As per habit, I was up,
showered and dressed by 8 am. We had reached Wednesday, the day of the
first on-track action and while waiting for the sleepy-heads in the team to get
themselves galvanised I set about preparing my camera bag for our first trip
into the circuit itself this year. By 10 am we were all up and ready to go
and set off up to the bar for some breakfast.
After nipping back to the
hotel to collect our gear we drove to the circuit and were able to park in our
designated spot - X3 -in Parking Blanc.
We were soon into the circuit and
as we had loads of time to kill before free practice started at 4 pm we spent
some time investigating the shops behind the grandstands. The bad news was
that by this time it had started to rain, not particularly heavily, but it was
that persistent drizzle that eventually makes you very wet, causing me to press
my foldaway waterproof jacket into service. I spent an hour or so over in
the Village, both looking into and sheltering in the shops while others made
purchases. By 2.30 pm we were all feeling rather peckish so we headed up
towards the Dunlop Chicane where I enjoyed a 'sandwich mixte' (ham and cheese)
for lunch.
Once at the circuit one of the
first tasks to be undertaken as members of the ACO (well, James, Tony and I) is
to sign in and collect our wristbands, giving us access to both the Espace Club
and of course the members grandstand. These are collected from the
entrance to the Espace Club just alongside the Dunlop Bridge on the inside of
the circuit. As usual, I'm sorry to say that the ACO had little thought
for the start of free practice at 4 pm, not opening the office there until after
3.30. Fortunately we had arrived there in time to be near the front of the
queue.
My membership situation had
been a little concerning this year. I've been a member of the ACO since
first joining in 1997 and my membership runs until the end of May each year, so
has to be renewed before I travel for the race. I admit that this year I
was a little slower out of the blocks than usual but I still left plenty of time
for the card to reach me. By 29th May nothing had arrived and with only a
week to go before we departed, I phoned the ACO who assured me that my card was
on the way to me, but also promised me that they would send me a temporary card,
just in case. By the morning of Saturday 6th June, neither card had
arrived but I could see that my payment had been taken on the day I originally
phoned to renew, so I printed out a copy of my card statement and packed my (now
expired) 2014/15 card. Later that same morning, as my bags sat packed on
the lawn and I was about 5 minutes from leaving for Portsmouth, the postman
arrived and handed me a letter from France. Yes, my new membership card
had arrived, literally in the nick of time and in an envelope post-marked 3rd
June! So why didn't they just tell me on 29th May that it hadn't been
sent? (And so much for the temporary card!).
We all managed to get through
the ACO office and collect our wristbands, including a guest wristband for Tim
and after our experience there last year (at pretty much the same time), we
dashed to the Audi Fan Area to watch the beginning of the free practice session
from the great vantage point overlooking the Dunlop Chicane, where I finally
broke out the camera for some shots. We stayed in this excellent location
for the best part of two hours, amidst sundry rain showers and sunshine as the
weather seemed to struggle to make up it's mind what to do!
At about 6 pm, halfway through
the session, we finally moved off, deciding to walk down the inside alongside
the Bugatti Circuit to the Esses, where I was able to find a decent
vantage-point for some good shots shooting up close and through the fencing.
From there we gradually moved down the hill to the viewing area at the entrance
to the Esses and then up on to the banking on the inside of Tertre Rouge,
bumping into Tenthers Simmi and Rich there. Unusually, we didn't stop
there for very long but as we walked back up the outside of the circuit, right
up alongside the Tertre Rouge campsite, we spotted another Tenther, Nobby, who
was putting the finishing touches to his set-up there.
Time had raced on by now and
it was closing on 8.30 by the time we got back to the car. The free
practice session was finished and the first qualifying session was due to start
at 10, so we got into the car (we had only brought one to the circuit), and
drove out to Arnage to watch the qualifying from there.
We arrived just before 9 pm
and were able to have a leisurely dinner, which had to be a sandwich Americaine
merguez for me! We had brought our chairs with us and set up at the top of
the bank near to the big screen. This is one of my favourite points of the
weekend. I love the atmosphere at Indianapolis/Arnage, especially as the
cars set off for that first lap. You can hear them approaching from
miles away, all the way down the Mulsanne and then from Mulsanne Corner before
they burst into sight from Indianapolis. It's something I like to capture
on video as one of the real highlights! It was really good - we were
well-fed, comfortable in our chairs (the rain had long gone by now) and it was
just the perfect place to be.
We watched the full session
from here, but in truth, all of the explosive action occurred in the first two
laps for Porsche. I hadn't even got my headphones on to start listening to
the commentary, but when I saw James and Tony exchanging incredulous looks I
knew that something spectacular was happening. Porsche had of course
turned the wick right up from the outset, setting out their stall immediately
with an astonishing 3m 16.887 lap by Neel Jani in the #18 car. Although an
Audi did eventually get into the high 19's, I think we all realised at that
point that the battle for pole in LMP1 was already pretty much done and dusted.
The disappointments, even at
this early stage in the proceedings had to be the two Japanese teams, Toyota and
Nissan. After clearly being the fastest car last year the Toyotas were
left struggling to even get near their 2014 times, while the Audis and Porsches
had already totally eclipsed Toyota's pole time from last year by a massive
margin. Nissan by contrast, were uncompetitive, struggling with a brand
new car - and a brand new concept - with little (if any) hybrid power available
and which appeared to have all the handling of a house brick. By the end
of the session all three Nissans were propping up LMP1, beaten by the leading
LMP2 car, their best effort over 20 seconds off of Porsche and even 7 seconds
behind the slower of the two Rebellions. I'm honest enough to admit that I
really enjoyed seeing the Nissans out there as they brought something completely
different to the race, but even at this early stage it was looking like a pretty
grim uphill battle for them to take anything at all from the experience, no
matter how well Darren Cox talked up their performance.
The session ended with Porsche
1-2-3, Audi 4-5-6 and Toyota 7-8. And the overwhelming feeling was that
even though we still had another 4 hours of qualifying to go tomorrow, this
order of things probably wasn't going to change much, if at all. At the
end of the session we made our way back to the car for the journey back to base,
getting there at about 1 am.
