[LM24 Race] 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans - Race week thread

[greenmachinets040]

Originally Posted by E.B

I went to town on it and splashed out 10 euros (A$16) for the 'official' WEC/Le Mans website stream with all the trimmings. ISTR I did the same last year when Foxtel here dropped their Eurosport channel not long before the event.
I spent more on coffee to stay awake for all bar a couple of hours, plus French bread and cheese .... mood food to help me think im there!

The best value 10 Euros I have spent for a long time.
No buffering dropouts or interruptions
(FWIW a stream for the LM24 is the only event I have ever paid for. (beyond my normal Foxtel TV sub).

One day I will get there for real. Until then I will happily throw 10 Euros at a reliable stream.

The best value 10 EUR I spent for a long time! I had my laptop on for live timing, my Tablet for Onboard Nr. 7, the TV for the Race. Incredible that you could log onto more devices simoultaneusly!!

Good job WEC!

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by canaglia

Are you meaning 2012 toyota return? because ts020 was toyota gt-one of 1998-1999. Anyway, unlike 007, debuting 2012 ts030 revealed to be a more performant car than R18 etron/ultra, infact toyota won quite easily 3 races after le mans and they could had actually won all 5 post LM races despite worse consumes and some bad luck.
I don't think your example fits the actual situation, also because according to 10 years ago technological context, ts030 was a much more complex car than nowadays 007.
And of course, sure, I agree, whoever wins is always right and always worthy, but in each victory there can be different levels of competitiveness... anyway it's history who decides the importance of each victory.

Every victory is actually as important as any other in the record books...

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by greenmachinets040

The best value 10 EUR I spent for a long time! I had my laptop on for live timing, my Tablet for Onboard Nr. 7, the TV for the Race. Incredible that you could log onto more devices simoultaneusly!!

Good job WEC!

Yeah, I took out a €8 per month sub to Eurosport Player for last year's race and never cancelled it, watching various things here and there during the year. As far as I'm concerned, having honed my setup from last year, it was pretty near perfect. It kind of amused me reading (mostly elsewhere) of people desperate to find illicit free streams that for the sake of £8 you could have such a good setup. I'd have spent more than that on one sandwich Americain at the circuit.....

[The Fat Clerk]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Every victory is actually as important as any other in the record books...

I think the record books will show that 2021 was one of the most boring races in recent times.
2nd was 2 laps behind the winner with third a further 2 behind them, yes there were plenty of incidents but overall I'd give it a 4 out of 10 for entertainment.

[Aysedasi]

Not to me, I was pretty entertained throughout. Having watched 34 of the last 36 at the event, I've seen many races that were significantly more boring, even some from the fabled Group C era. Some of the races I've seen, the last third of the race has seen relatively little memorable action. If we gauge it solely by the margin of victory, this year was pretty close. I'm not sure how much you watched, but watching the whole of a 24 Hour event can be a very immersive experience.

[The Fat Clerk]

I watched everything on Wednesday & Thursday that Eurosport showed despite the appalling commentary, then I was out @ races on Saturday & Sunday so only watched Saturday evening and early Sunday morning live before watching the rest today.
I think part of the problem was that realistically Toyota only had to finish to win.
Personally as a spectator I prefer going to Daytona, and as a Marshal or spectator the Nordschleife.

[Adam43]

This is mad!

I’m all for saying, when it happens, that so and so won in a very competitive year. But it’s one of those things you don’t say the other way, as it is just not needed. The win is still a very special achievement, but maybe not in the superficial and obvious way of the entry list being strong.

Apart from anything else what you are actually saying is Le Mans isn’t for me as it is very unusual to have what there is craving for here!

Competitive years? Hmm. I suppose we had Porsche, Audi and Toyota recently? Is that enough? Before that I think the previous time was late ‘90s. Before that late ‘80s. Before that probably 1957. Basically Le Mans is rubbish.

[Aysedasi]

I guess there are different levels of expectation and 'commitment' to Le Mans as an event. For people like me, Le Mans is an event like no other, hence I don't need to have high expectations of a dogfight of a race from start to finish in all the classes. Ordinarily, being there and experiencing the event easily outweighs the fact that its just a motor race. In fact, I've said many times that, as an event, an annual trip, the start of the race is the beginning of the end of the trip for me. It's horses for courses, maybe I'm just more easily pleased or have lower expectations than some.

[canaglia]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Every victory is actually as important as any other in the record books...

disagree, it depends by context and by a lot of other factors, at example ford victories of 1966-1969 that broke ferrari le mans golden age are historically more relevant than example... don't know... 2005 audi victory?
as said each winner is legit and worthy, no doubts about that, but circumstances about how things happened may do a big difference.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by canaglia

disagree, it depends by context and by a lot of other factors, at example ford victories of 1966-1969 that broke ferrari le mans golden age are historically more relevant than example... don't know... 2005 audi victory?
as said each winner is legit and worthy, no doubts about that, but circumstances about how things happened may do a big difference.

That's fine, you're allowed to disagree....

I was simply saying that, taken alone, any of the Ford victories looks exactly the same as any other victory in terms of a stat in the record books.

But I do fully appreciate what you mean. For me, Jaguar's victories in 88 and 90 and Mazda's in 1991 are historically more important to me than many of the other victories I've witnessed.

[joeb]

Lots of interesting facts from the race from EI

https://www.endurance-info.com/auto/...en-24-chiffres

[Mal]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Every victory is actually as important as any other in the record books...

Except maybe for Ken Miles'

[The Fat Clerk]

But I do fully appreciate what you mean. For me, Jaguar's victories in 88 and 90 and Mazda's in 1991 are historically more important to me than many of the other victories I've witnessed.[/QUOTE]

I'm with you on 88, I had a tear when one of my mates was on the top step.

I remember the Mazda because we could hear it all the way round the circuit with that strange engine noise.

My favourite Le Mans memory didn't even happen at the circuit.
On the Sunday night race back to Caen one year, I spent a good hour trying to keep up with, and playing cat and mouse a white 928.
When we got to the Harbour who did we see in the driver s seat? Mr Bell.
Another Bognor boy having fun, me I was in my 911.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by Mal

Except maybe for Ken Miles'

Ah, yes, nail on the head there Mal...

[Aysedasi]

I'm with you on 88, I had a tear when one of my mates was on the top step.

I remember the Mazda because we could hear it all the way round the circuit with that strange engine noise.

My favourite Le Mans memory didn't even happen at the circuit.
On the Sunday night race back to Caen one year, I spent a good hour trying to keep up with, and playing cat and mouse a white 928.
When we got to the Harbour who did we see in the driver s seat? Mr Bell.
Another Bognor boy having fun, me I was in my 911.

Ah yes, lovely stuff!

And yes, many of my most memorable moments of Le Mans trips over many years have happened elsewhere than at the circuit.

[bella]

i think a lot of you are missing the human element to 24 hour races. the car bit is nothing without the human stories behind them, and if you know some of them you'll understand that you'll never know all of them. that some people focus solely on the cars and performance just seems to miss out a huge, vast, enormous part of the event.

obviously lots of people will never be able to get to the race and that's cool but honestly... look further.

i can tell you about my le mans. i'm knackered. 100% purely existing on momentum and inertia at this point. got scratches and bruises i don't entirely understand and have somehow picked up a cold. the start was this huge burst of life from the other side - you live a week inside the garages and the pit box, you've built this tight knit little le mans experience and then boom, all of a sudden you realise that there's more to build it out of.

the wee small hours feel like you're just surviving, all you're doing is keeping the car going because that's all you can do yourself. you spend this entire week flogging yourself to give the boys and the car the best opportunity to get the circuit figured out and the right bits of the car glued together so nothing falls off, and then on race day someone's like, "sure, it's just like testing except you're all going to get at least one randomly selected drama". it's not about who recovers the best from that drama, it's like musical chairs when you all know when the music will stop but if you linger round a chair you'll fall over your shoelaces.

sometimes it just isn't your race, i'm still not completely sure where our car finished, but she finished. the entire paddock will be kicking pigeons for weeks over That One Thing that changed the course of their race, where it started to wobble. the first thing that comes to mind if you try and start a sentence with "if... hadn't happened, we'd have...". and there's usually one person in the team turning over and examining that thing, and rationalising that whilst it happened in their hands, it was le mans that caused it. you can't start picking apart every little thing that goes wrong and apportioning blame because it doesn't work like that.

[Oldtony]

Thank you Bella!
The true spirit of Le Mans!

[Pandamasque]

To add to the above, watching the pre-start stuff I thought of another thing.
No other race in the world makes me feel this way as a spectator. There's something about the drama of it all, the theatre, the band playing, all the cars lined up, the ridiculously well dressed man with a ridiculously ornate gold-lined French flag... I can't believe that the stuff that makes that iconic sequence from McQueen's Le Mans so epic, actually happens every year, minus Michel Legrand's soundtrack.

Speaking of which. One thing was missing. I think it's the first time in many years they haven't played Also sprach Zarathustra by Strass at the start. Why? Was this because of extra SC laps?

Originally Posted by J Jay

Just for reference, Toyota's first Le Mans back (of this stint) did have them taking it to Audi and leading on pace ... before the complexity of the initial TS020 design made on-site repairs impossible.

Compare and contrast to both Glickenhaus (trouble free all race) and their own efforts this time (managing an on-going issue while maintaining a lead) shows how far both teams have come.

Ignore the naysayers, whoever turns up and takes the flag is the worthy winner.

Just to put things into perspective, Toyota is among the biggest car manufacturers globally and has its racecars built at their own facility at TMG, which has decades of experience producing Le Mans, WRC and F1 race cars.

Glickenhaus is a tiny operation making boutique super/hyper cars, and a small racing team that just recently partnered with some high level service providers Sauber and Joest.
And yet in race 3 it has performed better than the likes of Ginetta (makes race cars for a living), SMP/BR (pet project of a billionaire and Putin's best buddy, whose name is on the car, we're talking blank cheques here), Aston Martin (with Lola and without), Nissan...

Where I am concerned is that to go from where SCG are now to being properly competitive in varied conditions the car needs a lot of running, at different tracks and in a variety of different conditions. And yet, we've been told it's a limited programme. We've seen that in a perfect scenario the deficit to Toyota is around 1 second per lap at Le Mans maybe a little more. Let's say that can be fixed with BoP. But the rest was due to 007 LMHs not finding the setup sweet spot for the conditions.

[Toyotats03OUS]

Originally Posted by Pandamasque

To add to the above, watching the pre-start stuff I thought of another thing.
No other race in the world makes me feel this way as a spectator. There's something about the drama of it all, the theatre, the band playing, all the cars lined up, the ridiculously well dressed man with a ridiculously ornate gold-lined French flag... I can't believe that the stuff that makes that iconic sequence from McQueen's Le Mans so epic, actually happens every year, minus Michel Legrand's soundtrack.

Speaking of which. One thing was missing. I think it's the first time in many years they haven't played Also sprach Zarathustra by Strass at the start. Why? Was this because of extra SC laps?


Just to put things into perspective, Toyota is among the biggest car manufacturers globally and has its racecars built at their own facility at TMG, which has decades of experience producing Le Mans, WRC and F1 race cars.

Glickenhaus is a tiny operation making boutique super/hyper cars, and a small racing team that just recently partnered with some high level service providers Sauber and Joest.
And yet in race 3 it has performed better than the likes of Ginetta (makes race cars for a living), SMP/BR (pet project of a billionaire and Putin's best buddy, whose name is on the car, we're talking blank cheques here), Aston Martin (with Lola and without), Nissan...

Where I am concerned is that to go from where SCG are now to being properly competitive in varied conditions the car needs a lot of running, at different tracks and in a variety of different conditions. And yet, we've been told it's a limited programme. We've seen that in a perfect scenario the deficit to Toyota is around 1 second per lap at Le Mans maybe a little more. Let's say that can be fixed with BoP. But the rest was due to 007 LMHs not finding the setup sweet spot for the conditions.

I don’t think that’s a fair comparison.. you need to take into consideration the regulation at the time. The reason that glicken never joined the WEC was probably the same issue that many privateer had was the regulation at the time, technology = massive budget and engineer needed to compete and to be competitive was too much.

Do you think glickenhaus was going to be able to accomplished the same result competing a few years back with Audi, Porsche Toyota and rebellion.? I don’t think so..

I think that rebellion with these new set of rules that we have today would’ve been very competitive and running up front with Toyota with their experience and knowledge

[Pandamasque]

They would. But that's because they were Oreca.

[Truckosaurus]

Originally Posted by bella

i think a lot of you are missing the human element to 24 hour races....

Excellent post. It's no mean feat to even finish, let alone win, so we should definitely not be suggesting Toyota had it easy.

[S griffin]

Whatever happens at Le Mans, it's always a great spectacle to watch.

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by Pandamasque

Snippy snippy

That wasn't meant as a comparison between Toyota & Glickenhaus. I thought it was interesting to see how both teams have done extremely well in this race.

[eps]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Not to me, I was pretty entertained throughout. Having watched 34 of the last 36 at the event, I've seen many races that were significantly more boring, even some from the fabled Group C era. Some of the races I've seen, the last third of the race has seen relatively little memorable action. If we gauge it solely by the margin of victory, this year was pretty close. I'm not sure how much you watched, but watching the whole of a 24 Hour event can be a very immersive experience.

I concur. The race itself was pretty decent in terms of potential upsets happening and unfortunately it did happen to the WRT Team, very cruel.

The 2020 race for me was a lot worse. I just couldn't see a way how the Toyotas were going to lose that race. This year there was that slim possibility that they were going to have serious issues and that one or both of the cars could end up not finishing.

The Glickenhaus entry was impressive, but they did have Joest in the garage, so you'd sort of expect them to do quite well.

A shame about some of the P2 entries - but for me, personally, there are too many and of course not enough variation (understatement). But WRT did an excellent job with that and came so close to getting both top steps of the podium!!

[Aysedasi]

Some great posts, particularly Bella (@1790) and Panda (@1792). The fact is that virtually everyone who has been to Le Mans knows that this is no ordinary event, and I specifically use the word 'event' instead of 'race'. For anyone who has ever read one of my 'stories' of my Le Mans trips over the years, you'll know that for me, when the flag drops for the race start, it is in fact the beginning of the end of the event for me. I've said many times that the (usually) 7 days that I have at Le Mans prior to race day are every bit as important and memorable to me as the race (probably more important). When my lad (the mechanic) first came to Le Mans with me in 2016, he was constantly amused that I did virtually the same thing on each day that I had done on that day for the previous 6 years (since I started going with Bentley03), so we'd go to the same places, eat in the same places (and usually eat the same food) and watch practice, qually and the race from the same places at pretty much the same times. To some, that would sound utterly tedious but revisiting past emotions is actually a really powerful thing - something which people who have not experienced it would never know. In all the years I've been to Le Mans accompanied by many dozens of others, I can only recall a handful who didn't come back again after their first visit. I've no doubt that there are people here who feel the same way about Daytona or Sebring, or F1 fans who live for the British GP every year. It's no bad thing to have such a passion that you can feed off of both before and after the event each year. It's also one of the reasons why the result of the race, the closeness of the competition, the spec nature of some classes and so on are of less significance to me than they obviously are to some others. I do want to see a good race and for my money, this year I did see a good race, one that even though I had to watch it on TV, I became fully immersed into. I had the plucky privateer Glickenhaus team to support (in a way replacing the lost Rebellion team that I've supported pretty much since they started) as well as the #26 G-Drive which, like Bella, my son was involved with. I'm glad it's over though because it now allows me to look forward to 2022 with considerable relish.