Le Mans 2013 - Ayse's Story
Page 9 - Thursday (3)
3rd and Final Qualifying - Mulsanne in the Dark
We left T34 at around 8.45 after the early end to the session and headed back to the car in the garage blanc and made the journey out to Mulsanne Corner to watch the final qualifying session for this year's race. I know I've said it before, lots of times, probably, but if you go to Le Mans, try not to just hang around the main grandstand area, you really do need to get out to the back of the circuit, to Mulsanne or Arnage (or preferably both) some time during your trip and - and it's a BIG and - try and do it at night. It's a huge luxury for me now to be able to watch all of the practice and qualifying sessions, as it means that I can get out to both of these places - and see the cars in the dark - even before the race has started. You do need to find your way there, and in all my 28 years I've never had driving duties at Le Mans (so it's easy for me...), but if there is someone in your group who can navigate, or someone you can follow or travel with, make sure you do it, you won't regret it.
I don't recall any hiccups on the way to Mulsanne this year and by 9.45 we had 'set up shop' on the banking overlooking Mulsanne Corner where we watched the final session, hoping that Toyota would pull something out of the bag to give Audi a little more to think about. But alas, it didn't happen. The big question of course was whether Toyota were sandbagging at all. I guess we'd find out some time after 3 pm on Saturday....
As usual, I took a few pictures, the majority of which were typically moody but disappointing (with the standard headlight underexposure!), but I present an array of those that I've decided to keep for posterity, warts n'all.
We finally left the corner for what is a fair trudge back to the car park in the dark and then to head back to the hotel. I can't say that I remember the journey particularly, but a note I made at the time suggests that we took a wrong turn somewhere and didn't get back until 1 am. What I do recall though is that I failed miserably in my desire to stay awake on the journey! Even though there was no on-track action on Friday, we had lots to do and see, so we needed to get some sleep and I started early!
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