Had one attempt at Le Mans last night, after a bit of a rushed evening with loads going on. Managed to get on in time *just* for the 4th slot, and got two practice laps in. Having had plenty of practice laps over the past few nights I was confident I could do some decent laps times (4:01 and 3:59 in my two warm ups).
And then qualifying happened. Such a complete shambles! I don't know why but I keep getting stuck in the pits, revving the engine but not being released onto the track, watching half the field come rolling past. When I eventually did get out onto the track, I was in 12th and closely following a Supra - look at the finishing results and you'll see why I should have stuck with him - so I decided to fall back a bit and get some clear space. The guys behind me didn't really help, and just swamped me over the course of the lap, and when I finally found some free space a couple of them decided to bin it and rejoin ahead and slow me down further. So I entered my flying lap with 1:25 remaining in the session - only one chance, so make it count! Clearly, the pack who I was too closely following weren't very quick here - I had to slow coming out of the chicanes to cross the line for an AMG who got a bit loose, then had to back off in the chicane under the Dunlop bridge for a Porsche who was off line, then managed to follow the same Porsche off the track into the dirt before Tertre Rouge, and from there my lap time was completely useless. I kept the rest of the lap clean, but annoyingly had an M6 trying to race me through the final sector where I was trying to back off a little because of the slow cars in front I couldn't find a clean way past, and I ended up with a fairly terrible 4:08:XXX, and Q13. Four cars in the field must have had a shocker, because none of them set Q times (including door #1, #2, and #6).
So, race time. Door #16, Q13, and knowing I'm definitely quicker than the three or four cars immediately in front of me. Strategy is RH for 7 laps, sprint to the finish. Let's do this!
Coming through the Dunlop Chicane the AMG in front of me is slow so I have to take avoiding action - 0.5s penalty. Great start! But I kept it clean and managed to gain two spots, so after my penalty I'm back into 13th. End of lap 2 and a bunch of the guys in front of me come in for a pit stop (I was being held up by these guys on mediums?!) and I'm up to 9th and about 9s behind the guy in 8th. Within a lap that's down to less than 6s and I'm pulling a gap from the guy behind (Mr Door #1). On a charge, I'm up to under 2s behind him by lap 6, and a bunch of pit stops happen (presumably the guys who just want to run the RH for a lap) which promotes me up to 5th, and I'm rapidly gaining on P4. Running down the Mulsanne Straight on the final lap I'm tucked in behind the Porsche in P4 and have to back out just before the first chicane to avoid clashing in the braking zone, and in doing so I give away what turns out to be my only chance in the race to take 3rd place! The Aston in front of him is clearly struggling on his tyres and bins it at Mulsanne and I sweep by to take 4th, where I remained for the rest of the lap, finishing only 1.6s behind 3rd place!
The Aston I passed clearly didn't read the race conditions, and ran the whole thing on a set of RMs, so ended up with a 1 min penalty and P15.
And I think I'm the only car in the field who didn't pit, because I ended up 11s behind the leader, despite being 32s behind at one stage. Need to check the replay on that one. But the no-stop was by far the better strategy for me. (EDIT: at least one other car behind me didn't stop, a Hyundai that started P18 and finished P6).
On to the next.
horrible.
