(photo: dindocapello.com)
At 3PM, everything started off innocuously enough; the field came through the Ford Chicane, the flag of France waved and the four entries from Peugeot started running away from the field, with Audi trying their best to keep up.
Several laps in, though, a former world driving champion started the chaos. Nigel Mansell, who was entered on a team with his two sons as co-drivers, apparently suffered a flat tire that pitched him hard into the barrier on one of the fastest parts of the course. This gave us an early chance to experience the Automobile Club de l'Ouest's asinine new safety car rules.
This year, three safety cars are deployed at various points on the track to get the field bunched up and slowed down quicker. That's all well and good, except that one of the safety cars slotted in between the four Peugeots and the three Audis, which immediately set the Audis back by roughly one-third of a lap whether they liked it or not. Then, we found out that when a car pits under the safety car, they will not be allowed to leave the pits until the next safety car hits the front straightaway -- cars had to sit on the pit lane for up to three minutes while waiting to lose position for no reason. Much noise was made about this on both the Radio Le Mans broadcast and on Speed Channel's coverage.
Things continued on after Mansell's wreck was cleared up, and several cars had their share of issues. The all-lady Matech Ford GT of Natacha Gachnang (with Cyndie Allemann and Rahel Frey as co-drivers) burst into flames on the Mulsanne Straight, forcing Natacha to pull the car over and dive out of it. One of Matech's other GT's found itself sideways just after the Dunlop Bridge and clouted the barriers. The BMW Art Car, which looked fantastic, had a fantastically short race with several issues, first of which being a flat tire and broken suspension piece that set its downward spiral into motion.
The three events that got the most attention so far, though, affected three of the top cars in the race. First, as Peugeot #3 (Pedro Lamy at the wheel) streaked down the Mulsanne, a tire appeared to start rubbing and a lot of smoke started coming from the right-front of the car. The Peugeot mechanics took one look at the car and it was apparent there was no going on -- the right front suspension had physically separated from the chassis of the car. A few hours later, Audi R15 #7 (Tom Kristensen in at the time) came up on the BMW Art Car, which had suffered another flat tire. The BMW had trouble making the initial left-hander of the Porsche Curves and drifted wide, forcing the Audi to run onto the grass to avoid it; the Audi crashed and had to have its rear bodywork replaced, sending it down the leaderboard. Finally, just after night fell, Peugeot #1 came into the pit and was immediately taken into the garage, where the mechanics descended on the electrical system.
Other cars have come and gone. We've had the safety cars take to the track for the third time after one of the LMP2 cars had some sort of catastrophe on its left-front, leaving debris all over the track. During the safety car period, the #13 Rebellion Racing Lola, with Jean-Christian Boullion at the wheel spun off the track, wrecking the back end of the car.
Perhaps I'll pass on another update when the sun rises over Le Mans. Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment