I have got indigestion .. we have had to eat or words.. our hats .. and everything else! Nobody and I think I really mean nobody reckoned that Peugeot could possibly lose this race. Then one after another the fast, stylish allegedly reliable Peugeots simply evaporated. Each time it happened you felt that was not too serious because it wouldn’t happen to all the cars .. surely… There is an air of total disbelief as we watch some very emotional scenes in the pits. When the last of the Peugeot Sport cars fell to bits the baton was passed to the Team Oreca with their ‘similar’ car and it was Loïc Duval who got what we thought was the enviable job of simply getting out there and driving the bollocks off the #4 Peugeot.. it was official! So he was given carte-blanche to go for it.. He did an astounding job and with about 1hr 20mins to go it really began to look as if he might get an Audi scalp and get a ‘Lion’ onto the podium and salvage some Gallic Pride. To catch Lotterer was going to be tall order in front of this `massive partisan crowd. Then ‘ker-boom’ his blow up was a splendid finale to a dreadful 22:30 hours of racing for Peugeot.
Audi behaved extraordinarily well when it fell apart for the French .. mind you they knew from years of experience that on a day like this nobody was immune from disaster. This isn’t the first time that Audi have ‘done their own thing’ .. they will accept that they have been very lucky but as somebody once said ‘ We have worked very hard indeed to be this lucky’. Audi have a remarkable team of engineers, managers and above all drivers. They didn’t actually go to all this effort to roll over and have their tummies tickled by Peugeot. They were never going to blink .. Peugeot would have to blink first and they did, several times. It was a spectacular Audi 1st 2nd 3rd .. This will be 9th time Audi have won Le Mans .. and the 4th time they have a clean sweep.
There had been a possible tweak in the tail surrounding the 009 Lola B09/60 Aston Martin.. David Richards had been pretty scathing all weekend about the way endurance motor-sport was heading all weekend and was threatening to withdraw his fleet of petrol cars unless the regulations evened things out and made the playing field rather more level… now here was an Aston Martin lying fourth and just one Audi had to break and he would have had an Aston Martin on the podium. But nope .. the 009 Lola B09/60 Aston Martin then went and blew its engine. But all was not lost for Aston.. they still had the 008 car in the frame.. until it got a puncture. In the end the 007 Aston Martin came home 6th. A good showing for a partially ‘Works’ supported team.
In LMP2 it is usually a miracle when one of them actually gets to see a chequered flag…even this year's driver's at the press conference admitted that if you actually managed to get the car across the line in previous years you generally got a Cup! This year was very, very different.. 12 out of the 14 cars finished. In the other classes the carnage rumbled on but LMP2 race was fast and interesting. The final result was:-
#42 Strakka Racing LMP2 HPD ARX.01 driven by Nick Leventis, Danny Watts and Jonny Kane
#35 Oak Racing LMP2 Pescarolo Judd driven by Matthieu Lahaye, Guillaume Moreau and Jan Charouz
#25 RML LMP2 Lola HPD COUPE driven by Mike Newton, Thomas Erdos and Andy Wallace
In the GT Classes things had to go plan surely? Nope .. From the start this weekend the GT1 Class has really been a busted flush since they will not be racing at Le Mans in the future in so there was no real sense in developing a car that would become obsolete almost immediately. This didn't bother the wealthy Ford GT racing enthusiasts. What was already an expensive weekend by most people standards steadily got more and more eye-wateringly expensive as they set about systematically destroying their precious steeds!
#60 Matech Competition LMGT1 Ford GT driven by Thomas Mutsch, Romain Grosjean and Jonathan Hirschi crashed and retired... #61 Matech Competition LMGT1 Ford GT driven by Natacha Gachnang, Rahel Frey and Cyndie Allemann caught fire forcing Natacha Gachnang to abandon ship as quickly as she could. Finally the #70 Marc VDS Racing Team LMGT1 Ford GT driven by Eric De Doncker, Bas Leinders and Markus Palttala was thrown at a wall so hard it virtually fell apart on the way back to the pits. This left the field open to the ageing Saleen S7R .. which we think once saw the podium back in 2001.. so people didn't view this as a good bet. But the much favoured #52 Young Driver AMR LMGT1 Aston Martin DBR9 driven by Christoffer Nygaard, Tomas Enge and Peter Kox had an appetite for drive shafts so kept falling out of contention.. The #69 JLOC LMGT1 Lamborghini Murcielago driven by Atsushi Yogo, Koji Yamanishi and Hiroyuki Iiri had a ball! After completing around five hundred yards last year it managed a stunning 138 laps.. OK it was only 259 laps less than the race winners..but our Japanese chums went bonkers.
#t73 Luc Alphand Aventures LMGT1 Corvette C6.R didn't make it due to transmission failure...
All this left the field open for the ten year old Saleen to storm home for a well deserved victory.
GT2 was an altogether different kettle of fish.. this was looking good .. with Corvette.v.Porsche.v.BMW.v.Jaguar.v. Ferrari.v.Spyker.v.Aston Martin.. once again there was a fair bit of carnage. The #64 Corvette driven by Oli Gavin expired out on the track after 255 laps..Andy Priaulx had an unhappy introduction to Le Mans when his BMW M3 E92 ceased to function due to a lack of petrol.. the much fancied Flying Lizard Porsche punctured a radiator and consequently ran into engine problems, like over heating, we believe..the poor old Jaguar XKRS never really conquered an on going series of electrical gremlins... The #82 Risi Ferrari 430GTC destroyed a gearbox and the #83 blew up its engine and neither finished.. so in the end it was Porsche who salvaged things after a very disappointing year in 2009 when the #77 Team Felbermayr-Proton LMGT2 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR driven by Marc Lieb, Richard Lietz and Wolf Henzler won the class followed by the #89 Hankook - Team Farnbacher LMGT2 Ferrari F 430 GT driven by Dominik Farnbacher, Allan Simonsen and Leh Keen.. followed by #97 BMS Scuderia Italia SPA LMGT2 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR driven by Marco Holzer, Richard Westbrook and Timo Scheider.
But 2010 will be remembered for the extraordinary turn around of fortune that the Peugeot team suffered. The team were devastated and the French, who had turned up in their droves .. 238,850 of them to be precise, left in their droves when the last Peugeot exploded; the media centre suddenly drained and even the grandstands started to empty.. they are a partisan lot The French ..
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