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Few belated thoughts about the race. I initially found it hard to follow the second half of it. Couple of days later I appreciated it more. I like the race of attrition quite a lot, it is true endurance racing. The problem with this year’s Le Mans is that we had only 5 LMP1, not like 20, 30 as in the 80s and because of that 50% out meant no competition. Actually the drama of the No 1 Porsche saved the race in a way and provided a twist that produced last little question mark. I wanted Toyota to win, so it was much harder for me than for a Porsche fan, but just think how much better the race would be if we had i.e the 7 Toyota retiring just before the No 1 Porsche out, No 9. taking the lead and then going to garage with a problem or a damage and we would be counting laps for the No 2 Porsche to catch the Toyota, which would eventually become reality. The outcome of the race would be the same, Porsche win, but it would be so much more thrilling to watch and very Lemansy. Lots of possible cool scenarios.
Speaking about attrition, we had actually very few retirements and this is the same in last years. I kind of don’t like cars being pushed out of the gravel by marshals, even helped by the cranes and so on. Many cars had multiple offs. I think it was not allways like this and we had much more retirements for reasons other than reliability. I know it is drama for these crews but I think it would help the survivors if there was less cars on track which have no more chance to have a good outcome anyway. Much safer, less slow zones, safety cars and so on.
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