Le Mans 24 Hours 2012, 16/17th June Options

[ferraif40]

Cracking race, well worth staying up for, the odd dull moment, but on the whole exciting all the way. Such a pity the McNish #2 car had the incident at Porsche Curves, else Im sure they would have been on for the win. Great stuff from Toyota, side by side racing after five hours was truly enthralling.

We had our Norwich Summer Saloons & Group C Race meeting on the same day as the start, and at 2pm we all watched the start of the race, and then went and recreated it with the Group C's.

[Mr Modifier]

Shame about the Delta Wing - I was hoping to see more of it.

Shockingly bad driving to punt it off the track - it clearly moved aside to let the faster cars through but it would appear an ex-F1 driver who had a reputation for poor driving in that sport is determined to sustain that reputation into his endurance racing.

[DJ]

The more I watch the Deltawing crash the worse it looks. I'm sure it wasn't, but it really looks like it was done deliberately. There is a clear swerve to the right and the Nissan just gets punted off. Shame really.

[marctownsend]

Yes the Delta Wing spent very little time on screen, shame. If the shunt was intentional, not a great plan as it damaged the floor of the Toyota and ended it's challenge.

A clubmate of mine sent me an amusing quote from Marino Franchitti (brother of Dario cousin of P Di Resta) saying Kazuki Nakajima(son of Satoru) had brought his lack of spacial awareness with him from F1.

The obvious reposte were I Nakajima San? "well at least i'm the second best racing driver in my family mate"

[Groomi]

I got back last night from the race - fantastic as always! Found a great private campsite so the weather was no problem and the race was excellent - especially the first six hours when Toyota really took the race to the all-conquering Audi's. The Radio Le Mans team were really impressed with the design of the Toyota but rightly pointed out that Peugeot also started their assault with a car that was too delicate - the Audi's for example have single piece floors, so much quicker to replace than the complex two piece of the Toyota.

Team of the race for me though was the Rebellion Toyota's. Car 12 was faultless throughout the weekend and 13 was running with them until they had some sort of problem on Sunday which dropped them down the order. Certainly the best showing for a petrol car since the Diesels turned up.

Deltawing was even better in the flesh than in the pictures. It didn't look any longer than the others on track and I quickly got used to it's appearance - to the extent that it didn't look odd. I genuinely wouldn't mind if there were more cars racing of that type. They had some gearbox issues early on so were quite slow, but were really getting going when Nakajima demonstrated he isn't suitable for endurance racing.

However, highlight of the weekend was standing outside Porsche Curves in the rain on Saturday morning drinking tea and eating cake while a a Group C Lancia spat flames through the spray in it's efforts to catch the dominant Sauber Mercedes. Some wonderful in-car commentary from Derek Bell in a longtail 962 was the icing on top.