Circuit de Soleil

For those of you who are not watching SpeedTV coverage, why not? You're missing a great race. The Audis have proved to be just too fast, too disciplined and too talented for the Peugeots. Through the night, the Audis ticked up their speeds, and just as dawn was approaching Allan McNish set a lap record 3:27. Clearly the team is saving the R10 if they can lay down a mark like that, practically at will. But the nearest Peugeot is only five laps behind. It's just a matter of whether Peugeot (Bourdais et al) can be perfect and whether Audi is, after much assertions to the contrary, human.

In LMP2, as of 6 a.m. local, it's the Americans in their Binnie Motorsports Lola/Zytek, which is six laps ahead of their nearest rival. Their night was as untroubled as that of any team in the race. The nail biter is the Aston Martin Works team, 007 and 009. Even after Olivier Gavin broke the No. 64 Corvette in the third hour of the race, the AMs can't shake the other Works Corvette. Johnny O'Connell drove all night, and as of now the car is within a lap of both AMs. This team has been to the altar more than Larry King. I hope Aston -- and Prodrive, which thought so much of the marque that it led a consortium to buy the company from Ford -- will finally win this thing.

But some teams, historically, are luckless at Le Mans. As an atheist and a rationalist, I don't believe in luck. Except at Le Mans, where I invoke pagan gods, chicken entrails and magic crystals to shape the future. Or is that just me? Also, the Luc Alphand team Corvette just set the fastest lap in GT1. Then the car had a small, inconsequential off.

In GT2, the Riso Competizione Ferrari F430 is keeping its distance from the Ferrari of the Scottish team, Scuderia Ecosse.

Here's a list of retirements after 12 hours: No. 3 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R10 TDI, crashed. No. 5 Swiss Spirit Lola Audi B07-10, electrics. No. 9 Creation Autosportif LTD Creation Judd CA07, broken differential. No. 21 Team Bruichladdich Radical Radical AER SR9, accident damage. No. 29 T2M Motorsport Dome Mader S101-5, overheating. No. 40 Quifel-ASM Team Lola AER B05-40, accident damage. No. 44 Kruse Motorsport Pescarolo Judd, blown engine. No. 53 JLOC Isao Noritake Lamborghini Murcielago, transmission failure. No. 64 Corvette Racing Corvette C6.R, transmission failure. No. 71 Seikel Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 RSR (997), broken starter motor. No. 80 Flying Lizard Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 RSR (997), broken gearbox. No. 81 Team LNT Panoz Esperante, engine problem. No. 82, Team LNT Panoz Esperante. A total of 13 retirements. This is twice the number of retirements as at this point last year, and it hasn't even begun to rain.

Comments

[Fred]

Some of don't have cable, so we rely on good coverage like this to give us a Le Mans fix. Great job!