Aysedasi's Le Mans

Le Mans 2010 - Ayse's Story - Page 8

Wednesday - The Night - Now It Gets Serious!

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.