[954Stealth]

Oops a slight change put Audi 2nd

[954Stealth]

From Audi Sport -
The fastest time of Porsche No. 18 has been deleted due to abusing track limits

[954Stealth]

...

[954Stealth]

Jani Smashes Lap Record for Provisional Pole at Le Mans!

[954Stealth]

Full Qualifying Practice with Posrsche still on top....congrats to Jani!

[ashtaron14]

Oh yes Weekend can't come fast enough!

[954Stealth]

...

[954Stealth]

Originally Posted by 954Stealth

Jani Smashes Lap Record for Provisional Pole at Le Mans!

Ok, let's go back to this for a moment because it's huge:

"
The no18 Porsche of Neel Jani posted the fastest qualifying lap of the current configuration of the Le Mans circuit. The Swiss driver crossed the start finish line after just 3m16.887 to complete a lap of the 14km circuit in the first qualifying session, smashing the previous qualifying lap record of 3m18.513 set by Stéphane Sarrazin in a Peugeot 908 HDI-FAP. "

[954Stealth]

Some cool shots from night practice

[954Stealth]

[954Stealth]

60 years ago today - in June of 1955 - was the darkest day in Motorsports history

Here is an article to read, both fascinating and tragic:

Le Mans 1955 horror crash that killed 82 people, most of them decapitated, will always be motor sport's DARKEST DAY

• 82 people were killed during a crash at Le Mans 24-hour race in 1955
• Pierre Levegh’s Mercedes ricocheted into the pit-lane grandstand
• The race between leaders Mike Hawthorn (Jaguar) and Juan Manuel Fangio (Mercedes) allegedly caused Lance Macklin to stray into the path of Levegh

Sixty years ago on Thursday fell motor racing’s blackest moment, when 82 people died at Le Mans, most of them decapitated while enjoying sport on a warm, soft day in northern France.

Tens of thousands of Britons were among the 300,000 crowd that came to watch the famous 24-hour race. But the unfortunate ones – the injured and the dead – were carried away on advertising hoardings that turned into makeshift stretchers, after Frenchman Pierre Levegh’s Mercedes ricocheted into the pit-lane grandstand.

Spectators stood 50 deep or more on that prime turf to experience an absorbing race. And death visited them indiscriminately.


The body of French driver Pierre Levegh lies on the ground after his Mercedes crashed at Le Mans in 1955

The wreckage is surveyed after 82 people lost their lives at 24-hour race in France

Flames continue to pour from Levegh's Mercedes after it crashed into the grandstand and exploded

‘One man unmarked, the fiancée beside him cut down; a grandmother unmarked, her seven-year-old granddaughter cut down; four lads together on a treat, two short and two tall,’ wrote the late Christopher Hilton in “Le Mans ‘55: the crash that changed the face of motor racing”.

‘The tall ones saw the impact and ducked, the short ones heard the noise and stood on tip-toe to see.

‘A Belgian doctor went in search of his wife’s body and found it, laid her in the car, and took her back to Brussels. A young girl in shock wandered round saying, “My mummy is dead, will somebody please take me home?” Priests who had been spectators moved among the fallen giving them the Last Rites.’

Survivors on June 11, 1955, recalled seeing binoculars draped around necks that had no longer had heads attached to them. But the race went on.

At the centre of the story was one of British sport’s most cavalier figures: Mike Hawthorn, the former public schoolboy who was so debonair that a fiction writer hardly dare to invent him.

He quaffed beer, chased pretty girls and raced in a polka-dot bow tie. When asked what was his fastest lap, he would jokingly reply that it was ‘from the chequered flag at Goodwood to the Spread Eagle at Midhurst’.


British driver Mike Hawthorn was a cavalier figure whose mission was to stop Mercedes winning the race

The race between leader Hawthorn (6) and legend Juan Manuel Fangio (19) was at the centre of the story

Hawthorn loathed the Germans and did not want Fangio's Mercedes (above) to get the better of Jaguar


Lance Macklin, a laidback Old Etonian, was also crucial to the drama that unfolded at 6.26pm. Driving an Austin Healey, he had been lapped four times already. The leading two cars, Hawthorn’s Jaguar and Juan Manuel Fangio’s Mercedes, were eating the ground in front of them as they loomed large in Macklin’s mirrors again.

It was only a decade after the war and Hawthorn loathed the Germans, occasionally using four-letter words to describe their cars. This was meant to be an endurance race, but Hawthorn and Fangio sprinted nose to tail in a battle for supremacy.

Fangio beat the lap record twice, Hawthorn equalled it, Fangio beat it twice more, Hawthorn lowered it. Then Fangio again and then Hawthorn. On no account did Hawthorn want to let a German car beat a British car.

All-out attack was Jaguar’s tactic to push the Mercedes to technical destruction. The reason being that Jaguar, who only used British drivers, paired Hawthorn in the first of their three cars with the inexperienced Ivor Bueb, who was no match for Fangio’s co-driver, Stirling Moss

Hawthorn leads Fangio on the track before a decision to stop at the pits triggered the carnage


Hawthorn was sent out to blow up the Mercedes,’ explained Norman Dewis, another Jaguar driver in the 1955 race. ‘There was no real thought of Hawthorn’ s car winning.’ The idea was to allow another Jaguar to prevail.

A spectator who was injured in the accident shot video footage of what occurred on the pit straight. It showed Hawthorn on the right-hand side of the track in front of Macklin’s Austin Healey. Fangio is further behind and just out of harm’s way.

Hawthorn is positioned to come in to the pits and appears to slow. Macklin, perhaps looking in his mirrors, is late to see this. He then steers left to avoid going into the back of Hawthorn, adjusting too much, before wandering a fraction and going into the side of another Mercedes, driven by 49-year-old Levegh.

Carnage follows.

Macklin’s car acts as a ramp for Levegh’s, which goes airborne. It flies from the left-hand barrier to the spectator area, creating a fireball where it falls. Bits of the rest of the car somersault over the chest-high wattle-and-earth barrier separating the track from the public.

In a couple of seconds this provincial town 120 south west of France is a morgue.


All of the competing Mercedes eventually withdrew from the race after Levegh's car crashed

Levegh was blamed for the accident by the French press, but could not defend himself when dead


Call off the race? Nonsense. It was argued – questionably – that to do so would have meant hundreds of thousands of fans blocking the roads that ambulances needed to use.

Mercedes finally withdrew from the event at 1.45am. ‘It was an enormous tragedy,’ said Moss, ‘but withdrawing wasn’t going to bring anybody back, so I didn’t see it achieved anything.’

Mercedes pulled out of motor racing that year, only returning to Formula One as engine suppliers 39 years later.

Jaguar drove on. Hawthorn won. One of the most famous images is of a chuffed Hawthorn celebrating with champagne bubbles foaming on his mouth. The French papers carried the lacerating caption: ‘Cheers, Mr Hawthorn.’

His biographer Paul Skilleter told me that picture was unrepresentative. ‘It was a split-second image,’ he said. ‘Hawthorn just happened to be smiling then. It is neither here nor there. Other pictures show him being miserable.’

The blame game had already started. Levegh was held culpable in the French Press. That was easy: he was dead and could not answer back.




Others pointed the finger at Hawthorn. Speaking in a BBC documentary five years ago, Levegh’s co-drover John Fitch, then aged 92, said: ‘Hawthorn by my evidence, from what I saw and heard and knew, caused the accident.

‘He said he was the cause of the tragedy and that his life as a driver was over. He was shattered. In tears. But a few days later in public he denied it all.’

Hilton fleshed out the argument against Hawthorn, hinting at the driver’s anti-German zeal, saying: ‘One theory holds that, even though he was pitting, symbolically he would not slow enough to let Fangio's Mercedes overtake in front of the spectator area before he reached the Jaguar pit, so he went too fast, misjudged the distance and presented Macklin with his terrible dilemma.’

But a letter from an eyewitness, which we publish in a newspaper for the first time here, disputes that Hawthorn was the culprit. Held in the British Racing Drivers’ Club archives, it was written to Jaguar by Major Bruce C Jenney, a former aircraft accident investigator with the US Air Force. He talks of Macklin ‘swinging out very quickly and directly’ into Levegh.

‘Hawthorn committed no errors,’ he went on. ‘His driving at the time was exactly identical to all of the other higher speed cars when they prepared to pit.’



The accident was the result of several factors. The 8.3mile track was merely a collection of country roads first used when the average speed for the race was close to 60mph, whereas by 1955 it was 120mph, with top speeds of 190. There was no separation between the pits and circuit, a hazard when the road could only accommodate three cars side-by-side.

Hawthorn implied in his autobiography that Macklin was to blame (and the video evidence suggests he was more responsible than any other individual). Macklin sued his former friend for libel. The case was never resolved, leaving many questions unanswered. Hawthorn died four months after becoming the British driver to win the Formula One world title in 1958. He perished driving his Jaguar on the Guildford bypass – racing a Mercedes that he refused to let pass.

Macklin’s destructive Austin Healey was sold for £843,000 in an auction two years ago. He raced only three times after Le Mans 1955, and died in Spain in 2002 aged 82.



There is no lasting memorial at Le Mans to recognise the horror of that June afternoon. But the other day, Pierre Fillon, president of the local Automobile Club de l’Ouest, laid a wreath to commemorate the dead.

Many thousands of British fans, who are now making the annual journey to Le Mans for this weekend’s race, can see it at the site of the accident.

It is made of 82 white roses.

[ashtaron14]

That's such a tragedy. Thanks for posting

[954Stealth]

Originally Posted by ashtaron14

That's such a tragedy. Thanks for posting

Thank you, sir. Definitely something to memorialize

[954Stealth]

Live timing: http://live.fiawec.com/

[954Stealth]

[954Stealth]

[954Stealth]

[954Stealth]

[954Stealth]

Well, damn! Ford will be competing next year with their new Ford GT

• Ford returns to Le Mans in 2016 with the all-new Ford GT supercar to compete in LM GTE Pro class, commemorating the 50th anniversary of Ford’s 1966 overall victory
  
• All-new Ford factory program to compete in both the FIA World Endurance Championship and TUDOR United SportsCar Championship with a two-team, four-car effort – operated by Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates
  
• Ford GT is company’s showcase for aerodynamics and lightweight carbon fiber construction, along with new twin-turbocharged Ford EcoBoost® V6 producing more than 600 horsepower – most powerful EcoBoost production engine ever

It looks pretty nice:

[954Stealth]

Official release from Ford:
http://fordgt.fordpresskits.com/

Includes a good video:

[Flying Ace]

OP, I know you've already posted that Fox Sports will have coverage, here is the complete coverage for those interested (All times Eastern Standard):

If You Have Fox Sports, FS2, and Fox Sports Go
·FOX Sports GO (Saturday, June 13 at 8:30 a.m. to Sunday, June 14 at 9:30 a.m.)

·Saturday, June 13 (8:30 a.m. to 12 p.m., FOX Sports 2)

·Saturday, June 13 (7 p.m. to 8 p.m., FOX Sports 1)

·Saturday, June 13 (11 p.m. to 12:30 a.m., FOX Sports 2)

·Sunday, June 14 (3:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m., FOX Sports 1)

·Sunday, June 14 (7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m., FOX Sports 2)

·Sunday, June 14 (9 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., FOX Sports 1)

The whole race will be on the Fox Sports Go app. (Note: I've noticed that your regional cable provider has to have Fox Sports 2 on its tiered package to receive it on the app)

If You Don’t Have Fox Sports/FS GO

If you want to watch the race on the Internet there is an official ACO app (available in iOS and Android) you can download and pay $9.99 for. There are some other, more interesting ways to do it. As always, our friend Reilly Brennan has the master list of all your streaming options. http://reillybrennan.com/post/120465...-kit-streaming

Even If You Do Have Fox Sports Go

You should definitely listen to Radio Le Mans as your audio of choice, no matter which stream you’re watching. It’s the best. I usually fall asleep listening to it. http://www.radiolemans.com/

[Flying Ace]

Saw this annoucement today, you beat me to it! Do you get racecar news directly injected into your brain via IV?

Anyways, this car looks
thought they were going to try to get the DP in the top class, but this is just as good.

Originally Posted by 954Stealth

Official release from Ford:
http://fordgt.fordpresskits.com/

Includes a good video: