Whilst the beginning of the race may not be until 16:00hrs local next Saturday afternoon, the build-up really began as soon as last years event finished but with the more visual aspects to that race preparation only becoming more visible to the average race fan this weekend with Sunday’s Test Day.
Whilst previous new releases way back at the start of the WEC season almost confirming the teams and the drivers who will be competing at this hallowed GT endurance event, there are of course certain procedures and rituals that must be complied with before the French Tricolour will be allowed to be waved next Saturday.
Those procedures start this Friday (going into Saturday) with scrutineering or Le Pesage as it is more affectionally known as all competing cars and drivers are inspected and checked over for technical compliance in full public viewing down in the Place de La Republique in the centre of Le Mans city itself. Whilst the cars are being checked, the drivers are interviewed on stage before moving off for those all-important pre-event team photographs with the usually large crowd in the background.
That process will be rounded off with the parade of some of this year’s entry driving around Le Mans City centre for finally settling down for the night ahead of Sunday’s two test sessions.
Punctuated by the first session of a support race, two three-hour sessions will be available to the teams within which they must also make any novice racer compliant with the minimum lap requirement ahead of the qualifying sessions later in the week and where they will bed in certain key components (like brakes) ahead of the race itself.
Punctuated by the first session of a support race, two three-hour sessions will be available to the teams within which they must also make any novice racer compliant with the minimum lap requirement ahead of the qualifying sessions later in the week and where they will bed in certain key components (like brakes) ahead of the race itself.
Going through the Aston Martin (Racing) powered entry lists for both Heart of Racing Valkyrie Hypercars – we believe that all six drivers (Alex Riberas/Marco Sorensen/Roman De Angelis all aboard the #009 and Harry Tincknell/ Tom Gamble/Ross Gunn aboard the #007 car all have recent prior Le Mans 24hr racing experience.
The same would apply to both Valentin Hasse-Clot aboard the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman AMR Vantage LMGT3 as well as Ian James aboard his #27 Heart of Racing AMR Vantage LMGT3 but drivers Derek DeBoer/Eduardo Barrichello and Mattia Drudi/Zacharie Robichon aboard the #10 and #27 cars respectively would need those ten minimum laps by the end of Sundays test.
As for the test itself, we certainly won’t be expecting any miraculous times from any of the four Aston Martin powered runners as that isn’t the object of the exercise.
After all of that – Monday is just another day at Le Mans.