There were two separate sizeable shunts with just under eight hours remaining in the 84th running of the Le Mans 24 Hours. Both Tommy Milner and Nelson Panciatici, who were driving the cars in question, were thankfully ok.
Milner lost control of the #64 Corvette on the run up to the Dunlop Bridge, spearing into the tyres on drivers right, destroying the front of the car.
“I feel fine,” he said. “Luckily for me it’s a Corvette, there have been so many other heavy accidents with other cars where I might not have been so lucky. I’m disappointed for the team, but I’m afraid the truth is that I ran out of talent. We’d made some setup changes, that were supposed to take us through to the end of the race.”
Amazingly, the #64 was the first of the many IMSA cars in the race to become an official retirement.
The other incident occurred at the Forza Chicane, and saw the #36 Baxi DC Alpine go head on into the concrete wall. Panciatici, who was running fourth in LMP2, was a passenger, unable to brake or steer. The right-front of the car was destroyed, with the tyre still attached, but not in a drivable position.
The extent of the damage from the hit forced the car to retire. Importantly though, Panciatici climbed out of the car under his own power.
