24 Hours of Le Mans - ALMS Fan Blog 1
Written by Scott Keller · June 14, 2008
The first three hours of the 24 Hours Of Le Mans are in the books. The big story of the weekend is the Peuguot/Audio battle in LMP1, but the Corvette, and Risi Competizione boys from the American Le Mans Series are also trying to make some history.
We’ve got a primer and some links for the first three hours to catch you up.
Under typically cloudy skies, the start of the 24 Hours yielded no major surprises. The ultra-quick Peugeots started 1-2-3 at the front with three Audis giving chase. Alan McNish tried to split the second and third Peugeots right away and actually took the position for several corners, but the Puegeots are just dominant in terms of performance and quickly they were 1-2-3 again. The Audis are going to have to win on strategy and reliability, but they just don’t have the speed.
In GT1, the #63 Corvette team from the American Le Mans Series started first and looks solid to fight for the class win. However, at the three hour mark, the #009 Aston Martin is now leading. This looks to be a battle to watch for the next few hours. Oh wait…..I just remembered that we won’t be able to watch, because folks in the United States will be blacked out so Speed TV can provide wall-to-wall coverage of NASCAR practice. My mistake.
In GT2 Mika Salo is making ALMS fans proud in the Risi Competizione Ferrari by leading the GT2 class. However the Flying Lizards suffered an incident with Patrick Long in the IMSA Performance Porsche. Lemans.org reports:
#80 Flying Lizard Motorsports, Porsche 911 GT3 RSR Bergmeister van Overbeek Neiman has gone off at Indianapolis damaging the front and probably the radiators. The other car involved was the #76 Imsa Performance Matmut, Porsche 911 GT3 RSR which lost its front wheel. They were leading the class at the time.
It seems like the #80 will continue, but two-time winner, Long, is done for the race.
Speed TV’s live coverage of the 24 Hours resumes at 9PM ET after nine hours of Boogity-Boogity NASCAR coverage.
Here’s a round-up of links for the first few hours of the race.
Lemans.org: Summary of first two hours
AFP News: Peugeot on front as Le Mans 24 gets underway
Crash.net: Le Mans 24 Hours is go!
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Scott I tuned into Radio Le Man around the half way mark, it was raining & the Pugs had been leading the race. As I turned off the computer & went out, my last thought was….I wonder how the Audi’s will go in the wet.
Wow, that’s now eight victories for Tom K.