2019 Le Mans 24 Hours: Preview, Live Streams, Schedules and Discussion
- Thread starter CodeRedR51
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- Houston, Texas, USA
- JMarine25
Post 2019 Le Mans musings of mine. Set me straight on anything I get wrong...
* Twenty years ago, the Toyota GT-One, one of my all-time favorite race cars, was on its way to winning Le Mans outright... until some tire failures ended up denying the outright Le Mans win for Toyota, and BMW would take the 1999 outright win at Le Mans. Twenty years later, Toyota not only wins Le Mans outright, they now done it in successive Le Mans. So all congratulations to Toyota on winning Le Mans again. Don't downplay it just because there was no Porsche or Audi on the top level of prototype racing- a win is a win. Congratulations also on the tandem of ex-F1 racers that made it happen: Kazuki Nakajima, Sébastien Buemi, and Fernando Alonso.
* I'm proud for Sigmatech Alpine Matmut on the LMP2 class win. I think they won not only in class at Le Mans, but they also claimed World Championship honors in the FIA WEC Endurance Trophy. The Endurance Trophy honors went to Andre Negrao and Pierre Thiriet.
* Though I've been more a Porsche fan of recent years than a Ferrari fan, I'm still a Ferrari lover. So I'm still proud of the AF Corse team knocking down the GTE Pro class win. However, I think I read on Twitter the GTE-Pro World Champions are the likes of Michael Christensen and Kevin Estre.
* There were quite a few Ford GTs with great looking liveries. Well, GTE Am saw purple and orange claim class victory with the Keating Motorsport Wynn's Ford GT.
* I want to congratulate Corvette Racing on a great job with the C7.R heading into its retirement. I mentioned 20 years ago; well, Corvette Racing has been around for that long. What this team has accomplished in two decades is nothing short of amazing.
* I didn't see all of it, but I saw a video from Autosport's YouTube channel describing the upcoming racing class for hypercars. I can only imagine how these hypercars will do in races like Le Mans in the future. I think I heard Aston Martin and Toyota looking to join this new class.
* When I checked around on Instagram, a cool story is that Strakka Racing's official Instagram page Followed me this weekend and "liked" some of my pictures!
As always, I have been impressed and amused in how the 2019 24 Hours Le Mans shaped up. I have always been a sportscar racing fan and have always loved the mystique and intrigue of Le Mans. Things are no different no matter what teams and drivers and cars take on this classic racing event. I sure hope I can follow the next 24 Hours of Le Mans as much as I've been following Le Mans about every year since 2001.
Congratulations to all drivers and teams regardless of their finishing order (and if they finished).
* Twenty years ago, the Toyota GT-One, one of my all-time favorite race cars, was on its way to winning Le Mans outright... until some tire failures ended up denying the outright Le Mans win for Toyota, and BMW would take the 1999 outright win at Le Mans. Twenty years later, Toyota not only wins Le Mans outright, they now done it in successive Le Mans. So all congratulations to Toyota on winning Le Mans again. Don't downplay it just because there was no Porsche or Audi on the top level of prototype racing- a win is a win. Congratulations also on the tandem of ex-F1 racers that made it happen: Kazuki Nakajima, Sébastien Buemi, and Fernando Alonso.
* I'm proud for Sigmatech Alpine Matmut on the LMP2 class win. I think they won not only in class at Le Mans, but they also claimed World Championship honors in the FIA WEC Endurance Trophy. The Endurance Trophy honors went to Andre Negrao and Pierre Thiriet.
* Though I've been more a Porsche fan of recent years than a Ferrari fan, I'm still a Ferrari lover. So I'm still proud of the AF Corse team knocking down the GTE Pro class win. However, I think I read on Twitter the GTE-Pro World Champions are the likes of Michael Christensen and Kevin Estre.
* There were quite a few Ford GTs with great looking liveries. Well, GTE Am saw purple and orange claim class victory with the Keating Motorsport Wynn's Ford GT.
* I want to congratulate Corvette Racing on a great job with the C7.R heading into its retirement. I mentioned 20 years ago; well, Corvette Racing has been around for that long. What this team has accomplished in two decades is nothing short of amazing.
* I didn't see all of it, but I saw a video from Autosport's YouTube channel describing the upcoming racing class for hypercars. I can only imagine how these hypercars will do in races like Le Mans in the future. I think I heard Aston Martin and Toyota looking to join this new class.
* When I checked around on Instagram, a cool story is that Strakka Racing's official Instagram page Followed me this weekend and "liked" some of my pictures!
As always, I have been impressed and amused in how the 2019 24 Hours Le Mans shaped up. I have always been a sportscar racing fan and have always loved the mystique and intrigue of Le Mans. Things are no different no matter what teams and drivers and cars take on this classic racing event. I sure hope I can follow the next 24 Hours of Le Mans as much as I've been following Le Mans about every year since 2001.
Congratulations to all drivers and teams regardless of their finishing order (and if they finished).
AMPMROCKETFANN
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- AMPMROCKETFANN
Congrats to Toyota again, as well as Keating-Ford. Gutted for Corvette there. Guess the C8.R is legit and its gonna be a monster lol
- 7,222
- beyond down under
- Skython11
I watched almost 9 hours of racing yesterday hoping to see Alpine get to the LMP2 lead before I had to go to work. I leave and within 10 minutes it happens... Typical. Though I did get a sudden burst of enthusiasm for existing when I saw the live timing a few hours later. 
I don't agree with this. It's not Toyota's fault that the other manufacturers left, but it still makes their two wins shallow as, to this point, they have only proven that they can be reliable when they are not being pressured. Being pressured can make all the difference to the reliability though.
They had their chances to win against real competition, but they didn't. They'll have another chance to do so in two years.
The whole EoT stuff was a farce once again unfortunately. I was in favor of the idea at the start of the WEC season, but in hindsight, it would have been more honest to just leave Toyota as only contenders in LMP1 and let the privateers run in LMP2.
Tired Tyres
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- Tired Tyres
They should just let all LMP1 teams have the same fuel tank and same refill rate and no limit on stint length on laps. Toyota would still have the advantage of hybrid and if that isn't good enough for them they shouldn't even be there.
- 9,054
- Murica
- BasedAckbar
Shallow? The competition this time was much closer than last year. Being 6 laps down instead of 13? 6 laps actually isn't much of a gap with the speeds today's cars can do. And 6 laps in overall history of the race, isn't much at all.
People really forget that Le Mans early 2000s was an Audi fest. The Audis finished literally 21 laps ahead of the first non factory squad at Le Mans 2000. The following year they finished 15 laps ahead of the Bentleys, which were rebodied R8s doing development work that race essentially. It was 23 laps to the first non Audi family team.
If anything i'm surprised EoT nearly balanced the whole thing. The one thing that really bit privateers again were their reliability and incidents, and that's something no amount of ACO regulating will help.
- 5,484
- Alabamistan
Trust me, I have not forgotten those times and those Audi wins I find equally "shallow". I remember how the Audi guys tried to explain how serious they have to take Panoz as competition - the car people had laughed about before. Those times were terrible for Le Mans and felt very similar to today. I'm looking forward to 2021.
Whether it's 13 laps or 6, it doesn't change the fact that there never was a need to push for Toyota. Starting with Q3 where they practiced long runs while everybody who didn't encounter problems improved on their lap times. We don't know how fast Toyota could have gone if they had to push and how reliable their car would have been in that situation. In the past, it lead them to making mistakes and having technical problems.
They were in an actual fight and therefore made mistakes. Also, they are, well, privateers.
I understand that the ACO doesn't want to regulate the LMP1 class into a level playing field between manufacturer and privateers as they depend on that last manufacturer. But then they shouldn't pretend that they want to have a real fight, just let the Toyotas run in their class alone.
- 6,259
- Tecumseh, MI
- I_Fail_At_FPS
68 Ford GT has been disqualified from the race for a fuel capacity infringement according to SC365.
https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/no-68-ford-disqualified-for-fuel-infringement
https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/no-68-ford-disqualified-for-fuel-infringement
Keating motorsport class winners also demoted to second for fuel speed infringement too http://www.dailysportscar.com/2019/...d-loses-gte-am-win-to-fuelling-rig-issue.html
Losing a Auto entry to next year’s race in this penalty too
Losing a Auto entry to next year’s race in this penalty too
- 94
- Finland
Now the #85 Ford has been disqualified entirely after a second stewards' decision.
https://www.motorsport.com/lemans/news/keating-ford-penalised-loses-win/4476619/
- 5,484
- Alabamistan
Yeah you would think that if they were unable to do the calibration check on one car, they didn't do it on any of the 4.
I don't really like this watching a race and thinking you know the results only to find out days later they have changed. How long do they have to certify the results? Is it 24 hours, or a few days?
01GTP
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Well that sucks. I said it for Ben.
https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/keating-responds-to-le-mans-disqualification/
https://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/keating-responds-to-le-mans-disqualification/
- 9,054
- Murica
- BasedAckbar
Good on Ben for owning up to it. 👍
Oh and shout out to AER for actually not grenading and beating the Gibson powered Rebellions.
Oh and shout out to AER for actually not grenading and beating the Gibson powered Rebellions.
AMPMROCKETFANN
(Banned)
- 2,284
- MARYLAND fo sho
- AMPMROCKETFANN
That absolutely sucks for the Keating-Ford team. Hope they still keep running the car regardless
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- US
Well I thoroughly enjoyed Le Mans 2019, even though my Corvettes didn't come out on top. I couldn't believe it when the #63 got stuck behind the safety car only to then lose it in a spin on the restart, and all that after the #64 was knocked out. Ah well, here's to the future and the C8.R.
Some random thoughts: this was the closest I've followed a Le Mans 24 - the more I learn about its history the more it gives me goosebumps! I watched most of the race except for getting some sleep around the dawn hours (track time) and then I actually did a 10 mile run finishing at the same time (unplanned) as Le Mans. It was pretty special to be finishing my longest distance run while the boys and girls were finishing 24 hours. I watched the last few hours on DVR. What drama! I'm really disliking the safety car protocol as it obviously bit the Corvette badly. I really liked how the full course yellow worked and hope they use that more in the future.
On the whole, I enjoyed Motortrend's coverage. Commercials were spaced out and the commentary was pretty good, if not a little out there at times - but what do you expect over 24 hours?
The "classroom" segments were kind of hit and miss. Sometimes they were useful but mostly they just got in the way of the actual racing going on. The last one was especially frustrating. About an hour from the finish and here they come to spend 10 minutes talking about sensors and punctures and how the driver would feel about it. Meanwhile the #7 is actually dealing with said issues live on the track and we missed that chunk of time before going to commercial. C'mon man!
I do feel for the #7 team as they were the class of the field but when it's all said and done, Toyota got 2 Le Mans victories back to back out of it, albeit with no competition. I can't wait for the hypercars to get here in 2020. Does anyone else feel like 2019-2020 will be a real lame duck season (at least for LMP1)? They've got to make a real attempt at BoP for the class or else it's a total joke. Might as well just separate it to Toyota as that's all it amounts to right now.
I'm gutted for Corvette's bad luck and for the #85 Keating GT being DQ'd. It's too bad to see Ford and BMW go from GTE-Pro, as it's always best to beat all of your competition. Still, I'm looking forward to the C8.R and getting more info on the hypercars!
I didn't even realize there could be a prototype-based entry under the hypercar regulations. Imagine if Chevy, Ford, Porsche, and Ferrari all go in on hypercars..... I know it's not all that likely but it sure would be amazing!!!
Some random thoughts: this was the closest I've followed a Le Mans 24 - the more I learn about its history the more it gives me goosebumps! I watched most of the race except for getting some sleep around the dawn hours (track time) and then I actually did a 10 mile run finishing at the same time (unplanned) as Le Mans. It was pretty special to be finishing my longest distance run while the boys and girls were finishing 24 hours. I watched the last few hours on DVR. What drama! I'm really disliking the safety car protocol as it obviously bit the Corvette badly. I really liked how the full course yellow worked and hope they use that more in the future.
On the whole, I enjoyed Motortrend's coverage. Commercials were spaced out and the commentary was pretty good, if not a little out there at times - but what do you expect over 24 hours?
The "classroom" segments were kind of hit and miss. Sometimes they were useful but mostly they just got in the way of the actual racing going on. The last one was especially frustrating. About an hour from the finish and here they come to spend 10 minutes talking about sensors and punctures and how the driver would feel about it. Meanwhile the #7 is actually dealing with said issues live on the track and we missed that chunk of time before going to commercial. C'mon man!
I do feel for the #7 team as they were the class of the field but when it's all said and done, Toyota got 2 Le Mans victories back to back out of it, albeit with no competition. I can't wait for the hypercars to get here in 2020. Does anyone else feel like 2019-2020 will be a real lame duck season (at least for LMP1)? They've got to make a real attempt at BoP for the class or else it's a total joke. Might as well just separate it to Toyota as that's all it amounts to right now.
I'm gutted for Corvette's bad luck and for the #85 Keating GT being DQ'd. It's too bad to see Ford and BMW go from GTE-Pro, as it's always best to beat all of your competition. Still, I'm looking forward to the C8.R and getting more info on the hypercars!
I didn't even realize there could be a prototype-based entry under the hypercar regulations. Imagine if Chevy, Ford, Porsche, and Ferrari all go in on hypercars..... I know it's not all that likely but it sure would be amazing!!!
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