After sleeping through only 5 of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, I have plenty of first impressions but I will cut it down to main ones for the sake of time.
1. This is the first major victory for a hybrid vehicle of any kind. Was today a turning of the page in motorsports? Great job by Audi. They are a truly outstanding operation led by Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich.
1b. I feel terrible for Allan McNish but after seeing what he has done in the past you have to feel that he will return to Le Mans next year hungrier than ever before.
2. For their first race, the Toyota team and the TS030 were very impressive. Given another year of development, they should become a formidable rival for Audi.
3. For their first race and with probably only about 1/20 of Toyota's $50,000,000 budget for the TS030, the DeltaWing was holding it's own until being driven off the road. Like the TS030, the DeltaWing needs more time for development and hopefully it will run at some ALMS races and other World Endurance Championship races before the year is over. As I said in a previous post, the future of the DeltaWing is unknown and it is not clear if it will return to Le Mans with the Garage 56 spot for 2013 already been given to the GreenGT H2
4. We have got to get rid of the GTE-Amateur class. If were going to have a top LMP1 car getting into a nasty accident every year because of these teams, than something has to be down. Mike Rockenfeller was very banged up after last year's accident and we had Anthony Davidson break two vertebrae in his back yesterday. We don't need a class specifically fir gentleman drivers. There are plenty of more qualified and experienced professional who deserve a ride more than these guys. With that said, not all gentleman drivers are hazards. Seth Neiman and Tracy Krohn have proven they know what they are doing and that they are qualified. Others, though, need to either race more or get out of the race car because we don't need an accident involving a LMP1 and a GTE-Am killing somebody. I am all for one, big GT class but let's just get rid of a class meant for teams with one of three drivers being amateurs.
5. Does anyone else find it odd that the Audi Sport North America entry (the #4 Audi) does not have a North American driver?
6. Tough race for the American teams of Corvette Racing, Flying Lizard Motorsports and Level 5 Motorsports, but great races for American teams Starworks Motorsports who won the LMP2 class and Krohn Racing who got on the GTE-Am podium with a third place finish.
7. Not all bad for Corvette, as the customer French Corvette entrant of Larbre Competition and drivers Pedro Lamy, Patrick Bornhauser and Julien Canal won the GTE-Am class.
8. Hats off to Adrian Fernandez and the Aston Martin with their podium finish in the GTE-Pro class.
9. Disappointed that the United States has as many rounds in the World Endurance Championship as Bahrain and China. It would be nice to Petit Le Mans, maybe even Road America added to the WEC.
10. It would be nice to see the Factory Corvettes enter the WEC as well.
11. Wish SPEED did not leave Le Mans to cover certain qualifying and "special" practice sessions. The biggest sports car race in the world is interrupted for a "special" practice. Ridiculous.
12. With that said, SPEED still does a much better job than ESPN would if they had the rights to Le Mans. They would have shown the first two hours on ESPN2 with a half-hour pre-race, then the middle twenty-one hours on ESPN3.com, with the final hour on ESPN2 and no post-race coverage.
13. Hopefully, more manufactures come to Le Mans and they bring new innovations for the LMP and GT classes with them like Audi and Toyota has. I know Porsche is returning in 2014, but more would be nice.
14. The podium celebration at Le Mans is one of the greatest sights in all of motorsports. Every race should allow the fans to swarm around he winning team.
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