Weather woes
As well as preventing any real improvements in the second and third qualifying sessions yesterday, the adverse weather conditions around the circuit has created congestion around the circuit and made the campsites increasingly boggy. There was traffic chaos around Arnage last night, with fans and team members reporting four-hour delays to short journeys between track, campsite and Arnage in particular.
The torrential downpours left many people in the media car park in particular stuck in the mud, having to be towed out in the early hours of this morning. Many people in the surrounding campsites have also battled the conditions all week, with much of the grassy areas turning to pure mud.
With the forecast predicting further showers throughout today and tomorrow, 2016 could be forever remembered as one of the ‘wet years’, the last real rain-soaked racing being the 2007 edition.
Jacques Nicolet awarded
Onroak Automotive owner Jacques Nicolet is the latest recipient of the Spirit of Le Mans trophy, receiving the award this morning from ACO President Pierre Fillon.
A motorsports fan from a young age, Nicolet set aside his hobby as an adult to pursue a career in real estate. His first endurance race was at Le Castellet in a Giulia 1600 at the age of 42.
In 2003, he started a business restoring and preparing historic vehicles for racing, called Heritage Racing Cars. One thing led to another and he took over Saulnier Racing in 2006 and a year later he entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the first time.
In 2009, Saulnier Racing became Oak Racing and began an LM P2 campaign in the Asian Le Mans Series.
Drifting Dalmas
As the very heavy rain started during the final qualifying session yesterday the DSC Editor was actually in Race Control (full story later) moving on to the Stewards Room, hosted by Tim Mayer.
In walked four time Le Mans winning driver and current FIA WEC driver adviser Yannick Dalmas, who said hello, picked up his helmet, and trotted off to inspect track conditions to advise Race Director Eduardo Freitas on just how bad the conditions were.
Around 90 seconds later we found out as Yannick negotiated the Forest Esses, hit a huge amount of standing water and then gave a masterclass in saving what looked like a near inevitable incident!
Yes the quattro system of the R8 helped but Yannick has surely secured a place on the WEC ‘Christmas tape’ and is already proving to be an internet hero!
We can only presume what the radio message back to Race Control sounded like!
Royal mail
The DSC crew received a very welcome gift from Corvette Racing yesterday evening, the simply fabulous ‘Solar Queen’ featuring a solar-powered regal right hand offering the trademark Royal Wave. We are simply overwhelmed!
Ford Performance meanwhile are rumoured to be preparing a Prince Philip that is lighter and waves much more quickly.
French wings
The Aston Martin wings featuring the French flag will be placed on the team’s Vantages on Saturday Morning before the race by Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer. To this point the team has sported the standard white and silver badges.
Movie stars
The Le Mans 24 Hours has been no stranger to film stars over the years, and 2016 is no exception. Aside from a Proton Porsche bearing the name of Patrick Dempsey, four other world-famous actors are present.
Brad Pitt of course will wave the flag to start the race, Jackie Chan has a stake in the Baxi DC Racing Alpine and will hand over the AsLMS-winning LMP3 Ligier to the ACO, Jason Statham is reportedly here too, we can only hope he could be persuaded to read out the weather forecast and this morning Keanu Reeves was pictured in the SRT41 garage speaking with Frederic Sausset about his Garage 56 entry.
Two @Michelin_Sport friends meet at #LeMans24 @Keanu_Reeves @Archmoco @flemans2016 pic.twitter.com/RcJm0ZS1tN
— Pascal Couasnon (@MiGroup_sport) June 17, 2016
