denouement

Well one of Audi's diesel-powered R10 won the 24 Hours of Le Mans as expected, making a little history as it does so by being the first diesel to win the overall race. The French Pescarolo car finished 2nd, and the other Audi R10 managed to take 3rd despite some bad luck early on that dropped it back in the pack.

The more exciting battle was in GT1 class however, where the Aston Martins and Corvettes duked it out over the full 24 hours, trading lead position back and forth. They ran at nearly the same pace the whole time, but when the lead Corvette had to pit for a mechanical problem the 009 Aston took the lead by about a lap, and maintained it through the night. I went to bed thinking that Aston Martin had a win in their hands, but that was not to be ... with only a handful of hours remaining in the race, the 009 car had to pit for clutch problems and the 64 Corvette took the lead, and the eventual win. The 007 Aston finished 2nd in GT1 class. The most impressive part for me was that the 64 Corvette finished 4th overall and the 007 Aston finished 6th -- well ahead of many other cars in the faster LMP1 and LMP2 classes.

All in all a very good race to watch. One of the more spectacular incidents of the race was when a tire exploded on an LMP car, ripping the rear bodywork off the chassis and causing a spin into a barrier, which resulted in more bodywork coming off and a small fire. Check out the footage from SpeedTV here:

http://www.autoblog.com/2006/06/19/video-paul-belmondo-racing-courage-c65-tire-explosion-at-le-man/