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After our meal we walked back to the
grandstands, stopping off at the ACO enclosure on the inside of the circuit near
the Dunlop Bridge. It was here that I discovered that the "cheapo" ACO
membership I had bought didn't give me entry to this area, but James came to my
rescue and signed me in, after I'd coughed up another €15 that is! The enclosure
is actually a very useful staging post, situated as it is very close to the
Dunlop Bridge, where you can get a cold drink and something to eat at any time
during the race without having to queue for ages. It turned out to be a
very worthwhile €15 as the week wore on!
It was at this point that I was able to
experience one of the real highlights and advantages of being at Le Mans for
practice. Access to the grandstands is completely free (yes, I said free!), for
all the practice sessions, so you can literally watch from wherever you like!
The only time I'd previously sat in the ACO grandstand was way back in 1993 but
our chosen position for the first full qualifying session of Le Mans 2010 was to
be Tribune 17, which although not actually the ACO grandstand, is the Durand
Tribune, linked to the side of the ACO stand number 18. Seats were effectively
first-come, first-served, but we were able to sit near the back, the higher
elevation all the better for my camera.
Being at Le Mans to watch practice was a
truly exhilarating experience, one of the best I've ever had at Le Mans.
Apart from one year back in the 90s when I managed to catch a little of the
Saturday warmup, in 24 years, the only time I'd ever seen the cars out on the
track was during the race itself, so the opportunity to see them coming in and
out of the pits very regularly while watching the timing - on Kangaroo TV for
the first time - was absolutely fantastic. It was clear very early on that the
Peugeots were substantially quicker than the Audis and it already seemed
as though it was just a case of how far ahead the Peugeots were going to be by
the end of the 24 hours.
Although it was as difficult as always on
this side of the track to take photos of the cars, it was excellent for
shots down into the pits, and I managed to get quite a few of those. I'd
never seen so many cars stationary in the pits at the same time.
We also had the advantage of being directly
opposite the Audi pits, so I was able to take several sequences of shots as the
three Audi's came in to rotate their drivers to qualify them. I've grouped
all of those together (below).
As the qualifying session came to a close so
did a thoroughly enthralling evening. Six hours of practice and qualifying - the
equivalent in simple time terms of a quarter of the race - seemed to be
over remarkably quickly and I loved every minute of it. I was
metaphorically pinching myself to make sure I really was there watching it and
not dreaming the whole thing! This was something I had wanted to experience for
so long, and once the session was over I just wanted to do it again!
After the end of the session at midnight it
was back to the car in its pole position in garage blanc and then back to the
hotel. After what had been a pretty long day, when we got back around 1 pm, I
was certainly ready for some sleep.
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