Le Mans 2012 - Ayse's Story
Page 11 - Thursday
Second Qualifying - The Delights of Arnage!
We decided to watch the next practice session from Arnage. We all love to watch from there and although it meant that we would miss some of the session while driving there, we decided to go for it anyway. We got there about half an hour into the session, having parked up in the overflow car park just down the road and we settle down to watch.
Although it's a great place to spectate from, as I've said many times before, for photographers the debris fencing is as much a nightmare there as it is on the outside of Tertre Rouge. This results in large numbers of spectators congregating in the very corner of the enclosure at the Arnage turn where it's just possible to get slightly more acceptable shots - although still through the fencing. It helps of course that the cars are at the slowest point of the circuit.
It's not only the slowest part of the circuit here, but also one of the noisiest. Although we've lost some of the trees on the inside of the track over the last few years, the cars 'squirt' down to Arnage from the last left-hander of Indianapolis and it always sounds very loud at this point. Except when the Audis go past, I suppose....
We were intrigued to see the new gravel trap on the outside of Arnage in action. James and I were both convinced that the 'astroturf' that we'd looked at close up on that previous wet Sunday afternoon would break up a la Silverstone 2011, but it seemed to be holding up OK so far. The most important thing for us though was that the weather was good - still completely dry with no apparent threat of rain.
Once again, the session seemed to pass very quickly - time really does fly when you're having fun! The photos I took there predictably leave a great deal to be desired, but I've posted the majority of them, warts n'all anyway....
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