Le Mans 2019 - Six Days to Go - Who's Excited?

[BrunoBæ]

A Le Mans weekend is an experience everyone should have made once in a lifetime

I agree with that (somewhat).
Im an old guy and my first visit to LeMans was about 1970 where I via my press card could watch the race from positions not allowed to the poor paying "plebs"
Since then I have probably watched 5x 24H races(my memory) as a normal paying pleb - driving about 1500km down to France from Denmark.
The last time was 2011(just checked) where I was driving my Burgman 400 to my mandatory hotel LaTeteNoire a reasonable distance from La Sarthe.
To the contrary of the idiotic high prices to watch F1 races the different ticket prices to Le Mans is still (somewhat) reasonable.

The reason I consider the 2011 race as my last Le Mans is because the most exiting cars to watch (IMO) was the extremely fast and (often) noisy LMP1 and even better the group C monsters.
Hehe talking about noise then one year I saw (and listened to Le Batmobile) the Panoz driven by the dane Jan Magnussen.
Oh man what a deeeep growling sound when this car sidestepped into the Mulsanne straigt.
But such "real" racing cars have more or less disappeared today.

To end this lil story my best LeMans experience was when I by coincidence met some rich english gentlemen who had rented the Auberge les Hunaudieres ca. 2 meters from the fastest place on Le Mulsanne(pic).
Pure racegasm - with a sandwich and a beer in the hand or avec un sandwich et une bière à la main.

 

[Isaac Chavira]

I'm going to have to watch in stints. I'll make sure I'm awake for the last 30 or laps though. Rooting for Nicki Thiim. He's a pretty cool dude.

 

[farjam]

I'm going to have to watch in stints. I'll make sure I'm awake for the last 30 or laps though. Rooting for Nicki Thiim. He's a pretty cool dude.

I was so mad about what happened to their car at spa , the team Nederland LMP2 punt them (giedo vander garde drive for that team) as it seems the team owner was behind the wheel of the car that punt Nicki's car :|
there is a hilarious post race interview with nicki about that incident on the internet lol

 

[bluepeter]

F1 is Dead for me after this Sunday

Hope you don't mind me asking why ?

 

[corsamode]

Highlight of the year for me. Le Mans this week, Nurburgring next week. Racing can't get much better than this

 

[Ricardo Campos]

A legendary circuit, great drivers, great cars. Come 24 hours ...

Yes!
,,,and, great races.
It's a shame, we don't have any sim version of this track with the quality it deserves.

 

[Alex72]

Yes!
,,,and, great races.
It's a shame, we don't have any sim version of this track with the quality it deserves.

Its on its way to rF2 in latest laserscan glory.

 

[Piotr]

I am going to watch from start to finish. With short sleep, but with tablet in bed with onboard sounds to give me proper dreams ;-)

I make sure I am home alone for entire weeken, with frig full of beer hehe

I am looking forward to GTs especially

 

[gambolmaker]

Excuse my stupid question, but what is meant by “EoT”?

EoT is "Equivalence of Technology" which is basically Balance of Performance (BoP) for Prototypes.
Basically, EoT was introduced when there where Diesel and Petrol cars competing agains teach other. Without an Equivalence formula, the Audi diesels would have been even more unstoppable.
EoT was useful when there where 3 manufacturers battling it out. Nowadays, it is being missused to give Toyota an adavantage over the privateer teams. Like last year, the rules said that non hybrid (aka privateer) teams where only allowed to do 10 lap stints and the amount of fuel they could use per lap was so small that the drivers had to lift and coast. Toyota meahwhile, who had 500 bhp more anyways, could do longer stints, use more energy and have shorter pitstops.
It's not quite as bad this year, but Toyota is still being given a massive advantage.

In contrast, Audi dominated the sport for 15 years without being given such a ridiculous rules advantage over their competitors. They just built better cars.

 

[AyrtJ97]

Spent the weekend last year at a friend's house to see the race with some other friends. We fell asleep at about 4 a.m... Was worth it. Don't know what we will do this year, but I for sure will be watching it.

 

[mr Sw1tchblade]

Girls in Ferrari. Ofc i am excited

 

[Edison5do]

Hope you don't mind me asking why ?

Vettel being robbed of the win he held all weekend just to gift the win to Ham, same thing happened in other races, being the same Ham guilty and no penalty, but to Ferrari and Vettel 5 seconds to rob the win. FIA seems to be working for Merc since 2014...

Edit: Unbiased Explanation by Chain Bear.

 

[PegaMixel]

Yes!
,,,and, great races.
It's a shame, we don't have any sim version of this track with the quality it deserves.

iRacing has The best Le Mans version there is.

 

[DaveDaBass]

EoT is "Equivalence of Technology" which is basically Balance of Performance (BoP) for Prototypes.
Basically, EoT was introduced when there where Diesel and Petrol cars competing agains teach other. Without an Equivalence formula, the Audi diesels would have been even more unstoppable.
EoT was useful when there where 3 manufacturers battling it out. Nowadays, it is being missused to give Toyota an adavantage over the privateer teams. Like last year, the rules said that non hybrid (aka privateer) teams where only allowed to do 10 lap stints and the amount of fuel they could use per lap was so small that the drivers had to lift and coast. Toyota meahwhile, who had 500 bhp more anyways, could do longer stints, use more energy and have shorter pitstops.
It's not quite as bad this year, but Toyota is still being given a massive advantage.

In contrast, Audi dominated the sport for 15 years without being given such a ridiculous rules advantage over their competitors. They just built better cars.

Thanks a lot man.
Makes things a bit more clear for me now.

 

[gambolmaker]

Thanks a lot man.
Makes things a bit more clear for me now.

No problem
What else are you unclear on?

 

[DaveDaBass]

Well, no questions so far.
I’m more into GT3 like Blancpain, VLN, GT Masters etc. and less in GTE.
Maybe there are more questions incoming during the race.
Will there be a live stream via YouTube or something like this?

 

[gambolmaker]

Will there be a live stream via YouTube or something like this?

Nothing legal. You'll either have to get the WEC stream (which reliably breaks down right at the start of the race) or the Eurosport Player. Or find some low quality pirated stream with memes all over it.
Eurosport Player is really good though. And the Eurosport commentator team is pretty good this year, better even than what is left of Radio LeMans.

 

[DrRob]

@DaveDaBass ...or just watch the Eurosport 1 channel on TV. That is what I will do. Commentator team (on the german version) is pretty decent with changing co-commentators. Last night they had Phillipp Eng join the commentators for example.
My brother had the WEC app until a year ago and it was too much money for what it was.

 

[gambolmaker]

@DaveDaBass
My brother had the WEC app until a year ago and it was too much money for what it was.

It's €6,99 for one month and you can cancel afterwards.
In Germany they have a "bonus" stream for LeMans, which has english commentary. Martin Haven, Alan McNish etc. Best option this year, with RLM going down the drain.

Sorry, I was talking about the Eurosport player, NOT the WEC App!

 

[Michel Forest]

By the way, have a look at this article. The Ford liveries for this year are amazing.

https://www.theguardian.com/technol...he-roar-of-the-engines?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other