Aysedasi's Le Mans

Le Mans 2022 - Ayse's Story

Page 7 - Tuesday 7th June - James and Lauren and That Drive...

The Tuesday of Le Mans week has for a number of years now been one of my favourite days of the trip as it has become a firm fixture as the day for our drive around the circuit.  I've particularly enjoyed it since I drove my own car over for the first time in 2018.  This year of course reaching Tuesday also meant the arrival of James and Lauren, who were driving down having caught the night ferry from Portsmouth to Caen. They were travelling over on the night boat from Portsmouth to Caen and James kept me up to date with their rather slow progress boarding, it was very slow but ultimately he was pleased as he managed to get them to put him on the main deck, thereby avoiding the ramps for his low ground clearance!  They were off the boat and queueing but made much quicker progress than we had through border control and were soon on the road to Le Mans, arriving at about 9.20 am.

We soon had them into their room and after a quick wash and brush up it was decision time for what we would do next.  Tony, Tim and I were keen to introduce James and Lauren to the delights of the Feuillette and by 11 am were were enjoying pastries and coffee just a couple of tables away from Glickenhaus drivers Ryan Briscoe and Franck Mailleux!  Although James F had contemplated undertaking the drive, he ultimately decided to stay back at the hotel.

After breakfast we made the short drive to the circuit heading briefly around the dual carriageway to enter at Tertre Rouge for the drive down the Mulsanne Straight.  Our first stop at 11.40 was at the first chicane.  The weather wasn't anything to shout about, but it was dry and fairly warm.  

From the first chicane it was just a brief drive on to pull up again on the entry to Mulsanne Corner.  

I managed to capture quite a bit of the journey on my dashcam, just for posterity.  The quality isn't as good as I'd hoped and you'll have to put up with the persistent rattle and occasionally my fingers in the way (as well as me forgetting to turn it off) but it's fun as a record...

We continued the lap by driving on to Indianapolis where we posed for more pictures on the tarmac runoff and James did a couple of drive-bys, albeit more sedately than in 2019 due to the presence of the gendarmes up at the Arnage roundabout!  

We completed the lap in 'standard' fashion by motoring on around to the entrance to the Porsche Curves where we parked up again and walked a little way down towards the Ford Chicane.