Le Mans: The race has started, two Ferrari hypercars are in the lead

Even if you watch what happens at Le Mans not from the stands of the classic French circuit, where the 24-hour race is being held for the 92nd time, but from television screens or computer screens, you can still appreciate the scale and scope of the events to feel. this real holiday of motorsport.

Last year it attracted 325 thousand fans, which was a record, but according to them it will be broken in 2024.

At around 4 p.m. Paris time, the cars of the three WEC classes went to the so-called reconnaissance lap, i.e. “preliminary lap”, also translated as “reconnaissance lap”, behind the safety car, the role of which in Le Mans is fulfilled by a Porsche sports car .

It is symbolic in its own way that the Porsche Penske factory team crew won qualifying, and their hypercar, model 963, took first place.

At exactly 4 p.m., the safety car turned into the pits, Zinedine Zidane waved the French flag, signaling the start of the 24-hour race, and the Porsche No. 6 hypercar retained first position, but the Ferrari No. 50, which started second. , immediately reached second place.

Nicklas Nielsen, who was ahead of the Cadillac factory team’s sports prototype, overtook the Porsche at the end of the lap and took the lead. Antonio Giovinazzi, driving the second factory Ferrari 499P, also wasted no time and was ahead of Sebastien Bourdais’ Cadillac a lap later to move into third place. And in the 13th minute of the race he reached 2nd position, calmly overtaking Laurent Vanthour, the Belgian Porsche driver, under braking.

So, after 15 minutes the race was led by a duo of Ferrari hypercars, which of course satisfied the fans of the Italian brand, although it is clear that Le Mans is a “long game”, and such a start to the race only confirmed but that Italian hypercars are capable of good pace.

By the way, not even half an hour had passed when Ferrari caught up to the tail of the pack and began to weave its way through the traffic, with a lap lead over the LMGT3 class cars.

For some marathon participants, the difficulties started already in the first laps: the BMW hypercar of the WRT team spun in the La Chapelle bend, but Marco Wittmann was able to return to the track after losing many positions, after which he went to the pits went. to change tires, although it is clear that there was an unplanned pit stop.

In general, Le Mans, as always, is also about unpleasant surprises, and success is achieved by those who can not only show the required speed, but also keep such surprises to a minimum.