Aysedasi's Le Mans

We got back to our seats in T17 by midday just in time for the race warm up which lasted a paltry fifteen minutes, not even enough time for me to bother to get my camera out of the bag, but I did take a couple of videos.  

After the warm up we were treated to a two lap parade featuring the cars from the previous evening’s celebration plus far more from the museum. There were some fantastic cars out there including ‘Le Monstre’, the winning Porsche 917 from 1970, several Rothmans Porsches, the 1991 winning Mazda again and the Bentley from 2003.

After these cars were cleared the lineup of the cars for the race itself began along with all of the usual pre-race activity, including the lineup of the teams, the delivery of the flag by the French army in their Chinook and another fly past by the Patrouille de France.  As always, it was good fun to spot some of the familiar competing drivers and additional interest was caused when Ferrari F1 driver Charles Leclerc walked up the pitlane surrounded by photographers.  I also caught sight of Ferrari F1 team boss Fred Vasseur there as well.  Ferrari were clearly keen to make the most of the media exposure for their return to Le Mans!

The grandstand had rapidly filled up and although it didn't affect us right at the top of the stand we were delighted this year to see stewards from the ACO moving people off of the stairwells, stopping people standing at the front and kicking out people who didn't actually have tickets for the stand. It really was grand to be sitting at the top of the stand instead of at the bottom with people stepping on our feet or our bags or getting in the way of our view of what was happening.  The time passed really very quickly to 4:00 pm and the start of the 91st 24 Heures du Mans.