Le Mans 2019

[Jonny69]

Been a while since I last logged on. I can’t see a thread for this year’s Le Mans 24 hrs which is this weekend. I’ll just kick off a thread to get things going and start posting resources for watching at home.

Uk times:

Free practice Wednesday 15:45 to 19:30
Q1 20:50 to 23:15

Q2 Thursday 17:50 to 20:50
Q3 20:50 to 23:15

Race Saturday 13:00 until finish


Coverage will be on Eurosport and through the FIA WEC app

Highest quality 24 hr commentary is through Radio Le Mans broadcast online. It’s usually best to watch one of the race feeds with the sound muted and Radio Le Mans playing over the top.

Will add links as I find them.

Main site: http://www.24h-lemans.com/en/

Background and entry list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_24_Hours_of_Le_Mans

Spotters Guide (to ID car entry numbers, liveries etc): http://www.spotterguides.com/portfolio/19_lm/

Best Le Mans commentary: listen live online, Radio Le Mans: http://www.radiolemans.co/

Watch online (not free to watch in the UK):

FIA site and app: https://www.fiawec.com/en/live (£9 for race weekend with what look like excellent resources)

Eurosport and Eurosport Player. Just a warning, I got the 7 day free trial of Eurosport Player last year and the feed was terrible and cut off every hour or something. When I paid for it a few years ago it was a bandwidth hog. Both times I’ve ended up using an illegal feed instead, to either get rid of the stuttering or whatever the other reasons were that I’ve forgotten about. The repetitive adverts become UNBEARABLE as well. I’m not sure I can recommend it.

MotorTrend On Demand (they do Roadkill etc on subscription) have a 14 day free trial running and are broadcasting the race. American viewers overnight said quali was included and looks like race won’t be blocked for the trial. Download the app and sign up; may also be broadcast direct on their website, though still behind the paywall. Don’t forget to cancel the trial...

There is always a feed on Race Department. I’m still not sure if this is legal or hooky, but they host it every year: https://www.racedepartment.com/

Most of the teams broadcast live onboards from their cars for free for the full 24 hrs and are well worth a look. Easiest ones to find are Porsche and Corvette. I’ll post some links if I have time to find them.

 

[Jonny69]

I have to hold my hand up and admit I haven’t been able to follow any of the WEC or ELMS this year, so Le Mans is going to be a stand-alone race for me.

Looks like we’ve got 5 teams in LMP1 - this is a good number. Toyota are continuing to campaign on their own with a hybrid car and the other 4 teams are privateers with conventional non-hybrids. There’s BOP/EOT thing in LMP1, but I’m not sure how well it’s working to balance things between the technologies, so I t’ll probably be an outright win for Toyota and hopefully we’ll have a proper race with the others.

20 cars in LMP2. LMP2 has been big for the last couple of years. They’re all quite closely matched, very fast and mostly reliable, so they’ll be a race worth watching. An LMP2 car almost took the outright win either last year or the year before!

GT is always a good race so I don’t need to say too much about that. Last year there was a bit of a mismatch between Aston and Porsche due to some unfair BOP rules. There’s a new Porsche this year I think (edit 1: yes, factory team). BMW I think pulled out (edit 2: no, not this year). Edit 3: Ford are still campaigning the GT. I need to look at GT a bit more closely to check what’s going on - this is just stuff I’ve skimmed past on Mulsanne’s Corner.

Edit 4: there is no Garage 56 team this year. I think there was one and it was going to be an all-electric car backed by Panoz, but I think I read it fell through after Don Panoz died.

 

[Jonny69]

Factory Porsche team, new 911 RSR: https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/201...est-fia-wec-super-season-gt-team-911-rsr.html

 

[Jonny69]

Have purchased the £9 FIA WEC option. App is difficult to navigate but I feel like this is better than Eurosport.

1 hour of quali left and red flag...

 

[Jonny69]

Senna’s car sounded like engine and gearbox were consuming themselves.

 

[Jonny69]

Motor Trend (they do Roadkill etc on subscription) have a free trial running and are broadcasting the race. American viewers overnight said quali was included. Don’t forget to cancel the trial. I’ll add this to the OP.

 

[Jonny69]

Does this work on a fire stick?

Can’t say, sorry. I’m casting it to the TV from iPhone to Chromecast.

I think there were some additional (legit) streams on fire sticks, because I think you have access to some TV channels online that aren’t geo blocked.

 

[Jonny69]

I can’t work out what’s being broadcast on Radio Le Mans. They have three channels now and all of them have just been re-runs whenever I’ve tuned in, not the usual pre-Le Mans chat the week before the race. I can’t tell if I’m doing something wrong or if they’ve just cut their coverage right back.

 

[Jonny69]

15 minutes to start!

 

[Jonny69]

How does that work with Rebellion using different spec engines to the ones they qualified with? What’s to stop anyone turning up with quali-only spec engines that they know are going to blow up after 8-10 laps and then swapping in the race spec engine for the race?

 

[Jonny69]

GT race has been excellent so far. Cameras have hardly shown any P1 or P2 coverage!

 

[Jonny69]

The wec app has quite a few onboard and show position as well. Very interesting to see the bunching of classes

Yeah I’ve been flicking through those. Cool to be able to flick between the battle with the class leaders!

 

[Jonny69]

Had to nip out for a bit. Now about to settle in with a kebab and some beers, got a puncture to fix and a bike to build during the night. Espresso machine is on and got plenty of beans ground. See if I can manage a late one

 

[Jonny69]

Cool to see all the Le Mans regulars in here btw - it’s been a while - good to see you all again!

 

[Jonny69]

Blimey, they turned that around quickly! Genuinely thought that car had a bit of suspension damage.

 

[Jonny69]

3m 38secs!

 

[Jonny69]

Hoshino too spooked to continue and they've retired

On a lighter note - can't believe how different Arnage looks these days. It used to be a 1st gear right angle with a house on the corner, pitch black at night. Even these pics I took in 2014 are really different.

 

[Jonny69]

one thing I do notice, is how over the years, everything has gotten brighter, wasnt that long ago where they'd switch off most of the trackside cameras because they couldnt see enough and all you had overnight was the onboards..

Yeah it’s lit quite a lot of the way round now. I do really miss the pitch black spectator areas like the forest esses, Tertre Rouge, down near Karting and Maison Blanc. I think I got down to Arnage one year before it was lit, but it was already being developed by that point so it wasn’t the ‘old’ pitch black Arnage corner.

 

[Jonny69]

Once the driver gets out is that it for that car?

No, the driver can get out and try to fix the car but he must not go further than something like 10m or 20m away from the car. Driver can talk to the pit crew over the radio and they can try and talk him through any repairs. The car can actually be lifted over the barrier or pushed by the marshals if it’s in a dangerous position.

What I find odd is why they don’t carry a basic tool kit in the car in a race like Le Mans. I can think of a few occasions where something as basic as a small screwdriver or a little jemmy bar could have got the car back to the pits.

 

[Jonny69]

Right, I’m back on it. Left at 7:45am this morning to pick something up on my bike, which turned into an epic got lost brutally hilly ride through Berkshire in the rain, but was listening to Radio Le Mans in my left ear the whole way. Loved it!