Le Mans Series pictures

[Keeper of The Kitten]

Le Mans Series - final round - Silverstone 14-09-2008

I made the journey to Northants to see the final round of the hotly contested Le Mans Series, and to take pictures of course! Peugeot went into the race as series leaders, and took the front row of the grid, but accidents and unreliability proved their downfall and after 1000km (620 miles) of racing, Audi won the race and the series.

I'll start by showing pictures of the podium placed cars for each class.

First up, LMP1 and overall classification:

1st place, LMP1, 1st overall - Audi R10 TDI, Alan McNish and Rinaldo Capello:


2nd place, LMP1, 2nd overall - Lola Aston Martin, Stefan Mucke and Jan Charouz:


3rd place, LMP1, 3rd overall - Pescarolo Judd, Romain Dumas and Jean-Christophe Boullion:



LMP2:

1st place, LMP2, 5th overall - Porsche RS Spyder, Peter Van Merksteijn and Jos Verstappen:


2nd place, LMP2, 9th overall - Porsche RS Spyder, Fredy Lienhard, Didier Theys and Jan Lammers:


3rd place, LMP2, 10th overall - Lola AER, Miguel Amaral and Olivier Pla:



LMGT1:

1st place, LMGT1, 20th overall - Aston Martin DBR9, Antonio Garcia and Tomas Enge:


2nd place, LMGT1, 21st overall - Lamborghini, Roman Rusinov and Peter Kox:


3rd place, LMGT1, 22nd overall - Corvette C6R, Patrice Goueslard and Guillaume Moreau:

[Keeper of The Kitten]

LMGT2:

1st place, LMGT2, 26th overall - Ferrari F430 GT, Robert Bell and Jaime Melo:


2nd place, LMGT2, 27th overall - Porsche 997 GT3 RSR, Marc Lieb and Alex Davison:


3rd place, LMGT2, 28th overall - Ferrari F430 GT, Pierre Ehret, Pierre Kaffer and Anthony Beltoise:



Some of the action from Silverstone!



Peugeots leading into the first corner:

[Keeper of The Kitten]

Porsche LMP2 passes MG Lola LMP2 under braking for Abbey chicane:

[Keeper of The Kitten]

Pescarolo LMP1 passes Embassy LMP2 on power approaching Abbey chicane:






Number 2 Audi received a stop and go penalty:


Which dropped it out of the top 3 places:


But the number 1 Audi took the chequered flag after more than five and a half hours of racing:


I shot over 1200 pictures and 29 videos so there's still plenty to sort through!

[shark_90]

Bloody brilliant pictures!

[S2central.net]

Nice pics alright... Gotta say that some LMP cars are butt ugly - though the R10 looks well tasty. Can't help but admire the shape of that Aston or the Ferrari 430 - yumyum - different league.

[Keeper of The Kitten]

Thanks guys!

I'm very much a prototype person, real race cars! I had some involvement with three of the cars out there in the past, as the firm I worked for did parts of the R10 bodywork and we also did the chassis of the Creation AIM and the Embassy WF01.

I even saw an old friend behind the main grandstands, the closed top Audi we built for Le Mans 99, I don't think people there really thought this old hippy was involved in designing it!

[robert_n]

Wow, some awesome pictures there. It was a great day to be out watching racing. My friend and I even managed to sneak into the audi hospitality are for some free cake and drinks haha.

None of my pics would be worth posting after seeing your set.

[Keeper of The Kitten]

Ha, it was probably a bit too sunny for me! I got a touch of sunburn on the face, but it was worth it for a good day out.

I was borrowing a 70-300 lens from my photographic partner for this event (effectively at least a 450 for a crop size sensor DSLR), actually could have done with an even longer lens for some angles but it was good to have a real opportunity to do some panning again!

I'll edit some more pictures and see what sort of video quality I've got.

[Fat Audi 80]

AMAZING PICTURES!!!!

Nice one.

[Keeper of The Kitten]

Shucks, thank you! (Blushin')

[S2central.net]

KOTK - you are one skilled old hippy - with a long lens too it would seem

[s2driveruk]

Absolutely fantastic photo's, didnt manage to get up which i was pretty p**sed about to be honest but nice to see some action from these.

I love the LMP's too, though for the visual beauty of the R10.....it makes stuff all noise which is really cr*p. Courages always sound good and spit plenty of flame which looks good as the sun fades, porsches always sound great upshifting into tight corners and the Ferraris shrill high revs are great down a pit straight bouncing off the stands. For pure thunder, the 'vettes are staggeringly loud and i have a soft spot for them.

Looks like you had a good day out....roll on June 2009, I will be at Le Mans once more I hope and cant wait already

[Keeper of The Kitten]

You're too good to me!

More pics then...

Shot the first two here on my video camera, wide angle lens you see.
One of the Epsilon Euskadi Judds tangled with a GT2 Porsche, neither came off too well...


One of the Porsche drivers was Paul Daniels apparently - now that's not magic!


At least the other Epsilon Euskadi finished the race:



The Peugeot 908HDI FAP of Pedro Lamy and Stephane Sarrazin set the fastest lap, but that's the best they could achieve:


The Lola Mazda of Hideki Noda:


Spyker GT2 car held together with tank tape:


Creation AIM - the fender louvres appear to be detaching from the left front:


MG Lola at speed:


Embassy WF01 - this one driven by Darren Manning and Joey Foster - one of my old muckers, Warren Hughes, was in the other car:

[Keeper of The Kitten]

The cars return to the pitlane after 1000km of hard graft:



Alan McNish and Dindo Capello raise their trophies aloft:


...and then it's time for champagne!