We were back into our own parking space in Parking
Blanc (for the first time!) just after 11 am and we headed back to our seats in
T17, where I would stay until the finish. Porsche took the victory and
although the final result was reasonably close between the first two Porsches (1
lap) and the third placed Audi (another lap), I think we had all known,
certainly from 6-7 hours from the end that barring disasters, the win was in the
bag for Porsche. And no disasters happened. It was a very
well-deserved win.
We saw the cars cross the line and then made our
usual dash to the car park. For the last few years it has been our goal to
avoid the queues and get onto the road back to the hotel as soon as possible.
Last year the queues to get out were quite bad however this year we managed to
set an astonishing new record of being back into the hotel car park by 3.28 pm,
just 28 minutes after the end of the race, only 23 minutes of which was driving
time! A record which I doubt will ever be broken....
By 4 pm I had indulged in another shower but made
the mistake of just laying on the bed for a while before we went out to eat.
Of course I fell fast asleep in a matter of seconds and woke up a couple of
hours later with a monster migraine. But one Imigran and an hour later I
felt much better and we rounded off the weekend in now traditional Team DoT
style at Del Arte with goats cheese, the mandatory Pizza Marocco (although we
never managed to persuade Tim to indulge!) and yet another delicious crème
brulée to finish.
By the end of the meal we were all pretty much
'finished' and in need of that most well-earned sleep of the year. We
were back to the hotel by 9.20 pm and I was in the land of nod about 10 minutes
later. Rarely has the thought of several hours of sleep been quite so
pleasurable!
