At first, I was really confused about how Le Mans is celebrating its centenary when this is only the 91st running of the race.
And then I remembered there was that little thing called WWII that interrupted the race for a few years.
Photograph Courtesy NASCAR
Over 60 teams from around the world are currently gearing up to compete in one of the most iconic endurance races to ever exist, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The green flag for the 91st running of the race drops at 4:00 p.m. local time (10:00 a.m. Eastern) on June 10. Then it’s a competition of survival until the checkered flag waves on 4:00 p.m. the next day.
Sure, the hybrid Hypercars are the stars of the show, but many are just as eager to see how the Garage 56 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 handles 24 grueling hours of hard driving on the Circuit de la Sarthe.
[NASCAR, Hendrick Motorsports to pursue 2023 Le Mans entry]
Click here for a full schedule of events, and click here for the complete team and driver entry list.
For those in the United States and Canada, all 24 hours of the race is only available on MotorTrend TV, with coverage of practice sessions and live on-board cameras from various teams available on MotorTrend+.
Follow this space for live updates–and feel free to add your own updates, too.
At first, I was really confused about how Le Mans is celebrating its centenary when this is only the 91st running of the race.
And then I remembered there was that little thing called WWII that interrupted the race for a few years.
At some point they're going to admit they should've used a wing.
In reply to j_tso :
Jenson Button said as much in a video interview with Marshal Preuett.
Garage 56 Jenson Button on the First Outing at Le Mans in the NASCAR Chevy Camaro ZL1 Cup Car
He says the car is quick but hits a wall on the straight and the other GT cars go past.
Last I checked the NASCAR machine was more than 5 seconds faster than the fastest GTE car. Honestly I expected it to do well, given the big power and considerable diet, but I'm not sure I expected a non-tunnel car to outrun heavily-aeroed cars by quite that much. Pretty impressive how fast you can throw a brick.
JG Pasterjak said:Last I checked the NASCAR machine was more than 5 seconds faster than the fastest GTE car. Honestly I expected it to do well, given the big power and considerable diet, but I'm not sure I expected a non-tunnel car to outrun heavily-aeroed cars by quite that much. Pretty impressive how fast you can throw a brick.
I don't think of La Sarthe as being a track with a lot of high speed corners (at least not as a percentage of the total track length), which is where high downforce cars really shine.
It makes 750 hp vs, what, 500 in a GTE car? I'm not surprised it's faster. :)
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
Button did mention that the car really needs more brakes. I would expect as the race progresses it will start to fall behind the GTE cars.
I think they are having a Parade lap of old LeMans cars from the last 100 years ,
Any idea when that will be ?
Edit , seems the Vintage parade laps are in a couple weeks at LeMans Classic and not this weekend.
Edit #2. There is a " museum" type display set-up for the past winners , hopefully someone will do a YouTube video on that display.
Anyone watching Hyperpole? Wow.
It's a shame that this isn't being televised on any of the 100s of stations that I already pay for every month. I expected that NBC would offer some coverage since they do IMSA with the rest showing up on Peacock but I guess not. Would love to watch some of it but I'm not going to subscribe to another service just for this race. I used to stay up watching this on Speedvision (aka Speed, aka FS1) back in the day.
CrashDummy said:It's a shame that this isn't being televised on any of the 100s of stations that I already pay for every month. I expected that NBC would offer some coverage since they do IMSA with the rest showing up on Peacock but I guess not. Would love to watch some of it but I'm not going to subscribe to another service just for this race. I used to stay up watching this on Speedvision (aka Speed, aka FS1) back in the day.
It's on the Motortrend channel, and they usually have a 7-day free trial deal, so maybe look into that. Then cancel after the race. There are usually some European feeds to Youtube.
In reply to grafmiata :
once they canceled dirt every day, there was no need for Motortrend in this house anymore...
Poor CGR, the Cadillac LMDh caught fire during the Hyperpole.
Sebastien Bourdais encountered fuel pressure problems prior to the No. 3 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R coming to a stop on the Mulsanne Straight and catching fire. “I just lost fuel pressure, but from the engine side because it kept clearly just injecting fuel somewhere,” he told Sportscar365. “It flooded the car with fuel and it just blew up.”
Bourdais added that the fire likely inflicted significant damage to the car: “It’s burnt bad, because you can’t get in the engine. You can’t put out the fire because you need to take the rear cell [off] to be able to take the engine deck off. You can’t get the fire out. It slowly burns the car.”
Will they be able to repair the CGR car?
I sure hope so. He was third fastest when it happened and lost the fast lap for causing a red flag.
"minimal damage" according to CGR
A fuel hose burst.
Thanks to everyone for all of the reporting and links to videos and articles.
oh no :(
I hope MotorTrend TV'S coverage gets better, i've seen more commercials than anything else so far. That "grid walk" was painful to watch. Nobody does that better than Brundle.
06HHR (Forum Supporter) said:I hope MotorTrend TV'S coverage gets better, i've seen more commercials than anything else so far. That "grid walk" was painful to watch. Nobody does that better than Brundle.
Painful is an understatement. Is there booth commentary that isn't coming across maybe to fill in those awkward voids?
Yeah, off to a rough start.. Ad-fest... Hope it gets better once the race is underway
Yeah worst grid walk I've seen, but I'm confident that the race coverage will be different. I'm glad Motor Trend is providing the full 24 hours, though.
What happened to the action express car? It looked like he just dove right into the wall
I gave motor trend the boot when they changed the app so that I had to use my phone to watch it on my TV. I've always found their live even coverage to be lacking. and making me wait months to see world RX races is criminal.
Anyone found a sneaky way to watch this or am I just gonna have to avoid spoilers and wait for the re-live upload in a couple weeks?
Getting at it on lap 1
Holy cow the coverage is bad. Almost feels like whoever is in the production truck/studio is just hitting random buttons and hoping for the best.
In reply to Puddy46 :
Add to that the motor trend commercial breaks that seem to just happen at random intervals and it's a real fecal festival.
Advertising pays for the broadcast.
I imagine it's hard for a tv producer to decide when to cut from live action with no scheduled "tv timeouts" as are scheduled in so many other sports.
But I agree: it certainly does interrupt the flow of the presentation, though.
Everyone crashing in the rain even behind the safety car.
In reply to fanfoy :
Both of those links are already shut down.
Is this how you treat a rental car?
MTOD usually has a 7 day trial. No commercials at all.
Is there oil on the track?
Pier-Guidi in the leading #51 Ferrari wipes out. I turn around for a minute and Kobayashi in the #7 Toyota has had contact and is having trouble getting going.
edit: and #7 is out!
This link has been rock solid for me so far - https://kick.com/go-racing
It would be nice if they'd all stop crashing into each other and go racing!
Yeah have motortrend as part of YouTube TV. Been in and out all day be whole race seems to be commercials or caution.
Getting the gamut of prescription medication commercials. Plaque psoriasis, hepatitis, eczema, vaginal cysts or something.
One Cadillac commercial. Why no Toyota, or even the Porsche ads they show during IMSA?
Also it's past the halfway point and it's great to see the race isn't a foregone conclusion already. Less than 30 seconds separate the top 4 of Toyota, Ferrari, Cadillac, and Porsche.
As of this typing, only one GTE ahead of the Hendrick car - impressive!
28th overall
Dawn in northern France:
https://www.youtube.com/clip/Ugkxlrf0zyjr5EaRX8GNPGry0dRJOMCBixAq
Everybody's got that one neighbor.
Here's a link to the motorsport survey the announcers were talking about. As an fyi, it takes maybe 3 minutes to complete if a spouse is talking about countertops, her cousin's birthday, or somethingorother. No need to ask me how I know that. 
https://fiawec-global-fan-survey-2023.motorsportnetwork.com/
If not Porsche (6th) then Caddy (3&4) with 4hrs please.
Not sure I have 4 hrs left in me. I need to work in the AM.
Looks like Ferrari - Toyota - Caddilac. I honestly was not expecting this at all.
A most welcome change in the level of competition at the top.
That GT Corvette group sure has done a lot of good work over the last couple of decades.
Congrats to Ferrari. Less than an hour from the end it wouldn't start in pit for about 20 seconds and things got tense.
Looks like passes from the outside are Pier Guidi's forte, he made a blip on my radar for this pass 10 minutes from the end of the 2021 Spa 24.
Hopefully 2 wins make up for the 2019 DQ for Keating.
Didn't the Vette have problems in the first hour which cost them some laps?
I know they had a crash in practice that left them scrambling to get it fixed before qualifying, where Ben put the car on pole. Imagine if he had started racing much earlier, instead of at 40...
30 minutes left in the race and the Ferrari didn't want to restart. I felt that. 
Really impressive result for them. Glad it wasn't pouring for the end of the race so there wasn't any weather related last minute disasters.
Also more Camaros need to enter Le Mans in general.
Yeah, surprised to see Ferrari win but congratulations to them. Around the 12-hour mark, I figured it was Toyota’s race to lose, even though they had already lost a car.
And, yes to more Camaros and more Camaro coverage. I hardly saw them on the feed.
And my friend Steve welcomed us to his shop this weekend to watch the race. It was perfect. 
My friend is driving in the LeMans Classic in a couple weeks ,
I am going to make sure he puts on some " race " wiper blades instead of the original thin wire wipers that are on it now ,
All the crashes in the rain was pretty scary !
That was one of the most engaging Le Mans 24's I have watched.
I find the tire tech advances as interesting as any other part of the cars. Double or even triple stints on a set? Go for it.
This piece in The Drive has Michelin's thoughts on tire tech, the trickle down from motorsports, and the company's fundamental disagreement with F1.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/michelin-still-not-interested-in-f1-unless-it-can-supply-tires-that-dont-destroy-themselves#
Sorry for the pop-ups on that site, so here are some pertinent quotes:
"In conversation with The Drive's editor-in-chief Kyle Cheromcha, Michelin CEO Florent Menegaux explained that while a return to F1 is always on the table, the French tire company simply cannot agree with how the series relies on tire degradation to improve "the show."
"The question is, how do we leverage technology to have a good show? And that’s where F1 comes into play, because we have been discussing with them for a very long time—and we are not in agreement," Menegaux told The Drive. "Because they [F1] say to have the show, you have to have tires that destroy themselves. And I think, we [Michelin] don’t know how to do this. So, we cannot agree.
"Teams should be understanding tire performance and capitalizing on the fact that the tire is going to be performing from the first lap around the circuit to the last. The drivers will tell you they want to be at their maximum all the time. And when I hear the drivers in Formula 1—I like Formula 1—but they say no no, it’s not possible," he added.
Menegaux's mention of tires that "destroy themselves" specifically highlights the fact that Pirelli tires are designed to degrade at specific rates to improve on-track action. However, it's worth pointing to the many instances where tires have literally destroyed themselves in dramatic fashion at circuits with high top speeds due to running on the very edge of performance. The most recent example of this took place in Baku back in 2021.
Tire degradation has always been a hot issue in F1 regardless of era or tire supplier. Even back in the days of Michelin and Goodyear, tire deg, performance, and the political games that always surround F1 gave people plenty to talk about. For Menegaux, however, it's rather simple: Why is Michelin involved in racing, to begin with?
"First, we need to remind ourselves why Michelin is in racing," Menegaux told The Drive. "The first element is not about the show. It’s not about the brand. It’s about the technology. We are in racing because it’s the best way to very quickly live test new technology. That’s the first reason."
***
Personally, I think Michelin has chosen wisely; having tires that last is not incongruous with having a good show. The 24 Hours of Le Mans was a very good -if not great- show.
ConiglioRampante said:"Because they [F1] say to have the show, you have to have tires that destroy themselves. And I think, we [Michelin] don’t know how to do this. So, we cannot agree.
2005 called and would like to call bullE36 M3 on that statement!
David S. Wallens said:Yeah, surprised to see Ferrari win but congratulations to them. Around the 12-hour mark, I figured it was Toyota’s race to lose, even though they had already lost a car.
And, yes to more Camaros and more Camaro coverage. I hardly saw them on the feed.
I love this photo from Jamey Price of the cars on the grid. The Camaro just looks like the big kid in the back row on class picture day.
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