesting - for example, caps or T-shirts. At this time, still scattered packaging with sausages - it is true: because many come here many hours before the start, in order to take a better place.
All crews pass through the starting arch, and then leave on the looped track and finish in the same area of the Jacobins, from where they started. By 8 pm, the parade usually ends, because already the next day at 3 pm the start of the daily marathon. And this is no joke, you need to be in shape.
Last year's tears of Toyota
This year was one of the most severe and nervous Lemans of late. The atmosphere of tension hung in the pits and paddock long before the start. As always there were several teams and crews for whom the issue of victory was particularly acute.
Remember last year's race, when the fate of the main prize was decided in the last minutes of the competition? Then on the last lap the victorious Toyota №5 simply stopped at the start-finish line opposite the boxes of its team, having passed the Porsche №2 forward. And then all the photographers crowded around the boxes of the Japanese team to capture the historic moment, rushed all the way through the whole pitley to the place where the Porsche team was already celebrating the victory. Others remained in place to capture the tears in the eyes of the team leaders.
This year Toyota was going to win. Both the previous stages they were in the lead, and according to the qualification results they took the first line on the grid. Besides, Toyota brought three cars to Le Mans against two at Porsche in order to be sure of the victory. After all, they say that one car will be broken, the second will break down, and the third will reach and win.
The sixth car in the LMP1 category was the Bykolles Racing Team.
Visiting Porsche
In the area of their hospice there are always a lot of people going, including guests and journalists. The feeling of unity and a common goal to win fills the entire zone. People walk, sit, talk, eat, drink wine, but at the same time make up one common whole, crazy for racing and favorite team. Each failure they perceive as their own, every small victory as a common. At the same time, these people (as well as in most other guest areas) are able to hurt and empathize with other teams - not only for Porsche. And this is normal.
The race for Porsche this year was not very successful. The crew at number 2 lost more than an hour on a technical pitstop in the first part of the race and basically did not count on anything. After problems the Toyota team had a prototype crew at number 1. But shortly before noon the car had problems with the oil pressure, which had fallen to a minimum, Loterrer tried to hold out to the boxes on the electric engine (like the two Toyota!), But the power reserve Not enough for him. Andre Lauterer did not hide tears, and arriving to Le Mans as an honored guest, Mark Webber tried to cheer him up.
At this time, the first place went to the prototype category LMP2 team Jackie Chan DC Racing № 38. I can imagine how bitter this was at the time Roman Rusinov, who understood that he might have a real chance not only to win Le Mans in his category - but to win in the absolute, as he was actually traveling in the fastest crew in the class .
Now all the bets were on Porsche # 2, and he rushed to the attack. Scoring for 12-13 seconds on each lap, they were shortening the advantage of the Chinese team. And for about an hour and a half before the finish they managed to overtake, causing a storm of emotions and tears in front of everyone who at that moment was watching the race in the Porsche zone.
15 minutes before the victory, all the team members were given victory t-shirts, and these same T-shirts were put on sale at Porsche outlets so that everyone could put them on the podium. Blind destiny at this moment decided to leave the fate of the prototypes alone and switched to the bodies.
Well, in the guest area Porsche after the awards ceremony brought a deserved trophy, which now, after three consecutive victories in 2015, 2016 and 2017 forever remain in the team.
Aston Martin and Corvette
This chapter will be short, but not less dramatic than the previous one.
The performance took place at the very last minutes of the race: Aston Martin # 97 has long been pressing Corvette Racing's leading Corvette # 63 team, but the Chevrolet has very competently "scrolled", picked the right trajectories and forced the Aston Martin pilot to make mistakes. As it turned out later, the American experienced a slow puncture of the wheel, on which he decided to take a chance and reach the finish line, otherwise the race would have been lost for sure. But the problems became more tangible, sometimes the lack of control made him even fly outside the track, but he still held on. And only on the last lap, in the latest bunch of turns at the Ferris wheel, he was forced to cede the rivals behind him. It was one of the most beautiful and bitter scenes of the entire race. Incredible courage and the same unbelievable failure of the pilot Corvette # 63 disrupted well-deserved applause.
As for the crew of SMP Racing # 27, he accomplished his task in the race, safely finishing 16th in his class. Sergei Sirotkin, who participated for the first time in competitions on the lemanovskiy prototype, noted his easy handling and excellent speed, as well as unexpected comfort.
"Most of all I was frightened by the fact that inside the closed cockpit it will be very hot, so much so that an unaccustomed person can lose it from the heat consciousness, but in the car there is excellent ventilation, so everything turned out to be much better than I thought. In general, I want to thank SMP Racing For such an opportunity: to take part in Le Mans This is a very important and honorable event for me. "