Not bad for Aston

Despite the wonderful weather that Sudbury was enjoying over the week end most of my time was spent keeping an eye on the Le Mans 24h race.

For me this was going to be an interesting year, Pescarolo on the front row ahead of the Audi R8’s, yep that’s right ahead of them. Plus the biggest news since the return of Bentley; the return of Aston Martin in the GT1 class with two Pro-Drive prepared DBR9’s.

The first few hours were looking great for both Pescarolo and Aston with the bookies class leading favorites; Audi and Corvette, settling for second place. But the race would soon change, stop/go penatilties for the lead Aston and gearbox trouble on the Pescarolo put the thoughts of wins to the back of the mind. Some serious racing during the night and early hours put both teams back in the running until it all turned sour.

Sorry but I’m not going to re-trace the whole race but let just sum it up:

• vroom
• vroom
• puncture
• more gear box problems
• another puncture
• vroom
• vroom
• leaking Aston
• Aston in pits
• Aston out of fuel
• vroom
• whoops lost it
• look out tire wall
• ouch Pescarolo out
• Aston out of pits
• puncture, again!
• not looking good
• just be proud you finished!

All in a very good race and if only both teams can sort out the teething problems and increase the realibility then it could be interesting next year, except Audi will be bringing the new R8…