The DSC crew arrived today at Le Mans to some sad but not entirely unexpected news, the #22 Millennium Racing Oreca has been withdrawn with the long promised funding again failing to appear. More on this later.
A late entry change yesterday saw James Rossiter replaced at Team Taisan in the #70 Ferrari by Shinji Nakano, the Japanese ex F1 man originally slated to be part of the #23 Millennium effort.
If you are travelling to the race then do take the time to download and print off Andy Blackmore’s always stunning Spotters Guide, three A4 pages of race car loveliness. It has been sponsored this year by NISMO and we are proud to have been a part of the effort that brought that deal together.
You can find various versions of the guide at http://www.spotterguides.com/portfolio/2014-le-mans/
After a grey start to the day in Southern England, brightened considerably by a very brief encounter with a personal musical favourite, Jools Holland, at the Eurotunnel reception area we are now in Arnage and bathed in beautiful sunshine.
More of the same is promised for much of the remainder of the week, we could be in for some spectacular times in qualifying – and beyond!
With the 70th anniversary commemorations of D-Day yesterday the roads still had a smattering of returning attendees today, a long column of French armoured vehicles close to Le Mans returning to barracks after attending the Normandy events.
Whilst on that subject, how humbling it was yesterday to hear so many first hand accounts of the terror and heroism of D-Day – We will never forget.
A brief coffee break for the Dover-Calais part of the DSC advance party saw our hugely efficient diesel hatchback (of which much more next week) parked alongside an achingly pretty 1970 Mercedes 280 SL Pagoda.
That will be far from the last pretty classic car we get to see this week, the proceedings start tomorrow afternoon with the first batch of cars going through scrutineering at the Place de la Republique and DSC will be there of course.
One ‘classic’ we didn’t spot on the road today though was this one – Kudos to Audi Sport for setting a great tone for the week.
