Images

When you almost loose faith in a brand…

I think it’s patent that I’m a HUGE fan of Tecnomodel. Just as good as Looksmart and BBR, but at a much affordable price. In terms of Ferrari models, in my book it’s THE 1:43 brand. However, my faith in the brand got shaken up after I received my F40 GTE. My model came with some (minute) issues with a couple of decals. Nothing big, but something I didn’t expect from Tecnomodel. Well, fast-forward to the 330 LMB. I ordered it as soon as my dealer offered it to me, and was anxiously awaiting it’s arrival. And as always, while I waited I started the research on the real car.

Looking up photos of the real car, I noticed there was a small discrepancy with the model shown at Tecnomodel’s website. On all race pictures that I found, the car had a small bug deflector on the bonnet, while the model on the Tecnomodel website did not 😳. “Oh crap, they screwed up!”, I immediately thought. I then scoured the web to see if it was right or wrong, and found one pic of the car without the bug deflector screen. I think that photo was taken during scrutineering, so perhaps the part wasn’t installed yet. If true, the model wasn’t wrong, yet I would prefer the “race version” 😕…

But to my surprise, when I opened the box, there was the bug deflector on the bonnet, as it should be! Probably the photo on the website was from a pre-production model, and Tecnomodel rectified the missing detail before actual production. And with that, my faith in Tecnomodel was restored… 😁

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.

Hypercar is getting crowdy…

One more brand for the LMH class: Genesis, from Korea. Yesterday they reveled their GMR-001 hypercar, to race in the WEC starting in 2026. GMR stands for “Genesis Magma Racing”, and Genesis is developing the prototype in a partnership with ORECA. The presentation yesterday showed the prototype without an engine, since that is still in development. Magma Racing seems to be serious about their race intentions: not only do they have a VERY hot-looking car, they also contracted André Lotterer and Pipo Derani for the team. Head over to Jalopnik for more info.

As I kind of expected (predicted?), LMH is becoming the GT1 of the 20s, with everybody wanting to get in. I only hope that the FIA, ACO and manufacturers keep up the enthusiasm for a long time.