Sadly one of those murdered was Georges Wolinski, who was responsible for designing the livery of the infamous 1998 'Naked Lady' Porsche 911 GT2 of Haberthur Racing below :



I'm glad I have a 1:43 model of this car as a permanent reminder of Georges talents. RIP Georges.

As already noted, it was sadly something of a perfect storm. Yes, in hindsight tyre barriers would have helped, but who would have predicted a car turning 90 degrees to the track ?

As indicated above, there was a large tree right behind the armco. What were they thinking ? Had AS managed to go two feet either left or right, the results might have been different. Unfortunatley it appears it was a direct hit.
 


PS - Not my photo, but trust its OK to post in the interests of the discussion.

I've spent a bit of time googling for pictures of Mansell's accident or the car up against the barriers while he was extracted but haven't been able to find any.

This is the closest I could find. As commented earlier, I've certainly seen cars in much worse condition crawl their way back to the pits :



Has anyone else seen any pictures online they could share ?

I was looking through the pictures on Motorsport and remembered your query. Here's a couple of pictures :

For those that don't know much about the techo stuff but would like to improve their understanding before the race, a visit to Mulsanne Corner website is well worthwhile.

its a great source for understanding all the little, subtle aero differences between different cars and will give you some good ideas on what to look at during a pit walk.

There also some interesting techo stuff on historical Le Mans cars, including a good article on why the Mercedes became airborne in 1999 and explanation of the subtle differences between the 2001 - 2003 Bentley's.

http://www.mulsannescorner.com/

Back in April, it was announced that one of the BMW at Le Mans would be another "Art Car", this one being based on the work of Jeff Koons.

The concept is based on "vivid brightly colored stripes that fan out across the exterior sheet metal, creating a sense of kinetic, electric motion". "I was inspired by Christmas tree lights", Koons said. The car will run as #79 in tribute to Andy Warhol’s 1979 M1 art car.

It was announced that the Koons car would be unveiled at the Centre do Pompidou in Paris on June 1, where Koons would sign it, and it will remain on display for one day before getting prepped for the race. Does anyone know if this is still on track ?

I heard when I was at Sebring that Peugeot were going to park their cars after the race and not touch them, then run a further 12 hours straight in testing to replicate the 24 hours of Le Mans. I think there were playing mind games with Audi and wanted to show that even after 12 hours racing they could run as fast (or faster) than the new R15 in testing.

Back in 2005, just after dawn the #91 T2M Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 RS had a
massive accident at Indianapolis, Xavier Pompidou sliding backwards off the
circuit through a access gap in the barriers and wrapping his car around a tree after the wheel broke.

There are very few pictures I can find of the accident and wondered if any CA's had pictures of the incident ?

Here's a reference on Planet LeMans to the situation I'm refering to :

http://www.planetlemans.com/2005/06/26/info-about-xavier-pompidou%e2%80%99s-crash-during-the-le-mans-24-hours/

I wonder how much the continued failure of the Audi engined Spykers at Le Mans influenced Audi's decision to build their own GT ?

Well spotted guy's. Yes the '08 Corvette's looked more like NASCARs with their black wheels and predominance of sponsors stickers and that was the giveaway despite the marshal wearing his old overalls. I preferred the simplicity of the earlier Corvette liveries (and when the circuit had more trees).

Can you name the drivers ? Don't be too hasty !
 

LeMans models are pretty popular the world over. Here's part of my 1:43 collection of approx 500 Le Mans models, including every winner from 1934 to 2006 except for 1962.

Do we get a 25% discount because 25% of the race was run under the safety car 

Simple but effective, for 30 years, irrespective of whether it was on a sportscar or touring car; classic or modern; BMW, Porsche or Alfa. Where have they gone :




.....and looks good in 1:43 scale as well !

It was always my understanding that Le Mans cars had to theoretically be two seaters. For open cockpit cars that meant there had to at least be space in theory for a second seat, which dates back to the days of riding mechanics. These rules have remained largely unchanged since the commencement of the race.

I was therefore wondering how WR got around those rule at Le Mans from 1993 to 1996 with their single seat LM93, the only possible explanation being that as a French team they were exempt from the normal rules that the ACO applied to all other nationalities !

I haven't of the top of my head found any other cars in the history of Le Mans, classic or modern, that had an F1 style single seat appearance. Were there others ?