Michelin, the tire manufacturer, released this past Thursday a 6 minutes video showing some of what happened in the back scenes at the 2020 24 Hours of Le Mans 🏁.
REVIEW – 1996 Porsche TWR WSC-95 #7
1996 Porsche TWR WSC-95 #7 Pilots: S. Johansson, M. Alboreto, T. Kristensen Team: Joest Porsche Racing Race: 1st GC (LMP class) at Le Mans in 1997 Spark - 43LM97 (resin)
Review HERE
This looks nice
I’m not exactly the biggest fan of the cars from Maranello, but I have to say this looks pretty good. It’s a Monza SP1, customized by Novitec. Ferrari only produced 500 of them, between the SP1 (monoposto) and SP2 (two places). I talked about them in 2018 when they were first released, but now Novitec made some improvements. And the SP1 looks mighty fine.
The coolest French car ever
Well, at least in my humble opinion. The Alpine, in my eyes, had it all – the looks and the performance. And Petrolicious just uploaded a charming video of a 1972 A110 1600S.
Did I complete my Silberpfeil quiver?
Recently, I got the Auto Union Typ C #4 and a couple of weeks later, the Typ D #4. I was overjoyed to get them, because it was a looooong while since I last got a Silver Arrow. However, that got me thinking and prompted some research.
Do I now have all the Golden Age Grand Prix Silberpfeile 🤔?
If so, the Silver Arrow wing of the Garage is complete. I think probably many would consider that as a good thing. On the other hand, that also means I don’t have any new Silberpfeil to look forward to 😕. And since I’m more a find-happiness-along-the-way type of person than a completist that is a bit sad…
Click HERE to read a little more.
Spa, 1961
This is a short film of the Belgian Grand Prix, at Spa-Francorchamps on June 18th 1961. Frankly, the editing is a bit of a mess, not being sequential or chronologically set up. The GREAT part about it though is that it’s in 60 FPS. That being so, you can really appreciate the details, specially on the onboard parts. As a comparison, you can see here “regular footage” of that race.
According to legend, it was footage like this that inspired John Frankenheimer to make one of the most famous racing films of all times, “Grand Prix” of 1966 (you can watch the whole film from that link).
REVIEW – 2014 Lamborghini Huracán LP610-4
Was the 2020 race a “good Le Mans”?
Don’t think anyone will say it was a bad race, but it was certainly atypical. The pandemic forced it to be closed to the public, so there were no fans and only the technical pre-race events happened. The pre-race parade and all the fan events did not happen, and media coverage was limited. So all in all a very peculiar race compared to the traditional “Le Mans experience”.
Petrolicious wrote a very nice article about this year’s race, and touches exactly on those points. In the future people will look back and see 2020 as the last LMP1 race, where the TS050 won it’s third Le Mans in a row. But for us experiencing all this first hand and live, it sure was something strange.
The end of an era
Predictably, Toyota won at Le Mans this year again. With no other big manufacturer in the fight, it was just a matter of how many laps would they finish in front of the smaller teams. Granted, to win at Le Mans you first have to finish the race, and the TS050’s reliability was top-notch. Kudos to Rebellion, that managed a most deserved second place. Still, an eerie race, with the empty grand stands and only team personnel or track officials at the podium 😯.
Well, that was the last time a LMP1 car raced at La Sarthe. Next year we will see the debut of the Hypercar class, and lets hope that we will see more competition in the top class.
REVIEW – 1976 Porsche 934 #82
1976 Porsche 934 Pilots: A. Pallavicini, H. Müller, M. Vanoli Team: Lubrifilm Racing Team Race: 4th GC (1st in Group 4 class) at Le Mans in 1979 Spark - S3431 (resin)
Review HERE