Le Mans 2023 and Motorsport World’s Greatest Race Review

 

I’d love to write about how I watched all 24 hours of the sports car race at Le Mans with detailed notes.  Sort of.  Being up for 24 hours doesn’t hugely appeal to me, especially with my current workload at work.  Regardless, once again, the Internet did not cooperate with me.  I’ve had other attempts at watching or listening to the race spoiled, like last year’s Internet outage that was specific to the racing weekend. 

 

This time, the problem was that there was no continuous coverage unless you had Discovery+.  (What an interesting choice of carriers.)  What there was was a continuous stream of pirate broadcasts rotating around various Youtue channels.  There’d be at least a couple on at a time.  After about 30 minutes, a channel would get shutdown, but another would pop up.  Also, the pirates were taking feeds from various international sources, not just the English language one.  Needless to say, this was not an optimal way of viewing a 24-hour event.  (Maybe I should have checked Rumble or Odysee, Bitchute, or Kick for livestreams, I think of belatedly.) 

 

There were other options.  Radio Le Mans was up for the whole event with the option of either a radio stream or a video stream of the broadcasters on Youtube (which was kind of pointless).  Those guys there really know their stuff.  Also, some of the teams, including Ferrari, had in-car views for the entire race.  This was probably the best way to watch the terrifying night racing, since you can’t really see the cars racing anyway.  The view going around the track with the engine sounds was hypnotic.        

 

Unfortunately, regardless of the coverage, it starts about an hour before I wake up in the morning.  This meant missing the start, as well as the finish.  I did get to see the start of the race as a separate video and I did see (sort of) the closing ceremonies, where a live band was playing national anthems.  I also went over to the mall and got lunch, listened to a Rangers/Rays game in the afternoon, and peeked in on other things on the Internet.  So, I was distracted a lot, in addition to having to restart the coverage constantly.

 

There was rain at the start of the race and was off and on until the next day.  There were a bunch of accidents, but they did not seem weather-related.  There were several local yellows and an extended safety car period late at night.  At least they didn’t stop the race. 

 

NASCAR sent an entry to the race, though it was only classified as experimental (like the dearly departed Delta Wing car).  It featured 7-time winner Jimmie Johnson and F1 champ Jenson Button as drivers.  The car did have real headlights, but did not have working doors, so the drivers still had to go through the window.  I did get an in-car view once with JJ driving.  They managed to finish the race with only one major part failure.  After the race, the Radio Le Mans commentators were impressed.  They even wanted them back as their own class.

 

The main story of the race was the fight for the overall win between Ferrari and Toyota in the Hypercar class.  This was the Prancing Ponies’ first factory car at the race in the 50 years and they came back with a very competitive entry.  Ferrari started on pole, but Toyota did take the lead.  Ferrari retook the lead later and would not relinquish it.  They won the 24-hour race by a single minute over Toyota.     

 

Also of note, Corvette won the GTE class.  The commentators said this would be their last factory car appearance.  A driver with the winning LMP2 team had had his foot run over by the Corvette early in the race while on pit lane.  The driver did his shifts anyway. 

 

The fans and the show were also a story.  I’ve nursed a desire to go see this race in person, as soon as I develop a desire to travel.  A towering Ferris wheel dominated the infield, along with other amusement park rides.  Later in the night, there was a big fireworks display along with a massive drone show (impressive).  There were shots of fans sleeping in the stands and in the infield at the dawn.  Somehow they were sleeping through the noise even wearing headphones.  The podium ceremony was greeted by an army of Ferrari flag-waving Tifosi.   

I was sort of prepared for this race (not really).  A couple of weeks ago over Memorial Day weekend, I picked up this magazine at Barnes & Noble.  It is Motorsports’ 100 Years of the World’s Greatest Race: Celebrating the Centenary of Le Mans.  It was $20 and thick and glossy at 162 pages.  I’m about halfway through it, but I’ll go ahead and recommend it.  You’re getting some awesome pictures and commentary, though it sort of assumes you’re already familiar with the race’s history, which I’m not.  Even most of the ads are classy and look good. 

The magazine has been around since the beginning of the race and reprints their original race report of the first Le Mans.  A couple of drivers died, but it was no big deal at the time.  Then there’s the reprinted report from 1955, where a car flew into the stands and killed over 80 people.  The race was not stopped.  The editorial agreed with the decision.  On some level, they were right: if they’d stopped the race, they’d never have held another Le Mans.         

 

Actually, most of the magazine is reprinted articles.  Many are fairly recent, within the last 20 years, but a few are much older.  There’s a short article on Paul Newman’s run in 1979, interviews with drivers, and articles on the track and various cars.  The final article is from this year detailing the various Hypercar manufacturers for this years’ Le Mans. 

 

Here’s one of the pretty ads.

 

A view of the 1964 race before the running start of the drivers.     

I dig Aston Martins.

A couple of classic Le Mans race cars.  One of these is actually a modern reproduction.  Apologies that I was using the questionable camera on my flip phone for these pictures.  
 

Overall, really cool, even if a bit impenetrable to me.  So this wasn’t really a successful Le Mans weekend for me, but I think I got plenty of sports car racing in and enjoyed it.