I think it was due to the amount of action from the hypercars. Due to the 4 new ones plus far more battles they didn't run out of stuff to show from hypercars, and due to being the highest fastest class I think that they were prioritized more from the get go
I'm gonna be honest, I love GT3 and I watch every GT World Challenge Europe race, but when it comes to WEC I'm here for the hypercars and I'm just so happy we finally have a healthy top class, I didn't mind not seeing much of the GTs this time especially since we've got the Spa 24 coming up anyway.
The coverage on other categories was abysmal. I had no idea that both United Autosports McLarens had DNFed until I checked the overall standings some hours later after the race.
True, I think moving forward, WEC should invest in 4 separate streams, with 4 different commentaries on their website -> one general one, covering any on track action, one for hypercar, one for lmp2 and one for lmgt3 -> similar to how you can choose different streams via the f1 app.
@@irfuel XDDD I don't think that's a problem either of us should worry about. Either way the cost increase will not be that significant since it's the same equipment, the streaming platform is theirs anyway. Few more cameramen, 6 extra commentators et voilla. WEC is the most rapidly growing series in terms of popularity - they can make it happen, no problemo.
But the conditions were really awefull this year, during the night we were at the Dunlop chicanes doing "Holaaa" with friends every time a car was fishtailing, we were doing Olaaa every minute 😅
@@timmurphy4844 Id rather have 5 more munites of a 1 hour plus saftey car than basically giving a uncatchable 1 munite plus lead (in such a competitive feild) to cars that just happened to pit before the saftey car, as we saw in Spa
@@dylanburston7453 Pitlane is only closed during the wave around and merge. It's also supposed to be closed for the restart but they showed at the first safety car and for all others afterwards that if drivers feel the need to come in to change tyres to match the conditions thats fine as well.
@@andrewcarter9649 pitlane is NOT closed at the restart. Check the sporting regulations. There is no such thing. It was a mistake by the commentators. Pit exit is closed for a while during the restart.
I really wanted more coverage of the GT3s, but overall I was a lot more hyped than in previous years - this was the most time I’ve watched live at Le Mans since 2014. There are problems to address, but zooming out to a broader view, things are going great
Lacking GT coverage, like I was at the Iron Dames onboard and they had risk taking overtakes and when I go back to broadcast there's none of it. The only time I remember them show Iron Dames when they got spun by #4 Penske Porsche Hypercar....
I agree. Its the type of thing where you can get it, but still think its lacking. Yeah, of course theyd want to show off the fastest cars racing during it. Thats not bad per se, but its such a small step when theyre clearly capable of more.
The safety car was definitely bad for so many hours, also being at night didn't help. For me night is the highlight of any endurance race. This is when the drivers need their skills the most. And we didn't see any night racing
It's saddens me because I only watch for 1 hour, the race began at 10PM in my country, I was hoping to watch it later and left it for tomorrow, only to find out it was on red flag for the whole entire day...
It would be great if there were 3x parallel live RUclips channels that broadcast the entire race - each channel would cover a single class. Commentary could then focus on that class' background, infos & dramas.
I have enjoyed the 24 Hours of Le Mans in for 2024. Yes I know that the safety car stuff going on was something to end up falling asleep to. But the race still had its fare share of action for what you’d expect from an endurance race. 👍 I also was impressed with the NO. 7 Toyota as it took 2nd place from starting near behind in its class. It’s also the same one that Nyck De Vries was driving, hopefully people can stop bullying him now??
Can say it's both the unusually long safety car and probably the crowdiest grid in the last 20 or 30 years that makes this le mans feel different. Also yes, this is a certified Alpine and Mechachrome moment.
It felt different at the track aswell (for me). First of all, it was cold as shit in the evening and there was a lot of wind. This made watching at the track not as enjoyable. Further, the GT3 cars make less noise than what i remember from GTE. Them being privateer teams instead of manufacturer makes people less likely to root for a team or car aswell. LMP2 just felt a bit forgotten during this race. Hypercar was the class to watch. Battles for the overall lead were probably the reason why broadcasts were focussed on this class.
Privateer GT3 being less compelling hits hard. With no Championship Yellow Team Corvette Racing cars on the grid, my interest simply can’t be as high. I’ve watch that team my entire life, and thanks to corporate shenanigans they didn’t even bother to show up the year after winning. Though, it does seem the C8 Z06 GT3.R still needs some time to cook, no matter who operates it. Just doesn’t have the edge the C8 GTE.R did.
@@piedpiper1172true. I mean i still was supporting porsche, but that's just my swabian patriotism 😂 i used to live close to Stuttgart, the home of porsche, so of course I'm gonna support them everywhere. But no factory entries... idk it kinda feels like that's missing the point of this race. It's supposed to be the manufacturer's battleground where they all send their best to try to win, in gt as well as in prototypes. And now all we get are customers racing their cars without full factory support, so the whole "car makers giving it everything to win" aspect is just gone.
@@adenkyramud5005 It's been that way recently; but the origin of it was private entries vs factory entries - the whole origin of motorsport (for example why there is a "Mercedes"-Benz) - particularly in GT cars where for most of Le Mans' history, the GT class has been a mix and heavily leaning on the private entries (even winning outright for Ferrari and Porsche in the 60's and 70's). Many "manufacturers" efforts were created out of wealthy individuals paying for a car to be built for them & then running & driving it themselves. We may thing of "Bentley" winning Le Mans, but realistically it was very much the way as a privateer-funded effort would be seen nowadays, and we see it also with Jota/Proton Porsche capable of winning Spa, and Joest winning outright in prototypes with the TWR Jaguar-Porsche in the 90's, so for GT's to go back to that isn't out of the ordinary.
I might agree a BIT with the sc thing. BUT, i think its important for the marshals to know at all times where the pack is. Not just random cars going by. If they dont know where the cars is it might cause an accident. 60kmh is not slow.
I was gunna say we had no idea who was going to win at the 23 hour mark but you covered that too, one of the best races i have seen in my 20 years watching
Theres 2 issues with getting rid of the SC, FIA Regulations permit that any car with a hybrid issue that is stopped on track and needs intervention must be covered with a Gap of over 1 minute (Only possible under SC Mid Race. 2 Torrential rain, You need the SC Procedure to help build up tyre temp for the drivers before going back to green flag, you dont want cars that are on ice cold tyres in heavy rain just as conditions are safe. The fact that cars were complaining of AquaPlaining during the night when behind the SC Shows that it was the right decision.
These fools don't want to hear that they want no SC, I guess injured drivers would be fine with these clowns......it was a terrible situation and unprecedented heavy rain fall, they made the safe call for the long sc period....
As someone who considers herself a fairly casual viewer of endurance races, I really appreciated your summary and insight on the race! I personally felt a bit mixed on the safety car phase; after the race at the Nordschleife, I was happy to see them at least on track, but visibility was very poor during the night with the almost torrential rain. Considering the race is also about safety of the drivers and marshals, I think calling it was the right call. But the safety car procedures took way too long imo, especially considering they started a while after the visibility has vastly improved. But even as a fan of the entire Hypercar class itself, I was really confused about the lack of coverage of the LMP2 and LMGT3. It was certainly a very exciting race for the Hypercars, but considering how close together the other categories finished, they have been shown way too little either. And of course, I was really miffed about the lack of transparency for the decision by the stewards and in my opinion, if a sister car has gained an advantage from a car breaking the rules, I think the consequences should be much higher (referring to the incident with the #8).
Respect to Issota Frascini, they have proven their reliability, they just need to figure out their speed. Personally i wouldve loved to see the cadillacs ahve a better run, but with the 3 having mechanical issues and the 311 hitting the wall, they just got taken out of contention with 2 of their cars. Had the 2 not gotten the penalty from SPA (which i think was not 100% fair), they also didnt get to race the way they wanted. Granted it mostly came down to strategy. Good video!
The Isotta is quick, it's the drivers. They have a platinum and 2 Silvers in the car, and even though Jean Karl Verney is a platinum, he probably wouldn't be the first call by any other team. He was able to keep up with the back of the Hypercar train at the beginning, keeping the 7 Toyota behind for a decent chunk of the first stint. If they had a better squad, the Isotta could be challenging the Peugeots ngl. I doubt they will ever get a win or even podium with how small they are because even with BoP, you do still need a lot of testing and top engineers to get the most out of the car.
My problems this year: 1. Useless safety cars. It could have been less than 5h of safety cars in total but it looks like we have hired an f1 race director. Not enough lmp2 and gt coverage. I can understand the lack of gt focus, because ⅔ of the time there were ams driving. But lmp2 should have gotten much more attention.
The coverage part so much. It almost felt like the handful of leading HCs were the main characters and everything else was just obstacle. Lack of lmp2 and lmgt3 was the biggest let down of otherwise fantastic event
Lmp2 is just a filler class, so the less we see them in coverage the better. No doubt GT could use some more time on broadcast. But the battle in HY was intense and all race long so I can understand they got a lot more time then the other 2 classes.
@@bollesneri_1There is a difference between “a lot more coverage time” and “23.9 out of 24 hours.” Both cars of a full season, points competitive team went out of the race to mechanical failure in GT and neither even got mentioned lol. Not to mention routinely going an entire hour without even scrolling the standings to show the other class standings, pit stop counts, and splits. Hypercar may have been intense, but most of the time the gaps were 30s or more. A graphics package could afford to scroll lol
Yeah I'm actually fine with little to no lmp2 coverage. No one really cares about them and they're just out there to cause drama. More GT coverage would be nice though.
When the nurburgring 24h can do barrier repairs with just 1 slow zone and night time says enough to how achievable your proposition is. Two fcy is extreme compared to the green hell!
I've always followed the races but never actually tried to watch endurance racing for too long. Needless to say this was my first 24 hours of Le Mans and I loved it. Can't wait for next year.
I luckily managed to get back into my tent at 3am before 🌧🌧🌧🌧🌧🌧🌧🌧🌧 The rain got so heavy at 5:30am I woke up in sheer panic and put radio Le Mans on to see if any cars had survived, only to find out they had be trundling behind the SC for hours already!
I fully agree - the Nurburgring, even with relatively rudimentary signage and a much longer, more complicated course, works flawlessly using slow zones and full-course-yellow operation. Even in the middle of the night there will be sections of the track at full speed and sections of the track where there's literally a tow truck picking up a stranded car and it works without failure. Le Mans, a track that has F1 level signage, should not be so inefficient at keeping the racing going as much as (still very safely) possible.
I was at the race this year for my fourth appearance (17, 19, 23, and 2024). My biggest gripe was that the venue was drastically oversold. The bathrooms alone were a two hour event. Thankfully, I had an electric scooter and I was able to zip up the road to my Airbnb. I’m a longtime member of the ACO and commented that they should probably cap this venue at 300,000 spectators. That, or spread people out with extra tribunes and additional services. People were peeing everywhere, openly. Thank God for the rain to keep the stench down. I sat in T10. I will, of course, be back, but if it’s going to be this popular, they will have to make some changes.
Tbh it was a mix of the new safety car rules and the terrible tv coverage. 99% of the major incidents uploaded to RUclips by wec were just shots of the stationary cars post crash. It's like they just weren't recording. I missed the first half hour and I literally didn't know that the LMP2 category was there for like 2 hours because they were hardly covered. Finally, safety car rules: The rules are more IMSA-esque now, there's 3 safety cars spread out across the track, which makes sense, it's a huge track. BUT, If the SC period is long enough the cars all form up on one SC AND EVERYONE IS UNLAPPED. this kills all long-game strategies and as you said, it felt more like a sprint race. Because it pretty much was.
I've been at the race for 3 years now, and this year felt less exciting than last year, and I slept through the long SC so I didn't even know it happened. It was still far more interesting than 2022
I think the reasoning behind the safety car changes from the simple three-car system was to avoid giving advantages to the leader of any class - and the problem with a slow zone is that this can still happen, you're generally going to end up randomly handing some degree of time handicap to some people at random depending how many times people pass through that slow zone. Add to that there are situations where an FCY doesn't necceasarily cut it if you need a long period with guaranteed zero traffic for course workers and there's still situations where you do need to go SC. I think what i would go with is, for long situations that do need an SC, a similar system to the one in the video but, to keep the incident area slow zone in place under the SC, and do the merge and passaround while the work is ongoing. From a racing perspective you still end up with the same single train, and from worker safety perspective you get the big working gap nice and quickly. Then, once the work is done you can just let them go because they're already stacked the way you want them like you want them. However the biggest thing that set the shape of an odd race for me that we had a long green stretch before that first safety and the frontrunners weren't putting laps even on the midpack, that meant that when the safety cars did come out it all came back together. if you're only 45 seconds off the lead you can lose two minutes to a fuckup (like the red ferrari tyre choices in the early showers) but come back from it when the safety car appears. it's insane how narrow the performance range of the hypercar field is.
I was there watching it live, and the only good thing about that crazy long safety cars was I went to sleep instead of being soaking wet watching the cars from trackside :)
They changed the safety car procedure last year and it really hurts the prestige of the race. Cars getting their lap back and closing the gaps between cars is effectivity a reset of the race. That makes the race only as long as the last full course yellow. The 3 hours of Le Mans is not nearly as impressive as the 24 Hours of Le Mans. But that's basically what we get now.
Remember 2011? McNish and Rockenfeller had massives crash so it was Fässler, Lotterer and Treluyer who were behind around a lap against three Peugeots with like 15h to go. There was also like 3h Saftey Car just after midnight and I feel like it was similar sprint race back then...
At the very least, Lopez could have kept Ferrari honest and force them to do a splash and dash pitstop. Then it would have been close. But his spin gave Ferrari a near 50 second lead and they switched to saving fuel. Full credit to Ferrari for this. They went from doing 12 lap stints to a 15 lapper to the finish.
@@zx9mel a splash and go still loses you about 40 to 60 seconds because of the way pit-stops work in WEC. There was absolutely no way the 50 could have won if they had to do an extra pit
6:18 I like the idea the only issue I could see is if the slow zone ended up being on like a long straightaway. Something like that could really impact the outcome of a race.
The thing that i think was really lacking also this year was the hour updates, showing the time gaps, pit stops and what happened in the last hour. Other than the only thing was the lack of GT coverage, because it was a great race to watch
There is a perfect case for the interruption to the N24. The whole track was too foggy, and then when the fog had shifted from the nordschleife, the GP Circuit still had too much fog to race safely. If you want to see people die in racing, watch the Isle of Man TT
@@johannessamuelsson6578 We literally have the tech for slow zones and the N24 was an organizational shit show, need I mention the boxed trophies in the dark corner of the facilities lmao
@@johannessamuelsson6578 In FIA-sanctioned motorsport it's a fundamental part of Track Discipline that if marshals can't see the nearest marshal post in each direction, they MUST put out the red flag and only replace it with a green flag when they observe a green flag at an adjacent marshal point. When a track goes green, the green flag starts at the start/finish line and spreads around the track quickly as each post sees the adjacent post showing a green flag. The safety car laps on the Sunday afternoon should not have been run as there were lots of marshal posts on the GP-Strecke and even parts of the Nordschleife where the marshals would not have seen a green flag at either adjacent post.
The safety car procedure where they merge the 3 trains takes far too long and makes the racing artificial by closing up hard fought gaps. They should just go back to the old way of not bothering. There's no jeopardy any more
Agreed, they made safety cars way too convoluted and waste a ton of laps of racing by having a 4 step safety car where step 1 can't end until the reasons for the safety car are already over.
They could make it so much simpler. I get why they did it -- a very close GT battle was split up by a minute a few years back -- but they make some much more moderate changes, like specifying that any car within 1 minute of the class leader before the safety car who gets split off, gets to jump up by one safety car group. Le Mans was the last of the prestigious endurance races which really was won by your pace over the full distance --every other endurance race (Bathurst, Sebring, Daytona, etc) are now about staying in contention for the end, with the safety car frequency being so high that a decently fast car will never fall a lap behind so long as they are reliable.
Well no - the merging actually makes the racing more fair. Last year you had 3 safety cars which could loose a team 1 min 30 just because they didn't cross the SC line 400m ahead of them whilst the car they were chasing did and hence ended up 1/3 of the track length behind them when the race resumed. I think the merging is actually a good thing if we're just talking about that aspect of the SC.
@@LiminalThoughts This is impossible. With FCY there are zero gaps in the field. Marshals can't do cleanup work in the middle of the track if there are cars driving by, even at "only" 80 km/h. They need big gaps for some of the cleanup work.
Le Mans has been a 24 hour sprint for a some time. Now we just have more cars which can keep up. This year (and last to some extent) did feel like a '24 hour formula ford race' with the way the drivers were racing hard like it was a '24 hour last lap' - usually we get a couple of hours of close racing before things settle down into an endurance race. This year, there was no settling down. As for the stewards decisions - I know some of them had consequence, but they did feel consistent with what we have seen before earlier in the race and previous WEC rounds - for example, at Spa, the #99 Porsche had open door when they were leading. Race control gave them a few laps to try and fix it before calling them into the pits - same as what the did with the #50. The 5 sec extra pit stop for the collision with the #8 Toyota was consistent with the penality for the #4 Porsche when it hit the Iron dames earlier in the race. I don't believe its right to look at a result and then say 'that penality given earlier wasn't enough then' in hindsight.
Yeah, this year was a good one. I was constantly checking and trying to find different streams to watch it on because it was so good. You will go to sleep and immediately wake up and check the results to see what happened.
24h of Spa also had a rather long safety car due to rain (it came out for a wreck in the first place if i remember correctly) as soon as the rain become less heavy, green straight away!
Alpine retiring from the race with both cars highlights just what an incredible job Ferrari did last year when they won the Le Mans 24h on first try after only like 7-8 months of development work on the 499P. That's an absolutely fantastic achievement. And winning it twice in a row against tough competition is an even more amazing achievement.
Headlights and other car tech has improved so much, even the rear view mirrors have AR arrows over the cars behind you so i dont get pausing races because of weather. I understand why they do it at Nurburg because that track is genuinley dangerous but lemans is mostly flat and wide and public roads. Rain shouldnt have stopped that race.
I mean, there were some drivers complaining about Aquaplaning/having no grip even at safety car speeds during the long SC period. I honestly think that had they not send out the SC during that rain, there would have been crashes leading to a SC having to be deployed eventually. Could they have gone back to green flag racing earlier? Maybe, I am by no means an expert, but I think that the SC at least during the heaviest rain was quite warrented
It was good if you like safety cars, Ferrari, and hate every class that isn’t the hyper cars. No one can convince me Ferrari didn’t have their number 2 car spin the Toyota on purpose, and the penalty for it was a joke.
I gave up on watching WEC when they basically decided to nerf Toyota so hard that they basically have no chances of winning anymore, despite their team having the most competitive hypercar if BoP is ignored.
I was there in person, and yes, the safety car procedure were really long, and they definitely need to do something to shorten them up. The commentators on radio Lemans a couple times, said that it was raining heavily or raining cats and dogs, and I don’t believe that it was Where I was ever sitting, was raining that hard, sometimes the rain was light and misty and sometimes it was just a tad bit harder, but all in all it was not “heavy “rain like a downpour or a thunderstorm. Maybe it did do that a little bit of the Porsche curves when I wasn’t standing there.
It was like watching Wacky Races with the lead constantly changing it removed the usual suspense, and made me question if I should just tune in for the last hour or so. I remain against safety cars for weather. It's just there to protect rich people from losing their toys - but the weather is part of the race, build the car appropriately. They are gladiators so let them gladiate and any driver who can't hack it should swap out for someone who can.
@@irfuel about? Wet weather racing? I've done it at entry level formula - but more importantly I'm old enough to remember F1 races in typhoon conditions. Sure it was dangerous, but they're supposed to be the best in the world so do the damned job you elected to do for a living and race. You clearly have no clue.
@@pearofgeeksii8156 Ah the boomers are here. "BACK IN THE DAY PEOPLE DIED AT THE TRACK!" "THESE SISSIES ARE NO REAL RACE DRIVERS!". Keep on yelling from the couch, grandpa.
@@irfuel *rolls eyes* Grandma, gen X, and yeah - you're there to put on a show not sit in a traffic jam for millions spectators. If that means designing cars/tracks differently to do the job so that they can run in the wet so be it - but if you create a formula that cannot run in the wet you've done fucked up and mocking people who want to watch a race and branding them as boomers and throwing around government safety leaflets doesn't make you smarter - it means you endorse watching paint dry as a spectator sport.
Ah, the Nico Lapierre wet-weather approach! "Stop crashing our car Nico, or you're fired" *crashes car* "Okay, don't say we didn't warn you!" This year, it was more about visibility than weather alone; but having watched many years of LM, including 1995 and 2001, some SC was justifiable here I think; but there was absolutely no need to keep that going when daylight broke. They can't justify it being for visibility and then keep the SC going on and on and on into the daylight.
A problem I see with a localized slow zone for barrier repairs is when two cars are battling for position as they come to the slow zone. The car in front slams their brakes as late as it can in order to defend its position while complying with the speed limit. However, the car behind can never react instantaneously to such an action and might crash into the car in front, putting all the unprotected vehicles and marshals repairing the barriers in huge danger.
Easy workaround. Code60 starts in a corner. They brake for the corner but only accelerate to 60. Problem solved. Their would be long Code60 Areas but better than 7 hours of saefty car and of course saefty first.
@@muhmonsta Did you miss last years' race? That is exactly what they did but it still resulted in a 4/5 car pileup, taking 3 cars (inc Kobayashi) out of the race because of amateurish driving. I think the problem here is not the zones or their placement, it's Le Mans not having a strict enough dis/qualification process. The N24H has a similar system (in fact Le Mans copied it with an initial sim test requirement a few years back) but despite much larger disparity in cars and MUCH 'lesser' quality of drivers, the discipline is far better at the Nurburgring and also in SuperGT - yet we see that drivers in WEC and F1 (e.g. Bianchi) can't be trusted to be resonable and cause accidents that the organisers think they have systemically removed, but the drivers still screw things up. Le Mans/ACO needs to be more thorough in their licensing requirements for Le Mans and then they don't need to change the slow-zone system.
I had the good fortune of being at Le Mans this year, and also last year for the centenary. From a spectators viewpoint, this year was pretty bad, in terms of crowd management. The layout of the spectator areas was really poor, with crowds being herded around like sheep through various bottlenecks and forced to queue for ages in a dense crowd to go over newly constructed footbridges over access roads etc, whereas last year, you could just walk across the road at pedestrian crossings. There was the legendary "Piss-Tree"; a small weeping willow that became the main urinal for tens of thousands of blokes (yes, it stank) because there simply weren't enough toilets. The queues for all the toilets were insane. One main difference between this year and last year, is that, in the early hours of the morning, the main grandstands and seating areas are 90% empty as people have gone to bed etc, but there are still thousands of diehard fans/spectators that stay up through the night in solidarity with the drivers/teams. Last year, if the seating areas were empty you could go and sit up in the grandstands if you didn't have a ticket for a seat, which was great, especially around 2-4 in the morning. This year, they stopped that with a very firm "NO!", so even though the grandstand was empty, and there were loads of fans happy to stay up through the night, they were turned away. This was especially bad IMO as it rained very heavily and the roofed grandstand/seating stands offered shelter, so many people called it a day and left because we were getting soaked through to the bone. However, believe me, these are minor moans really. On the whole it's a fantastic experience and we adapt to what's thrown at us; Piss-Tree being the perfect metaphor. Even though the stands were off limits to none seat-ticket holders (fair enough, but a bit "meh" at 3am in the pouring rain), it was a real adventure and all around the north and west side of the track there are amazing views. In regard to the actual racing, yes, it was different; it was exciting and kept you on the edge of your seat, there were no clear favourites out of all the hyper-cars. Let's not ignore the P2 and GTE classes either, in fact, I got quite into the P2 / Oreca07 cars this time, and the GTE cars are classy as hell. But for me, it was all about the hyper cars, and no amount of rain or overcrowded toilets can overshadow what was an amazing weekend.
Not even just Le Mans, I’ve been a little disappointed all season with how it feels like race control has been the decisive factor in quite a few races
For those at the track, how good was RLM? From my comfy chair in a nice warm house, it was as ever, great coverage but not sure how well it translated to the track, but the RLM crew were picking up on things the TV crews missed. Iron Dames are rapidly showing they are there on pace and merit and are adapting well to hypercar. Some of the moves those girls pulled off were absolutely amazing. I was skeptical when they went up to hypercar, but I am very, very impressed with how it's going
Iron Dames run a GT3 Lambourghini, Iron Lynx is the rest of the organisation that runs the other Lambo's with the prototypes effectively being run by Prema (which Iron Lynx owes). The Iron Dames crew are not involved with the prototype, at least yet.
There should be three official streams, where each one focuses primarily on a different racing class. They could all cut to the same interviews during downtime, so its not completely different.
I think the safety car procedure is definitely better than last year but still something to improve. I actually don't like that it is only one safety car (and not three of them), but it seems the ACO wants this to create a more exciting end phase of the race where more cars are on the lead lap. For your idea of going FCY - SZ - FCY for barrier repairs I think there is an argument against it: Barrier repair crews can work without any passing cars for around 7 minutes each lap when a safety car is involved. If you "only" have a slow zone, there will be a more or less constant stream of cars passing by. This can pose an additional danger to track marshals and I can understand why race control wants to avoid this.
This was genuinely my first Le Mans, so I had zero idea what I was going into as a NASCAR fan. Best race of my life, and a great father's day gift from me to my father.
About the safety car procedure: I understand the format you suggest but that would mean that going a lap down is a race ender, more so with the close field. I think it gives opportunity for those a lap back to catch up with the queue
That’s true, but also something that some may not consider a bad thing. The finishes definitely wouldn’t be as close but it would reward the teams with the most consistency over the entire race.
@@GTRain what might be a better balance would be: 1. Safety Car B and Safety Car C to close up to smaller gaps behind the Safety Car A queue while still under control and before the track is fully cleared. They should be about 1/6 of a lap behind each other, not 1/3, allowing them to all pull off at the same time rather than merging the queues. 2. Cars in front of their class leader in the same queue should be released to join the queue ahead if they are behind SCB or SCC, and about a minute before the restart if they are behind SCA. The practice of giving them a full lap back should be abandoned as it is falsifying the race. 3. Allow the three safety cars to pull off instantaneously when they are at any three consecutive exit locations (locations would be Pit In, Tetre Rouge, Chicane 1, Chicane 2, Mulsanne, Arnage, Porsche In) instead of waiting until SCA gets all the way around to Pit In. The safety cars can return to their deployment positions by a combination of making their way along the track behind the third group of cars (the current safety car is the Porsche 911 (992) GT2 Manthey, which is faster on a straight than a GT3 race car) and using internal roads.
I don't get the safety car during the rain. I thought the purpose of Lemans was to be the ultimate driving competition, the ability to keep your car on the track for 24 hours regardless of the conditions. I wonder how much pressure the owners of the cars, now costing over a million dollars, put on the stewards to slow the race down to keep their expensive hypercars safe.
You failed to mention that under the safety car, Ferrari was able to pit and get the green light for release instead of being held to the next group because the B group had more cars, so they were not affected by it
Isotta Fraschini uses a PU provided by HWA. These are the guys who developed and managed the whole Merc DTM program and they also build the AMG GT race cars. So I guess that's where the realibility comes from.
Had a fantastic 11 days at the Sarthe this year, the BOP this time was the most accurate it's ever been I think. FCY into local slow zone into FCY to finish would I'm sure work from the point of view of both safety and keeping the racing action. On site what many spectators do is use a short safety car period for a break for food/drink/toilet. Going to be great to see Aston in the top class next year, but I'm suspecting Peugeot to pull the plug the back end. GT3 and LMP2 were also close run affairs, rejoined as an ACO member at the circuit to guarantee 2 tickets for next year's race, hotel already booked as well. The World's greatest motor race is most definitely not the Indy 500.😉
the safety car period was fine, that late night/early morning racing is usually feels so tame these days anyways. it was interesting to see teams make mistakes, exhausted after 12 hours of hard running but still required to perfectly follow the rules, but not something you could really "watch"
this was my first Le Mans 24 and it was fun but I fell asleep by accident under that 4 hour safety car 😭 (since I live in America it was 5am and I had been up watching the whole race up until that point )
Tbh i think the wec should put some way that lapped cars in class could discount a lap in their class leader It would add a little bit more spice to the race
That is the very opposite of adding spice to the race, if driving slowly and losing laps doesn't actually cost anything. A better idea to add spice would be to direct lapped cars into the pits at their next arrival after 15:50 on the Sunday and classify their positions then, so the cars on their class lead lap can have a cleaner battle to the finish.
I was GLUED to this race, I'm a big prototype guy so GTP is a dream for me. Unfortunately though, most of the race it felt like a Ferrari win, Toyota gave them a big scare at points, but even with all the penalties and issues, Ferrari drove through the field multiple times. LMP2 seemed WAY out of it this year, just didn't seem nearly as competitive, and I rarely saw GTs, radio Le Mans did a great job of equal coverage, but the broadcast didn't really mention them.
Yeah, i agree with that fixing barrier procedure, they should copy what the Nurburgring 24 race director, at least at Le Mans which have a very long lap compared to other WEC circuit
Lack of GT coverage was a major bummer
I think it was due to the amount of action from the hypercars. Due to the 4 new ones plus far more battles they didn't run out of stuff to show from hypercars, and due to being the highest fastest class I think that they were prioritized more from the get go
I'm gonna be honest, I love GT3 and I watch every GT World Challenge Europe race, but when it comes to WEC I'm here for the hypercars and I'm just so happy we finally have a healthy top class, I didn't mind not seeing much of the GTs this time especially since we've got the Spa 24 coming up anyway.
GT gets coverage when the racing is good. 👍
@@Christoffski......and when there's only 5 cars in the top class, like 2 years ago. I'll sacrifice GT coverage when there's 20 hypercars battling.
P@@WyldStallion-bs9oo
The coverage on other categories was abysmal. I had no idea that both United Autosports McLarens had DNFed until I checked the overall standings some hours later after the race.
This right here
Which coverage were you following?
True, I think moving forward, WEC should invest in 4 separate streams, with 4 different commentaries on their website -> one general one, covering any on track action, one for hypercar, one for lmp2 and one for lmgt3 -> similar to how you can choose different streams via the f1 app.
@@julianz7450 And you are going to pay for all that?
@@irfuel XDDD I don't think that's a problem either of us should worry about. Either way the cost increase will not be that significant since it's the same equipment, the streaming platform is theirs anyway. Few more cameramen, 6 extra commentators et voilla. WEC is the most rapidly growing series in terms of popularity - they can make it happen, no problemo.
I think I watched about 21hrs of this race. It was awesome, except for the 4.5hrs of straight safety car.
But there was a dog my girlfriends favourite moment
I slept thru the safety car but watched most of the rest of it.
@@timmurphy4844 Yess the dog all it takes. They say mans best friend yea right lol
@@tmoney8180 but was it LE mans best friend? 😂😂😂
get a job
Yeah, I’d say it was the safety car. Although closing off the pitlane in extreme rain seems like a bad idea.
Closing off the pitlane is a must tho because cause it would add another few laps doing so!
But the conditions were really awefull this year, during the night we were at the Dunlop chicanes doing "Holaaa" with friends every time a car was fishtailing, we were doing Olaaa every minute 😅
@@timmurphy4844 Id rather have 5 more munites of a 1 hour plus saftey car than basically giving a uncatchable 1 munite plus lead (in such a competitive feild) to cars that just happened to pit before the saftey car, as we saw in Spa
@@dylanburston7453 Pitlane is only closed during the wave around and merge. It's also supposed to be closed for the restart but they showed at the first safety car and for all others afterwards that if drivers feel the need to come in to change tyres to match the conditions thats fine as well.
@@andrewcarter9649 pitlane is NOT closed at the restart. Check the sporting regulations. There is no such thing. It was a mistake by the commentators. Pit exit is closed for a while during the restart.
I really wanted more coverage of the GT3s, but overall I was a lot more hyped than in previous years - this was the most time I’ve watched live at Le Mans since 2014. There are problems to address, but zooming out to a broader view, things are going great
Lacking GT coverage, like I was at the Iron Dames onboard and they had risk taking overtakes and when I go back to broadcast there's none of it. The only time I remember them show Iron Dames when they got spun by #4 Penske Porsche Hypercar....
Agreed. it felt like 95% hypercar tv coverage.
Does anyone ever really cover (video) the GT classes in wec or imsa?
@@simonzdrenka3851if all gt cars have onboard cam , is better
I agree. Its the type of thing where you can get it, but still think its lacking. Yeah, of course theyd want to show off the fastest cars racing during it. Thats not bad per se, but its such a small step when theyre clearly capable of more.
@@simonzdrenka3851so much happened with hypercars
The safety car was definitely bad for so many hours, also being at night didn't help. For me night is the highlight of any endurance race. This is when the drivers need their skills the most. And we didn't see any night racing
The safety car came out at 3am, what would you call the hours before that, daylight?
@@andrewcarter9649 I was working before that, the whole part of the night I could watch was behind safety car
At least it is not like 24H of Nurburgring this year because that is even worse!
The 7 hours of Nurburgring
@@nanthilrodriguez Yes. That is even worse.
It's saddens me because I only watch for 1 hour, the race began at 10PM in my country, I was hoping to watch it later and left it for tomorrow, only to find out it was on red flag for the whole entire day...
This was the first Le Mans I've ever watched and honstely, apart from the safety cra it didn't disappoint at all!
It wasn't a bad race.
Now go and watch both the 2011, 2016 and 2023 races for sheer excitement. 👌
It would be great if there were 3x parallel live RUclips channels that broadcast the entire race - each channel would cover a single class. Commentary could then focus on that class' background, infos & dramas.
That would require 3 different production groups which would be untenable for one race.
@@rexthewolf3149 🤷
I have enjoyed the 24 Hours of Le Mans in for 2024. Yes I know that the safety car stuff going on was something to end up falling asleep to. But the race still had its fare share of action for what you’d expect from an endurance race. 👍
I also was impressed with the NO. 7 Toyota as it took 2nd place from starting near behind in its class. It’s also the same one that Nyck De Vries was driving, hopefully people can stop bullying him now??
Le Mans has been a sprint race for years because reliability on the whole is so much better
Me too
Not true. Stupid sc rule makes it a sprint
@@domiwieserwould you prefer horrible crashes instead?? Let's just let them go wild, why not....the stupidity of these comments
@@truckercowboyed2638yes i would
Can say it's both the unusually long safety car and probably the crowdiest grid in the last 20 or 30 years that makes this le mans feel different. Also yes, this is a certified Alpine and Mechachrome moment.
Well the grid was the same size as last year though. We are caped at 62 entries for quite a few years now.
GP2 engine strikes again.
It felt different at the track aswell (for me). First of all, it was cold as shit in the evening and there was a lot of wind. This made watching at the track not as enjoyable.
Further, the GT3 cars make less noise than what i remember from GTE. Them being privateer teams instead of manufacturer makes people less likely to root for a team or car aswell.
LMP2 just felt a bit forgotten during this race.
Hypercar was the class to watch. Battles for the overall lead were probably the reason why broadcasts were focussed on this class.
it was so cold in the night，I was literally shivering under the grand stand
If you don't enjoy watching a race with a lot of wind and cold weather, don't go to Spa or the Nürburging.
Privateer GT3 being less compelling hits hard.
With no Championship Yellow Team Corvette Racing cars on the grid, my interest simply can’t be as high. I’ve watch that team my entire life, and thanks to corporate shenanigans they didn’t even bother to show up the year after winning.
Though, it does seem the C8 Z06 GT3.R still needs some time to cook, no matter who operates it. Just doesn’t have the edge the C8 GTE.R did.
@@piedpiper1172true. I mean i still was supporting porsche, but that's just my swabian patriotism 😂 i used to live close to Stuttgart, the home of porsche, so of course I'm gonna support them everywhere. But no factory entries... idk it kinda feels like that's missing the point of this race. It's supposed to be the manufacturer's battleground where they all send their best to try to win, in gt as well as in prototypes. And now all we get are customers racing their cars without full factory support, so the whole "car makers giving it everything to win" aspect is just gone.
@@adenkyramud5005 It's been that way recently; but the origin of it was private entries vs factory entries - the whole origin of motorsport (for example why there is a "Mercedes"-Benz) - particularly in GT cars where for most of Le Mans' history, the GT class has been a mix and heavily leaning on the private entries (even winning outright for Ferrari and Porsche in the 60's and 70's).
Many "manufacturers" efforts were created out of wealthy individuals paying for a car to be built for them & then running & driving it themselves.
We may thing of "Bentley" winning Le Mans, but realistically it was very much the way as a privateer-funded effort would be seen nowadays, and we see it also with Jota/Proton Porsche capable of winning Spa, and Joest winning outright in prototypes with the TWR Jaguar-Porsche in the 90's, so for GT's to go back to that isn't out of the ordinary.
I might agree a BIT with the sc thing. BUT, i think its important for the marshals to know at all times where the pack is. Not just random cars going by. If they dont know where the cars is it might cause an accident. 60kmh is not slow.
I was gunna say we had no idea who was going to win at the 23 hour mark but you covered that too, one of the best races i have seen in my 20 years watching
Theres 2 issues with getting rid of the SC, FIA Regulations permit that any car with a hybrid issue that is stopped on track and needs intervention must be covered with a Gap of over 1 minute (Only possible under SC Mid Race. 2 Torrential rain, You need the SC Procedure to help build up tyre temp for the drivers before going back to green flag, you dont want cars that are on ice cold tyres in heavy rain just as conditions are safe. The fact that cars were complaining of AquaPlaining during the night when behind the SC Shows that it was the right decision.
These fools don't want to hear that they want no SC, I guess injured drivers would be fine with these clowns......it was a terrible situation and unprecedented heavy rain fall, they made the safe call for the long sc period....
Great video. It definitely was more fun when there is no clear winner. The safety car was good time to sleep and rest for when the race restarts.
As someone who considers herself a fairly casual viewer of endurance races, I really appreciated your summary and insight on the race!
I personally felt a bit mixed on the safety car phase; after the race at the Nordschleife, I was happy to see them at least on track, but visibility was very poor during the night with the almost torrential rain. Considering the race is also about safety of the drivers and marshals, I think calling it was the right call. But the safety car procedures took way too long imo, especially considering they started a while after the visibility has vastly improved.
But even as a fan of the entire Hypercar class itself, I was really confused about the lack of coverage of the LMP2 and LMGT3. It was certainly a very exciting race for the Hypercars, but considering how close together the other categories finished, they have been shown way too little either.
And of course, I was really miffed about the lack of transparency for the decision by the stewards and in my opinion, if a sister car has gained an advantage from a car breaking the rules, I think the consequences should be much higher (referring to the incident with the #8).
Respect to Issota Frascini, they have proven their reliability, they just need to figure out their speed. Personally i wouldve loved to see the cadillacs ahve a better run, but with the 3 having mechanical issues and the 311 hitting the wall, they just got taken out of contention with 2 of their cars. Had the 2 not gotten the penalty from SPA (which i think was not 100% fair), they also didnt get to race the way they wanted. Granted it mostly came down to strategy. Good video!
The Isotta is quick, it's the drivers. They have a platinum and 2 Silvers in the car, and even though Jean Karl Verney is a platinum, he probably wouldn't be the first call by any other team. He was able to keep up with the back of the Hypercar train at the beginning, keeping the 7 Toyota behind for a decent chunk of the first stint. If they had a better squad, the Isotta could be challenging the Peugeots ngl. I doubt they will ever get a win or even podium with how small they are because even with BoP, you do still need a lot of testing and top engineers to get the most out of the car.
My problems this year:
1. Useless safety cars. It could have been less than 5h of safety cars in total but it looks like we have hired an f1 race director.
Not enough lmp2 and gt coverage. I can understand the lack of gt focus, because ⅔ of the time there were ams driving. But lmp2 should have gotten much more attention.
The coverage part so much. It almost felt like the handful of leading HCs were the main characters and everything else was just obstacle. Lack of lmp2 and lmgt3 was the biggest let down of otherwise fantastic event
Lmp2 is just a filler class, so the less we see them in coverage the better. No doubt GT could use some more time on broadcast. But the battle in HY was intense and all race long so I can understand they got a lot more time then the other 2 classes.
@@bollesneri_1There is a difference between “a lot more coverage time” and “23.9 out of 24 hours.”
Both cars of a full season, points competitive team went out of the race to mechanical failure in GT and neither even got mentioned lol.
Not to mention routinely going an entire hour without even scrolling the standings to show the other class standings, pit stop counts, and splits.
Hypercar may have been intense, but most of the time the gaps were 30s or more. A graphics package could afford to scroll lol
Yeah I'm actually fine with little to no lmp2 coverage. No one really cares about them and they're just out there to cause drama. More GT coverage would be nice though.
Or they should just eliminate the category. I mean…why bother running it only to ignore it?
When the nurburgring 24h can do barrier repairs with just 1 slow zone and night time says enough to how achievable your proposition is. Two fcy is extreme compared to the green hell!
Both Alpines retiring due to the Mecachrome engine Mecachroming was not a surprise at all.
Just got recommended your channel randomly, great coverage man, subbed
It felt different because when I woke up after a sleep of regular length, the running order felt familiar.
"there were 3 controversial decisions: Ferrari, Ferrari, Ferrari.. ehm.. well.. O.O
4:05 And do you believe me when I say that the Safety car was more on track than both alpine ?
I've always followed the races but never actually tried to watch endurance racing for too long. Needless to say this was my first 24 hours of Le Mans and I loved it. Can't wait for next year.
I luckily managed to get back into my tent at 3am before 🌧🌧🌧🌧🌧🌧🌧🌧🌧 The rain got so heavy at 5:30am I woke up in sheer panic and put radio Le Mans on to see if any cars had survived, only to find out they had be trundling behind the SC for hours already!
I fully agree - the Nurburgring, even with relatively rudimentary signage and a much longer, more complicated course, works flawlessly using slow zones and full-course-yellow operation. Even in the middle of the night there will be sections of the track at full speed and sections of the track where there's literally a tow truck picking up a stranded car and it works without failure. Le Mans, a track that has F1 level signage, should not be so inefficient at keeping the racing going as much as (still very safely) possible.
I was at the race this year for my fourth appearance (17, 19, 23, and 2024). My biggest gripe was that the venue was drastically oversold. The bathrooms alone were a two hour event. Thankfully, I had an electric scooter and I was able to zip up the road to my Airbnb. I’m a longtime member of the ACO and commented that they should probably cap this venue at 300,000 spectators. That, or spread people out with extra tribunes and additional services. People were peeing everywhere, openly. Thank God for the rain to keep the stench down. I sat in T10. I will, of course, be back, but if it’s going to be this popular, they will have to make some changes.
Loved every word of this video. Just perfect coverage
Tbh it was a mix of the new safety car rules and the terrible tv coverage.
99% of the major incidents uploaded to RUclips by wec were just shots of the stationary cars post crash. It's like they just weren't recording.
I missed the first half hour and I literally didn't know that the LMP2 category was there for like 2 hours because they were hardly covered.
Finally, safety car rules:
The rules are more IMSA-esque now, there's 3 safety cars spread out across the track, which makes sense, it's a huge track. BUT,
If the SC period is long enough the cars all form up on one SC AND EVERYONE IS UNLAPPED. this kills all long-game strategies and as you said, it felt more like a sprint race. Because it pretty much was.
I've been at the race for 3 years now, and this year felt less exciting than last year, and I slept through the long SC so I didn't even know it happened. It was still far more interesting than 2022
I think the reasoning behind the safety car changes from the simple three-car system was to avoid giving advantages to the leader of any class - and the problem with a slow zone is that this can still happen, you're generally going to end up randomly handing some degree of time handicap to some people at random depending how many times people pass through that slow zone. Add to that there are situations where an FCY doesn't necceasarily cut it if you need a long period with guaranteed zero traffic for course workers and there's still situations where you do need to go SC.
I think what i would go with is, for long situations that do need an SC, a similar system to the one in the video but, to keep the incident area slow zone in place under the SC, and do the merge and passaround while the work is ongoing. From a racing perspective you still end up with the same single train, and from worker safety perspective you get the big working gap nice and quickly. Then, once the work is done you can just let them go because they're already stacked the way you want them like you want them.
However the biggest thing that set the shape of an odd race for me that we had a long green stretch before that first safety and the frontrunners weren't putting laps even on the midpack, that meant that when the safety cars did come out it all came back together. if you're only 45 seconds off the lead you can lose two minutes to a fuckup (like the red ferrari tyre choices in the early showers) but come back from it when the safety car appears. it's insane how narrow the performance range of the hypercar field is.
I really like this Le Mans I don't know why but I still enjoyed it even with the SC being there for so long.
I was there watching it live, and the only good thing about that crazy long safety cars was I went to sleep instead of being soaking wet watching the cars from trackside :)
They changed the safety car procedure last year and it really hurts the prestige of the race. Cars getting their lap back and closing the gaps between cars is effectivity a reset of the race. That makes the race only as long as the last full course yellow. The 3 hours of Le Mans is not nearly as impressive as the 24 Hours of Le Mans. But that's basically what we get now.
IMSA gonna IMSA.... Probably not what the ACO wanted but they made the deal with the devil & this is what they get.
@OsellaSquadraCorse Well the problems stem from NASCAR and unfortunately IMSA is owned by NASCAR. NASCAR truly is a plague among motorsports.
One thing you can't take out of an endurance race, the safety car. Shezz!!!!!
Remember 2011? McNish and Rockenfeller had massives crash so it was Fässler, Lotterer and Treluyer who were behind around a lap against three Peugeots with like 15h to go. There was also like 3h Saftey Car just after midnight and I feel like it was similar sprint race back then...
Yea we get it. The safety car was long. The only other option at that point was a red flag and they dont do that in Le Mans
I never thought I would agree 100% with an American on the matter of European racing. 😂Great valid points brought up there sir, well done.
I agree with the safety car rain issue. Let them race in the rain. They are supposed to be professional drivers. Also, bring back the local yellow.
my favourite part of lemans is that it turns into a 24h motorsport podcast, so that safety car, although it was very boring, its still fun.
the english commentators really accentuated the drama in the last stint, if lopez didn’t spin, he probably could’ve won…
At the very least, Lopez could have kept Ferrari honest and force them to do a splash and dash pitstop. Then it would have been close. But his spin gave Ferrari a near 50 second lead and they switched to saving fuel.
Full credit to Ferrari for this. They went from doing 12 lap stints to a 15 lapper to the finish.
At least the commentators didnt seem bored to death at the finish, like they were in 2023.
@@zx9mel a splash and go still loses you about 40 to 60 seconds because of the way pit-stops work in WEC. There was absolutely no way the 50 could have won if they had to do an extra pit
6:18 I like the idea the only issue I could see is if the slow zone ended up being on like a long straightaway. Something like that could really impact the outcome of a race.
The thing that i think was really lacking also this year was the hour updates, showing the time gaps, pit stops and what happened in the last hour. Other than the only thing was the lack of GT coverage, because it was a great race to watch
The N24 and LM24, while different orgs, both seemed to have a change in operations. As well as being oddly scared of running in tricky conditions.
There is a perfect case for the interruption to the N24. The whole track was too foggy, and then when the fog had shifted from the nordschleife, the GP Circuit still had too much fog to race safely.
If you want to see people die in racing, watch the Isle of Man TT
@@johannessamuelsson6578 We literally have the tech for slow zones and the N24 was an organizational shit show, need I mention the boxed trophies in the dark corner of the facilities lmao
@@johannessamuelsson6578 In FIA-sanctioned motorsport it's a fundamental part of Track Discipline that if marshals can't see the nearest marshal post in each direction, they MUST put out the red flag and only replace it with a green flag when they observe a green flag at an adjacent marshal point.
When a track goes green, the green flag starts at the start/finish line and spreads around the track quickly as each post sees the adjacent post showing a green flag.
The safety car laps on the Sunday afternoon should not have been run as there were lots of marshal posts on the GP-Strecke and even parts of the Nordschleife where the marshals would not have seen a green flag at either adjacent post.
The safety car procedure where they merge the 3 trains takes far too long and makes the racing artificial by closing up hard fought gaps. They should just go back to the old way of not bothering. There's no jeopardy any more
Agreed, they made safety cars way too convoluted and waste a ton of laps of racing by having a 4 step safety car where step 1 can't end until the reasons for the safety car are already over.
They could make it so much simpler. I get why they did it -- a very close GT battle was split up by a minute a few years back -- but they make some much more moderate changes, like specifying that any car within 1 minute of the class leader before the safety car who gets split off, gets to jump up by one safety car group.
Le Mans was the last of the prestigious endurance races which really was won by your pace over the full distance --every other endurance race (Bathurst, Sebring, Daytona, etc) are now about staying in contention for the end, with the safety car frequency being so high that a decently fast car will never fall a lap behind so long as they are reliable.
In my opinion get rid of SC. Just do a FCY everytime. Gaps are preserved so no unfairness and you can go back to racing much faster.
Well no - the merging actually makes the racing more fair. Last year you had 3 safety cars which could loose a team 1 min 30 just because they didn't cross the SC line 400m ahead of them whilst the car they were chasing did and hence ended up 1/3 of the track length behind them when the race resumed. I think the merging is actually a good thing if we're just talking about that aspect of the SC.
@@LiminalThoughts This is impossible. With FCY there are zero gaps in the field. Marshals can't do cleanup work in the middle of the track if there are cars driving by, even at "only" 80 km/h. They need big gaps for some of the cleanup work.
Le Mans has been a 24 hour sprint for a some time. Now we just have more cars which can keep up. This year (and last to some extent) did feel like a '24 hour formula ford race' with the way the drivers were racing hard like it was a '24 hour last lap' - usually we get a couple of hours of close racing before things settle down into an endurance race. This year, there was no settling down.
As for the stewards decisions - I know some of them had consequence, but they did feel consistent with what we have seen before earlier in the race and previous WEC rounds - for example, at Spa, the #99 Porsche had open door when they were leading. Race control gave them a few laps to try and fix it before calling them into the pits - same as what the did with the #50.
The 5 sec extra pit stop for the collision with the #8 Toyota was consistent with the penality for the #4 Porsche when it hit the Iron dames earlier in the race.
I don't believe its right to look at a result and then say 'that penality given earlier wasn't enough then' in hindsight.
No camero thats what made it feel different tbh
Yeah, this year was a good one. I was constantly checking and trying to find different streams to watch it on because it was so good. You will go to sleep and immediately wake up and check the results to see what happened.
24h of Spa also had a rather long safety car due to rain (it came out for a wreck in the first place if i remember correctly) as soon as the rain become less heavy, green straight away!
Alpine retiring from the race with both cars highlights just what an incredible job Ferrari did last year when they won the Le Mans 24h on first try after only like 7-8 months of development work on the 499P. That's an absolutely fantastic achievement. And winning it twice in a row against tough competition is an even more amazing achievement.
Headlights and other car tech has improved so much, even the rear view mirrors have AR arrows over the cars behind you so i dont get pausing races because of weather. I understand why they do it at Nurburg because that track is genuinley dangerous but lemans is mostly flat and wide and public roads. Rain shouldnt have stopped that race.
I mean, there were some drivers complaining about Aquaplaning/having no grip even at safety car speeds during the long SC period. I honestly think that had they not send out the SC during that rain, there would have been crashes leading to a SC having to be deployed eventually. Could they have gone back to green flag racing earlier? Maybe, I am by no means an expert, but I think that the SC at least during the heaviest rain was quite warrented
It's very dark you can't judge by your seat or on television........high speed cars in zero visibility is not like you driving down the highway....
It was good if you like safety cars, Ferrari, and hate every class that isn’t the hyper cars. No one can convince me Ferrari didn’t have their number 2 car spin the Toyota on purpose, and the penalty for it was a joke.
I gave up on watching WEC when they basically decided to nerf Toyota so hard that they basically have no chances of winning anymore, despite their team having the most competitive hypercar if BoP is ignored.
I was there in person, and yes, the safety car procedure were really long, and they definitely need to do something to shorten them up. The commentators on radio Lemans a couple times, said that it was raining heavily or raining cats and dogs, and I don’t believe that it was Where I was ever sitting, was raining that hard, sometimes the rain was light and misty and sometimes it was just a tad bit harder, but all in all it was not “heavy “rain like a downpour or a thunderstorm. Maybe it did do that a little bit of the Porsche curves when I wasn’t standing there.
You're acting like where you're standing means you understand how driving a race car in the dark and heavy rain would feel?? Terrible comment.....
That Lamborghini SC63 is going to be dangerous next year
Really strong showing from the mustangs here despite being at a BOP disadvantage. Looking forward to them winning next year hopefully.
It was like watching Wacky Races with the lead constantly changing it removed the usual suspense, and made me question if I should just tune in for the last hour or so.
I remain against safety cars for weather. It's just there to protect rich people from losing their toys - but the weather is part of the race, build the car appropriately. They are gladiators so let them gladiate and any driver who can't hack it should swap out for someone who can.
You clearly have no clue.
@@irfuel about? Wet weather racing? I've done it at entry level formula - but more importantly I'm old enough to remember F1 races in typhoon conditions. Sure it was dangerous, but they're supposed to be the best in the world so do the damned job you elected to do for a living and race.
You clearly have no clue.
@@pearofgeeksii8156 Ah the boomers are here. "BACK IN THE DAY PEOPLE DIED AT THE TRACK!" "THESE SISSIES ARE NO REAL RACE DRIVERS!".
Keep on yelling from the couch, grandpa.
@@irfuel *rolls eyes* Grandma, gen X, and yeah - you're there to put on a show not sit in a traffic jam for millions spectators. If that means designing cars/tracks differently to do the job so that they can run in the wet so be it - but if you create a formula that cannot run in the wet you've done fucked up and mocking people who want to watch a race and branding them as boomers and throwing around government safety leaflets doesn't make you smarter - it means you endorse watching paint dry as a spectator sport.
Ah, the Nico Lapierre wet-weather approach! "Stop crashing our car Nico, or you're fired"
*crashes car* "Okay, don't say we didn't warn you!"
This year, it was more about visibility than weather alone; but having watched many years of LM, including 1995 and 2001, some SC was justifiable here I think; but there was absolutely no need to keep that going when daylight broke.
They can't justify it being for visibility and then keep the SC going on and on and on into the daylight.
Safety car procedures need to be simplified. 200% agree. It's a charade, the way it's done now.
The Nordschleife no safety car but slow down zones idea is a no brainer.
Hope to see that in '25.
this race was the 24-hours of hypercar because the other classes had little to no coverage.
One way it did feel different was proof that Ferrari International Assistance doesn't just apply to Ferrari in F1 but WEC as well.
F1 has the Virtual Safety Car. There's a precedent!
A problem I see with a localized slow zone for barrier repairs is when two cars are battling for position as they come to the slow zone. The car in front slams their brakes as late as it can in order to defend its position while complying with the speed limit. However, the car behind can never react instantaneously to such an action and might crash into the car in front, putting all the unprotected vehicles and marshals repairing the barriers in huge danger.
Easy workaround. Code60 starts in a corner.
They brake for the corner but only accelerate to 60. Problem solved.
Their would be long Code60 Areas but better than 7 hours of saefty car and of course saefty first.
@@muhmonsta Did you miss last years' race? That is exactly what they did but it still resulted in a 4/5 car pileup, taking 3 cars (inc Kobayashi) out of the race because of amateurish driving. I think the problem here is not the zones or their placement, it's Le Mans not having a strict enough dis/qualification process.
The N24H has a similar system (in fact Le Mans copied it with an initial sim test requirement a few years back) but despite much larger disparity in cars and MUCH 'lesser' quality of drivers, the discipline is far better at the Nurburgring and also in SuperGT - yet we see that drivers in WEC and F1 (e.g. Bianchi) can't be trusted to be resonable and cause accidents that the organisers think they have systemically removed, but the drivers still screw things up.
Le Mans/ACO needs to be more thorough in their licensing requirements for Le Mans and then they don't need to change the slow-zone system.
I had the good fortune of being at Le Mans this year, and also last year for the centenary. From a spectators viewpoint, this year was pretty bad, in terms of crowd management. The layout of the spectator areas was really poor, with crowds being herded around like sheep through various bottlenecks and forced to queue for ages in a dense crowd to go over newly constructed footbridges over access roads etc, whereas last year, you could just walk across the road at pedestrian crossings. There was the legendary "Piss-Tree"; a small weeping willow that became the main urinal for tens of thousands of blokes (yes, it stank) because there simply weren't enough toilets. The queues for all the toilets were insane.
One main difference between this year and last year, is that, in the early hours of the morning, the main grandstands and seating areas are 90% empty as people have gone to bed etc, but there are still thousands of diehard fans/spectators that stay up through the night in solidarity with the drivers/teams. Last year, if the seating areas were empty you could go and sit up in the grandstands if you didn't have a ticket for a seat, which was great, especially around 2-4 in the morning. This year, they stopped that with a very firm "NO!", so even though the grandstand was empty, and there were loads of fans happy to stay up through the night, they were turned away. This was especially bad IMO as it rained very heavily and the roofed grandstand/seating stands offered shelter, so many people called it a day and left because we were getting soaked through to the bone.
However, believe me, these are minor moans really. On the whole it's a fantastic experience and we adapt to what's thrown at us; Piss-Tree being the perfect metaphor. Even though the stands were off limits to none seat-ticket holders (fair enough, but a bit "meh" at 3am in the pouring rain), it was a real adventure and all around the north and west side of the track there are amazing views.
In regard to the actual racing, yes, it was different; it was exciting and kept you on the edge of your seat, there were no clear favourites out of all the hyper-cars. Let's not ignore the P2 and GTE classes either, in fact, I got quite into the P2 / Oreca07 cars this time, and the GTE cars are classy as hell.
But for me, it was all about the hyper cars, and no amount of rain or overcrowded toilets can overshadow what was an amazing weekend.
The best part of the track at night is anyways Arnage and not the grandstand ;-)
Not even just Le Mans, I’ve been a little disappointed all season with how it feels like race control has been the decisive factor in quite a few races
For those at the track, how good was RLM?
From my comfy chair in a nice warm house, it was as ever, great coverage but not sure how well it translated to the track, but the RLM crew were picking up on things the TV crews missed.
Iron Dames are rapidly showing they are there on pace and merit and are adapting well to hypercar. Some of the moves those girls pulled off were absolutely amazing. I was skeptical when they went up to hypercar, but I am very, very impressed with how it's going
Iron Dames run a GT3 Lambourghini, Iron Lynx is the rest of the organisation that runs the other Lambo's with the prototypes effectively being run by Prema (which Iron Lynx owes). The Iron Dames crew are not involved with the prototype, at least yet.
Where did you see Iron Dames running a hypercar????
You're right. My bad on getting the Dames and Lynx mixed up for some reason I thought the Iron Dames were in the Lambo hypercar, sorry
The first safetycar was not long because of the new safetycar procedure, but because of barrier repairs and cleanup...
There should be three official streams, where each one focuses primarily on a different racing class. They could all cut to the same interviews during downtime, so its not completely different.
I think the safety car procedure is definitely better than last year but still something to improve. I actually don't like that it is only one safety car (and not three of them), but it seems the ACO wants this to create a more exciting end phase of the race where more cars are on the lead lap.
For your idea of going FCY - SZ - FCY for barrier repairs I think there is an argument against it: Barrier repair crews can work without any passing cars for around 7 minutes each lap when a safety car is involved. If you "only" have a slow zone, there will be a more or less constant stream of cars passing by. This can pose an additional danger to track marshals and I can understand why race control wants to avoid this.
This was genuinely my first Le Mans, so I had zero idea what I was going into as a NASCAR fan.
Best race of my life, and a great father's day gift from me to my father.
About the safety car procedure: I understand the format you suggest but that would mean that going a lap down is a race ender, more so with the close field. I think it gives opportunity for those a lap back to catch up with the queue
That’s true, but also something that some may not consider a bad thing. The finishes definitely wouldn’t be as close but it would reward the teams with the most consistency over the entire race.
@@GTRain what might be a better balance would be:
1. Safety Car B and Safety Car C to close up to smaller gaps behind the Safety Car A queue while still under control and before the track is fully cleared. They should be about 1/6 of a lap behind each other, not 1/3, allowing them to all pull off at the same time rather than merging the queues.
2. Cars in front of their class leader in the same queue should be released to join the queue ahead if they are behind SCB or SCC, and about a minute before the restart if they are behind SCA. The practice of giving them a full lap back should be abandoned as it is falsifying the race.
3. Allow the three safety cars to pull off instantaneously when they are at any three consecutive exit locations (locations would be Pit In, Tetre Rouge, Chicane 1, Chicane 2, Mulsanne, Arnage, Porsche In) instead of waiting until SCA gets all the way around to Pit In. The safety cars can return to their deployment positions by a combination of making their way along the track behind the third group of cars (the current safety car is the Porsche 911 (992) GT2 Manthey, which is faster on a straight than a GT3 race car) and using internal roads.
I don't get the safety car during the rain. I thought the purpose of Lemans was to be the ultimate driving competition, the ability to keep your car on the track for 24 hours regardless of the conditions. I wonder how much pressure the owners of the cars, now costing over a million dollars, put on the stewards to slow the race down to keep their expensive hypercars safe.
I doubt cost is really a factor, we had Safety Cars for heavy rain in the past as well.
@@Maenfy So why not just make all the cars pit.
@@johnharris6655 I'm not sure how that would be any better than a Safety Car to be honest.
You failed to mention that under the safety car, Ferrari was able to pit and get the green light for release instead of being held to the next group because the B group had more cars, so they were not affected by it
Isotta Fraschini uses a PU provided by HWA. These are the guys who developed and managed the whole Merc DTM program and they also build the AMG GT race cars. So I guess that's where the realibility comes from.
HWA = AMG, before Mercedes bought the name from them. A=(Hans-Werner) Aufrecht in both cases, the legend behind both.
It did have its downfalls this year but compared to previous years it was still brilliant!
I'm of the opinion that if the track is clear they should allow the cars to race, regardless of the weather. Let the drivers determine their own pace.
Yea we needed that garage 56 car
Had a fantastic 11 days at the Sarthe this year, the BOP this time was the most accurate it's ever been I think.
FCY into local slow zone into FCY to finish would I'm sure work from the point of view of both safety and keeping the racing action.
On site what many spectators do is use a short safety car period for a break for food/drink/toilet.
Going to be great to see Aston in the top class next year, but I'm suspecting Peugeot to pull the plug the back end.
GT3 and LMP2 were also close run affairs, rejoined as an ACO member at the circuit to guarantee 2 tickets for next year's race, hotel already booked as well.
The World's greatest motor race is most definitely not the Indy 500.😉
the safety car period was fine, that late night/early morning racing is usually feels so tame these days anyways. it was interesting to see teams make mistakes, exhausted after 12 hours of hard running but still required to perfectly follow the rules, but not something you could really "watch"
I kind of like the fact that there was a lot of safety since it gave me some time to sleep
I'm just glad the GT3s were fast enough to go sub 4 min. Barely fast enough, but fast enough regardless.
Good video, I just have one question:
Why is the Ferrari 296 GT3 not competitive this year? They have been off the pace in almost every race.
To me it felt the same, no video/love coverage of GT class.
It felt less like racing more like just a racing simulation.
I liked your proposal. Take the Slow Zones from Nürburgring and this is going to be much better for the viewer already. 👌
this was my first Le Mans 24 and it was fun but I fell asleep by accident under that 4 hour safety car 😭 (since I live in America it was 5am and I had been up watching the whole race up until that point )
The safety car was on track longer than both the Alpines 😅
It's good that the WEC has playground on their decisions. Much more enjoyable.
Tbh i think the wec should put some way that lapped cars in class could discount a lap in their class leader It would add a little bit more spice to the race
That is the very opposite of adding spice to the race, if driving slowly and losing laps doesn't actually cost anything.
A better idea to add spice would be to direct lapped cars into the pits at their next arrival after 15:50 on the Sunday and classify their positions then, so the cars on their class lead lap can have a cleaner battle to the finish.
I was GLUED to this race, I'm a big prototype guy so GTP is a dream for me. Unfortunately though, most of the race it felt like a Ferrari win, Toyota gave them a big scare at points, but even with all the penalties and issues, Ferrari drove through the field multiple times. LMP2 seemed WAY out of it this year, just didn't seem nearly as competitive, and I rarely saw GTs, radio Le Mans did a great job of equal coverage, but the broadcast didn't really mention them.
Yeah, i agree with that fixing barrier procedure, they should copy what the Nurburgring 24 race director, at least at Le Mans which have a very long lap compared to other WEC circuit
I actually think Le Mans used to use slow zones, but they changed it to conform to the rest of the championship.
@@johannessamuelsson6578 yeah, i think they need to make a special rules for Le Mans
I miss the factory supported GT3 cars (Corvette Racing, etc)
As a newcomer, it was awesome. I am hooked and it is specifically because of LMH, not LMGT3.
The 24 Hours of Le Safety Car.
Needed more GT coverage 🤙
Not me clapping at the IF guys at 1:09
We definitely don't want it devolving into the shit show that is F1, the pinnacle of motorsports 🙄