Le Mans 2016

[doodlebug]

Back at camp, Portsmuff ferry tomorrow night.

Great for Porsche, but what the feck happened to the Toyota.

[Ian_C]

Hope everyone made it home okay. Very wet week bar - mercifully - the 24 hours itself. Driving down south from Calais, one of our group past a modern Aston Martin smashed on the auto route in the rain missing a wheel. I past a 996 Carrera on the way home (around Aberville?) that had spun in the rain and nosed into the barriers. Not nice.

Race wise, you couldn't even script the lead car failing at 23 hours 54 minutes, and the second place car stealing the victory. The grandstands fell silent! I've seen some close battles and tense finishes in previous years - notably between Peugeot and Audi in 2011 (with horrific back marker crashes for McNish and Rockenfeller) and in 2008 a Peugeot on the same lap and catching the lead Audi, only for to spin off when it rained in the final hour or two. But never anything like 2016!

Audi R8 V10 course car going out when qualifying was red flagged 11pm Thursday night and having a moment!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqB6qRXmCNo

[doodlebug]

The Ferrari And Ford GT spun right in front of us on the pit straight going in to Dunlop. Lucky! Kept it out of wall and gravel.

[Ian_C]

I was T34 block C above Porsche pits. Where were you?

Portsmouth ferry was fortunate - Calais was messy last night. Arrived at Eurotunnel about 6:15pm, got to check in around the time my train was booked to depart (20:06) before enduring a 4 hour wait between getting through passport and parking outside the terminal and being called to board and depart (00:45 French time)

Equally my personal record for the latest home from Le Mans - got in at 02:30am (GMT, Tuesday / this morning). Speedy drive home from Ashford to Bedford at least

[doodlebug]

Stand 12 opposite put exit.

Ferry was indeed lucky!

[dsearle]

https://vimeo.com/171656007

Took this at the weekend.

[smudge]

Friends that made it over this year have all reported both tunnel & ferrys being utterly fooked. Delays everywhere. But then what do you expect? Le Mans + Football + ISIS terror threats + strikes all over the Shop is only going to end with utter chaos non?

[Ian_C]

Every single time I've used Eurotunnel, I've departed on schedule, or on an earlier train if I've arrived early enough. Sadly Monday was the first time I've been delayed......... by 4.5 hours!

It was fairly busy coming home last year 2015, and the email I got on the day from them said do not arrive more than two hours early, but I *think* I still got onto an earlier train? 2015 was *nothing* like Monday - I've never seen anything like it!

The problems were with the tunnel itself, a service train going into the tunnel to repair the overhead power lines............ which then broke down itself and had to be recovered. Unlucky. Eurotunnel were advertising they were running four trains an hour to catch up. Tbh they always run four trains an hour Sunday and Monday home from Le Mans........... but I think they were dishing out the overtime Monday night on the French side to keep employees working a few extra hours longer so the trains could continue at four trains an hour into the wee hours until the backlog was cleared (around 2 - 2:30am so I gather). This also possibly explained why we had to wait 15 minutes UK side for a platform to become available to unload. There are plenty of [physical] platforms, but I suspect there weren't enough UK staff to man four arrivals an hour after midnight UK time

[dsearle]

Here's another....

[Ian_C]

Respect