Oh well…

Against all my wishes, Maranello wins again… 🤣 At least it was a privateer (whatever the brand, I’ll always side with the little guy). Nonetheless, a nice race, and contrary to last year, almost no safety car. After the hyperpole I had hopes specially for Cadillac and perhaps, Alpine and BMW. Yet, Cadillac never got close to the lead, just like BMW and Alpine. About Toyota, on the other hand, I was sure they would be up in the front, with Ferrari and Porsche, but they had a very slow race.

Nonetheless, my money was on Ferrari to win again, unless they had their F1 team to manage things in La Sarthe 😂. I didn’t think the 963 had a great chance and I was glad to see the Valkyries finishing the race. In LMP2, my favorite, the ORECA 07 #199 “Spike the Dragon”, finished in third (well, first in LMP2 Pro-Am). For GT3 I was routing for the Iron Dames’ #85, but they finished all the way in the back 😥.

A nice race overall, with not much drama on track. In terms of 1:43rd, I really want the Spike ORECA, BMW’s M Hybrid V8 #20 (beautiful!) and the Dames’ #85. Oh, and possibly Mercedes AMG-GT3 #61.

Group B in HD!

Stumbled upon this 4-minutes gem the other day. Usually, Group B rallying footage isn’t the best. Well, back in the 80s we didn’t have HD videos, so most of the stuff that you can find on YouTube is low definition. Yet, this video is in HD! The audio track is chill, with mostly not-terrible music and some original ambient sound. In the end, a pretty neat video for the rally fan.

What do you know? Toyota CAN make cool liveries…

Revealed yesterday, a special livery for La Sarthe this year. It’s not something original or particularly artsy, but a homage to the beautiful TS-020 (GT-One) of 1998. Even so, still MUCH better than the bland, tasteless, weak, flavorless, vapid, insipid, uninspired, flat, dull, mild and savorless current black-red-and-white liveries.

So, is there hope for Toyota? 🤔

A nation thriving for speed

Though this video came out last year, I only found out about it a few days ago. Unfortunately however, YouTube (or the authors?) will not allow to embed it, so you need to click HERE or on the pic above to see it. In a nutshell, it’s a 47-minutes long documentary on the Silberpfeile. Well, though the authors do a fantastic job on explaining the origins of the cars, they almost exclusively focus on the land speed record attempts of both Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union. Grand Prix racing, in theory the primary reason for Germany’s National Socialist Party funding the two companies, is barely cited. Furthermore, they pay special emphasis to Bernd Rosemeyer’s accident, and basically cite en passant the previous record attempts. Nonetheless, the research is fantastic and the historic footage is awesome.

So, though it could be seen as maybe incomplete, with no mention to GP racing and barely nothing on other LSR attempts by the Silberpfeile, it’s still a fantastic way to spend 47 minutes 😎.