Jox Jottings - Le Mans 2007

There were six Astons here and they all finished.. a brilliant achievement. That is the sort of thing that Porsches used to do , but 100% finish? Even a bit rare for them surely. We can’t think of a model/marque that has achieved that sort of penetration in the past. There were a few challenges here and there but it was mighty impressive 24 hours work. With those dreadful conditions making it still more impressive. However the sole works Corvette began to gradually chip away at the Aston lead, as they tend to do. But a controversial safety car deployment during the last hour scuppered that plan.. actually I doubt they would have got there but it was interesting to speculate.

Somehow or other LM GT2 didn’t catch our attention. One problem was that nobody talked about them, not much seemed to happen and the timing screens petered out when it got to their details and became totally unreadable. It was a Porsche - Ferrari battle as expected. It was the much fancied Ferrari No.97 RISI Competizione Ferrari F 430 GT that led for ages but it died out on the circuit with a failed water pump. This gave the Porsche No.76 IMSA Performance Matmut Porsche 911 GT3 RSR (997) a chance and they took it. The nearest rival was the No.99 RISI Competizione Ferrari F 430 GT but they were a substantial six laps behind.

The finish was mysterious .. to say the least.. One of your drunken pundits is something very technical in computers and weather forecasting. Mostly he is delightfully out of touch with reality but he was bang on with the storm that hit the track during the last hour. The knackered heroes staggered on, donned their lifejackets and stoically used what power boating skills they could muster. But there were some team managers who had a different view. They, quite rightly some say, wanted the safety car deployed before their precious, if misguided, drivers threw their expensive charges into the deep end, without a rubber ring. Bearing in mind very few cars were on the same lap, or in the same puddle it wasn’t such a daft idea.

Hugh Chamberlain tells us that the team managers first attempt failed so they decided to storm the Bastille of race control and ‘assert’ themselves …. By some astonishing co-incidence the safety cars popped out and the matter resolved, as if by magic!

At the time the No.8 Team Peugeot Total Peugeot 908 was looking unhappy in the pit garage and showing signs of being on the way out of contention with an engine bay full of oil.

Then a miracle occurred the safety car came in despite the weather being worse than ever. This allowed the No.8 Peugeot to come out and get itself sorted out by overtake things, or maybe even being overtaken. Under the safety car it might have had to do another lap which, as one of the drivers later admitted, was beyond it. So it staggered out to finish, come what may.. and claim its 2nd place.

However over the years any number of teams have sat in their garages and then miraculously fired up the car to take the chequered flag. So in their great wisdom the ACO set out regulations to stop this. Anyway the last remaining Peugeot went out and then stopped out on the circuit to allow the Audi to pass it (this couldn’t have happened if the safety car was out) and make sure it didn’t have to do another lap, then it could finish and take the accolades of the crowd…. Ummm …A glance at the Regulations revealed … Rule one… you must not stop on that final lap and wait… so the Peugeot did, for several minutes … Rule two you must complete that final lap in under six minutes (or maybe more due to force majeur) … so the Peugeot romped round in a white knuckle inducing 10 minutes to clock the slowest lap of any, repeat any, other car… So.. ‘Joy Oh’ rapture it rejoins the rest of the pack just behind the Audi and arrives at the finish as part of a splendid ‘ Audi only just beat us’ photo opportunity! Then to rub salt into an already open festering wound, Bourdais, inadvertently we are sure, took leave of his senses and stopped on the start- finish line before going to Parc Ferme and got out of the car to wave at the .. er… ecstatic French crowd… bingo .. Sorry officer .. Two more hanging offences!
At the press conference Peugeot stated in a public forum that the car couldn’t have done another lap!

Ummm … This might not have been so bad had it not kept Martin Short in his No.18 Rollcentre Racing Pescarolo Judd off the podium. We discussed the idea of Henri Pescarolo protesting.. with what we thought would be a strong case .. well .. The only minor hurdles we could think of were:-Peugeot are a French team … they speak French … we are in France … a French car was on the podium .. Then on the minus side maybe we should consider the fact that Martin Short isn’t very French!
At the time of writing no protest seems to have been lodged… maybe this is because Pescarolo works out of a factory unit in Le Mans .. maybe he is French .. etc etc ..

It left a slightly sour taste … we did wonder how many of their own regulations the ACO would break during a 24 Hour period. It seems “ As many as they like”.

Summary of random high/low spots:-
In their wisdom the French had ‘improved’ the traffic system. Nuff said!
We have the greatest sympathy for those who camped out in the various storms of biblical proportions.
We hope Apicella gets well soon. Last we heard he was pretty well OK but still in hospital while they kept on eye on some internal injuries.
A moments thought for K.Ojjeh who for no apparent reason threw the No.32 Barazi Epsilon Zytek 07S/2 into the pit wall on the Start Finish Straight. He then sat close to the car in amongst the tyres of the tyre wall for ages.. maybe considering hari-kiri?
Dr Wolfgang Ullrich various comments “When Mike Rockenfeller made a mistake at the Tertre Rouge corner, I wasn't happy at all.”
"I really believe that if a manufacturer makes a brand new car with full resources, they will compete with us." Porsche will not bother with petrol LM P1, they can’t see the point. They will stick with nimble (and reliable!) LM P2 type cars in US and win races.
“The concrete "crashed into the car" and they saw rising temperatures and brought the car into the pits” Surely the car crashed into the concrete not vice versa!

“ I cannot see the problem with diesel and petrol cars competing together”. Of course not .. you have fastest thing out there!
There were a couple of the new Audi R8 road cars floating about. Jury is out on looks etc but in the flesh it is bit like a TT with extended back end.

Best sounds came from the Spykers .. worst from Audi/Peugeot .. they don’t make much of it!