LE MANS 2011

Back home after the 2011 Le Mans 24 hours . It's a very long way to go every year to see a motor race and I have to admit that crammed into seat 41K way back in an A380 somewhere over Uzbekistan on Sunday night I did question my sanity but the fact is this year's race certainly made the effort worthwhile . An Audi R18 won by 13.8 seconds from a Peugeot 908 after 24 hours racing . It was one of the closest, if not the closest race, in Le Mans' 89 year history .The lead changed 59 times during the race -- two of the Audis team were eliminated in spectacular high speed accidents -Peugeots finished second,third,fourth and fifth.
All that was missing was some warm weather as it was unseasonably cold .

Porsche fans had nothing to celebrate - although a GT3RSR did come home second in the GTAM ( amateur ) category . Porsche seemed to have forgotten their roots to concentrate on selling fat ,overpriced cars to Chinese businessmen .Sadly Aston Martin fans had little to celebrate either as the new works straight 6 2 litre turbo cars were damp squibs although an Aston powered Lola did finish 7th . For full results see http://www.lemans.org/en/races/24h-du-mans/live-2011/live-timing.html

Photo enthusiasts may be interested to know that all the images above were taken on compact cameras -as I do not believe in carrying a big bag of gear around nowadays- either a Canon G9( which I bought used off ebay for $350) -sometimes with a Canon teleconverter- or a Leica X1 .All the images were taken behind the wire from the public enclosures except the aerial shots which were taken from the trackside fairground ferris wheel -- at 5 euros a ride it's a lot cheaper than hiring a helicopter.