Relive the thrilling 2013 24 Hours of Le Mans, where endurance, speed, and strategy pushed drivers and machines to their limits. From intense battles on the Mulsanne Straight to dramatic moments that defined the race, this edition remains a legendary chapter in motorsport history. Experience the full action of one of the most iconic endurance races ever.
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#LeMans2013
#24hLeMans
#EnduranceRacing
#MotorsportHistory
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SportsTranscript
00:00:00Sometimes at night
00:00:29When I look to the sky, I start thinking of you and then ask myself why.
00:00:38Why do I love you?
00:00:41I think and smile because I know the list could run on for miles.
00:00:59The whisper of your voice, the warmth of your touch, so many little things that make me
00:01:13love you so much.
00:01:16The way you support me and help with my emotions, the way that you care and show such devotion,
00:01:26the way that you kiss fills me with desire, and how you hold me with the warmth of blazing
00:01:38fire.
00:01:39The way you shine when you look at me, lost with you forever is where I want to be.
00:01:47The way that I feel when you are by my side, a sense of completion and overflowing pride.
00:01:56The dreams that I dream, that all involve you.
00:02:00The possibilities I see and the things we can do.
00:02:12How you finish the puzzle that lies inside my heart.
00:02:16How that, deep in my soul, you are the most important part.
00:02:21I could go on for days telling of what I feel, but all you really must know is my love for
00:02:28you is real.
00:02:30you is real.
00:37:33I'm gonna take the racing driver out of these boys.
00:37:34Toyota is fast across the line.
00:37:36Yeah.
00:37:37So.
00:37:38Andre Lottera.
00:37:39Again our timing screen has updated.
00:37:40Lottera's obviously got back in front.
00:37:41Lapierre in seconds.
00:37:42Was 0.4 behind him.
00:37:43That is the battle for the lead.
00:37:44So it has swapped back yet again.
00:37:47We saw the past.
00:37:49Did we not see the past?
00:37:50Maybe we didn't.
00:37:51Wow.
00:37:52This is looking like a 20 minute sprint race right now.
00:37:53Isn't it?
00:37:54like the start of a 24 hour race. If you just jumped into this coverage and had no idea what
00:37:58it was, you'd be pretty excited. You think it was a 10 lapper. We're certainly not seeing a
00:38:03processional at the moment. Well, fastest man on track is Nico Lapierre set the fastest lap from
00:38:08the rolling start and is faster again in the first sector than Alan McNish, than Andre Lotto rather
00:38:14right in front. In fact, Lotto's just pulled out a 10th on that last sector. And Lapierre has just
00:38:19done his fastest lap in that car and a 3.33.3. That's 0.02 of a second faster than Andre Lotto.
00:38:30We're still 10 seconds off qualifying times though. Which is... Yeah, the 7 car was 3.26.6 in
00:38:39qualifying at just an A. This is a wet track, remember, though. That's the difference. Danny
00:38:44Watson up to 18th. He started 36th after Nick Leventis failed to do enough qualifying to get a
00:38:52time for that for his part in the car. Danny Watson up to 18th place and he's right behind
00:38:57Tom Guthmiss at the moment. In fact, the Stratka car was sent to the back of the grid because
00:39:01Johnny Kane was outside the 110% rule because he crashed in the dry trying to get a fast qualifying
00:39:08lap. He'd done his nighttime laps. They'd all done their nighttime laps. But Johnny Kane had
00:39:12not lapped fast enough because his nighttime laps in the wet and there's the first casual
00:39:16team. And it's one of our five Aston Martins. And that is a huge wreck. That is my hot tip,
00:39:23I'm afraid, for victory in the M-Class. That's Alan Simonson. We will have a safety car.
00:39:28We have a safety car procedure.
00:39:31Ah, already. Safety car will bring the lead battle under control. This is the lead Audi,
00:39:35Andre Lotto, right in front of Nico Lapierre. And that looked to me... Was that at Moussang Corner?
00:39:41I couldn't really tell from the angle of the camera. That's too close to where these guys
00:39:46are. So maybe it was further back. I don't think it was Tertre Rouge. Safety cars are out. Three
00:39:52of them. There is the team. That is the all Danish Gulf Aston team. And they're calling out the
00:40:00medical and extraction cars as well. They will do because that's a big, big shot. I hope we'll get
00:40:05to see a replay of that because that was a really big accident. But it doesn't appear to have anyone
00:40:11else involved. So I'm guessing either something's broken in that car and he's gone off or he's just
00:40:16lost it in these difficult conditions. That's at Tertre Rouge. Yeah. Alan Simonson started the car. You saw Christian
00:40:22Poulsen, who won in the NMP2 class in a Porsche. And that's the end of it. Well, that's the rocky
00:40:28shunt, isn't it? He's just gone off at Tertre Rouge. Now, was there contact? He's far too good. You would
00:40:35expect to have dropped it three laps in. Well, there you go. I name checked the team
00:40:41and said hello to family and friends. And that was the curse of the commentator. I can only
00:40:48apologise, I'm afraid, to Gulf Aston Martin Racing. And that was a long way out in front
00:40:52as well in the NMP2 class at the moment. So we'll have to wait and see. Replay at the start
00:40:58then with Bill France waving the flag. Andre Lotter immediately took the lead and he's been out there
00:41:03ever since until we've now got this safety car situation. Well, I will do my best when I'm down
00:41:08in the pits to try and find out exactly what happened in that accident. I'm sure Alan Simonson
00:41:12is not going to be very interested in speaking, but hopefully we can understand what's happened
00:41:17in that accident a bit more. And this is the pass by Nick Lapier. How good is that? As they dive down
00:41:21into the forest S's. He just took the long way round. He then gobbles up the next car ahead of him,
00:41:25which is Alan McNish as they go into the second chicane. And Toyota starting to show their hand.
00:41:31And look at that, Sebastian Buemi, underwhelmed by the whole thing. Not loving this at all,
00:41:37is he? Because Toyota, after qualifying, really felt they were the underdogs and yet they are
00:41:43challenging. Both cars are challenging for the lead. Well, we saw this last year at the start
00:41:49of the race. Obviously, the conditions were a lot easier, but we saw Toyota just charge ahead
00:41:53for a little while, trying to just make a point and say, look, boys, we're here to have the proper
00:41:57race. We aren't here to sit behind the processional of Addis.
00:42:02Audi lead. The Toyota are now second and third. We're under safety car conditions.
00:42:13Safety car out at Le Mans. We are 14 minutes into the 24-hour race and already we have lost
00:42:20our front runner in the GTE Am class. And we're going to have to hear from Alan Simonson what
00:42:27triggered that incident. Look, he's missing the door and I don't... Oh, that is down there on the
00:42:32ground. Tyres coming off the towel. He's just basically gone straight on.
00:42:36Yeah, this is not happening. Christian Colson can't believe it, I'm afraid. He was really
00:42:40looking forward to this race. A chance to take another victory, perhaps, in Le Mans, having
00:42:46won in LMP2. And there's no question he's not going to even get a drive. This is the all-Danish
00:42:51team. Danish Dynamite, they've been calling it, talking it up. But a massive, massive accident.
00:42:55They're working on the car there, getting him extracted. And... Well, they've been very,
00:43:01very cautious. Any time the driver complains of any pain at all, they will get him into
00:43:06a neck brace and be very cautious with the extraction. So that will take time. Mark, there
00:43:11were loose tires around there as well, which had not come off his car. So they've come off
00:43:14a tire wall. So that will take time to check as well. And for Christian Polson and Christopher
00:43:19Nygaard in the cap there on the far side and the rest of the guys at Golf Aston Martin,
00:43:24I'm afraid that is the earliest path they could possibly have imagined. That's just dreadful.
00:43:30And we can only hope that Alan Simonson is all right. It looks like he took the biggest
00:43:34impact on the other side of the car, not on the driver's door, which is a relief. We
00:43:37can all be pleased about that. I'm hoping he's just been shaken up and they're taking extra
00:43:42caution to put him on the backboard. But Liz, you know, Tetra Rouge, well, it looks
00:43:45as if it went straight on, doesn't it? He got wide on the outside on the gravel.
00:43:50It's very hard for us to speculate what happened. But it is a very fast corner, especially since
00:43:55they changed the corner some years ago. It's very, very quick. You heard Alan
00:43:59McNish talking his way through it and saying, in their car, it's just a lift and fourth gear,
00:44:04so extremely fast. I don't know if he caught a wheel on the curbing and just in these wet
00:44:09conditions, if he just lost the back end and under so much speed, he just couldn't stop
00:44:14it. It's hard for us to speculate. I will try and find out when I go down into the pit.
00:44:17He was in the middle of the main GT pack. And my guess is that he's either trying to get
00:44:23around somebody or trying to leave room for somebody, either contact or just enough off
00:44:28the dry line for the car to just break away from him. He's so good. You may not know a
00:44:34lot about Alan Simonson, but take it from me. He is an extremely fast and very experienced
00:44:39GT driver and not one to make a start to make a huge error like that. So from the start,
00:44:45the onboard, just how quickly Andre Lotra jumped the pole sitting car of Alan McNish to take
00:44:52the initial lead. But now at the restart list, he won't have his two teammates behind him
00:44:56running shotgun. He'll have two Toyotas, one in either door mirror trying to get by.
00:45:00Yeah, this is going to be an exciting restart, I think. And you can just see the drivers
00:45:03moving the cars around the circuits as much as they can, just trying to keep some heat in
00:45:08the tires. It is difficult when you get a safety car and these sort of mixed conditions where
00:45:13it is quite cool out. It's much cooler today than it has been. And it's very difficult to
00:45:18keep the heat in the tires, especially the drivers that are on slicks right now in these
00:45:22tricky conditions.
00:45:25We were talking about that to one of the drivers earlier on today, Alex Brundle, was saying
00:45:29in cooler conditions or if it's damp, he said even if you're just driving down the Mulsanne,
00:45:35you can lose up to 10 degrees of tire surface temperature just from the cooling effect.
00:45:40He said they're fine. You know, they come into the pits, they go on, they're out of the
00:45:45tire oven, they're absolutely baking, they're at exactly the right temperature. He said you
00:45:48go for the brakes in the braking area by the first chicane. There's nothing there. There
00:45:53would. The brakes come up to temperature fast, but the tires have lost all their temperature
00:45:57just on a third, not even a third of your outlap. First time you go for a big moment under
00:46:02brakes and there's no grip at all. It's an interesting feeling going out on tires
00:46:06that have been in a tire warmer. If you're used to driving without that, I know some
00:46:10of the championships allow it, some haven't in the past, but it is crazy. You have to
00:46:13just believe 100% in your tires and you go out of pit lane, that's the best they're going
00:46:18to be. And you have to literally go out fully lit, do your best to push hard through the
00:46:23first couple of corners so that you keep the heat generated. Otherwise, you're risking
00:46:26a lot of pickup on the tires as we get later in this race. That is a real issue here is
00:46:31that you can pick up other people's rubber stuck to the tires, which makes your own
00:46:36tire lose grip. So by keeping the tires scrubbed and hot, you can help to avoid that.
00:46:40Looking forward at our GTE Pro leader, the 97 Aston Martin. If you're wondering why it's
00:46:46not in traditional golf colors, it's because it's Aston Martin's art car. It was designed
00:46:51in a competition role. Goethe there. He will share with Jamie Campbell Walter and Stuart Hall
00:46:57in the AM class in their Aston Martin. But Aston started with five, now down to four.
00:47:04A track piece de glisse par lumide. Yeah, no kidding. So Darren Turner leads in the GTE Pro
00:47:11from this car, Mark Lieb in the brand new 911 Porsche. And Mark Lieb has got Rob Bell behind
00:47:18him in the Aston Martin. And actually talking about Bob Bell, I bumped into Andrew Kokodi
00:47:23fresh out of a manufacturer's meeting earlier on. And I was saying to him, look, a lot of
00:47:27people on Twitter saying, how come there are no British GT cars? And how come there are no
00:47:32McLarens? And while we've got a moment, I'll talk about that. McLaren run to GT3 regulations.
00:47:38GT3 regulations, visually, same as this. Same looking car. The Aston in GT3 or GTE looks pretty
00:47:46much identical to the untrained eye, like me. But under the skin, lots of differences.
00:47:50And Aston Martin, they've got ten customers waiting to buy a Le Mans spec car. But until
00:47:57the rules have been decided up until 2016, they're not going to invest in one, in building
00:48:02one or the customers in buying one. So we're waiting for that confirmation of new GT rules.
00:48:16So we're waiting for that for a moment. You don't have to wait for that. And I'm sorry,
00:48:28I don't know.
00:48:58I don't know.
00:49:28I don't know.
00:49:58I don't know.
00:50:00Welcome back to Le Mans as the safety car is out.
00:50:03Looking at John Martin in the G-Drive Orica Nissan.
00:50:08That is lying second in the LMP2 class.
00:50:10Teammate Shinya Nakano has just gone into pit lane.
00:50:14And, Mark Cole, that's a classic NASCAR scenario.
00:50:18Top up.
00:50:19You're always going to need fuel.
00:50:21You're never not going to need fuel unless it's the last four minutes.
00:50:24So, you've now got two cars in the same team on different strategies.
00:50:29Win-win.
00:50:29It's a great call, Martin.
00:50:30It is a great call.
00:50:31It's like anything.
00:50:32If there's food or a toilet, use it.
00:50:35Take it.
00:50:35That was the Queen Mother's only advice to any new member who married into the royal family.
00:50:40Never pass up the opportunity to use a toilet.
00:50:43You never know when the next one will be coming along.
00:50:44So, a great call by Nakano's team, the number 34 Orica team there.
00:50:49And that car, um...
00:50:51Well, that was the second place to their cars.
00:50:53So, they've left John Martin out, second in LMP2.
00:50:56There he is, just coming past the marshals.
00:50:58That black car left him out for track position.
00:51:00Shinya, OK, we'll get you on a different set-up.
00:51:03Who knows which way the balance will fall.
00:51:05And, of course, that's the car that tore Graves.
00:51:06Stuffed this morning in the warm-up.
00:51:09Fortunately, not as bad as it looked.
00:51:11The four wheels are still pointing in the right direction.
00:51:12And Archie Hamilton will be taking over that car.
00:51:15It's one of three factory-assisted Nissans this weekend.
00:51:19The two Delta ADR cars.
00:51:20All right.
00:51:21Now, they were topping up, but you do that any time a car comes in.
00:51:24However, no matter how sanguine the dock might have looked this morning,
00:51:29Alan Docking, the car is back in the garage.
00:51:32And that means they're doing extra work on it that you can't do on pit road
00:51:35with only two guys touching the car.
00:51:38Well, it's a great story why we told it, Martin.
00:51:39Yeah, it worked up until that stage, right until they pulled it back in.
00:51:45But, again, you see now, everybody's in the safety car queue.
00:51:48Everybody on the pit wall has seen what we've seen.
00:51:51They've seen it's a big accident.
00:51:52We're not a one-lap safety car.
00:51:54We're not a two-lap safety car.
00:51:55That's going to be out for 15, 20 minutes.
00:51:57Why are we not topping up?
00:51:58We're already 20 minutes into a stint.
00:52:0015 racing minutes.
00:52:01And look how long a lap takes.
00:52:03Yeah.
00:52:03Seven minutes 40 to get round this circuit behind the safety car.
00:52:06So they can do five minutes' work and catch up again.
00:52:09Yeah, well, I think absolutely.
00:52:10If they've got a little bit of a problem, we don't really know.
00:52:12There might have been something they're chasing a little bit.
00:52:14So I think that's really smart to do this.
00:52:17And we'll wait and see what the others decide to do.
00:52:19I'm guessing a lot of teams are sort of thinking right now,
00:52:21do we come in now?
00:52:22What do we do, you know?
00:52:24Where's this holiday, Munita, in the pits?
00:52:26Alex, Nicolas did a fantastic move at the beginning of the race.
00:52:29What do you think about this fight?
00:52:30He did a few fantastic moves.
00:52:32He's on fire.
00:52:34Yeah, it's obviously because the track conditions are quite slippery.
00:52:38Seems that our competitor has a bit more difficulties getting temperature in the tyre.
00:52:43And Nico did it really well.
00:52:45So interesting and exciting start.
00:52:48It's not a lot to win at the beginning, but a lot to lose.
00:52:52Do you think he will maybe take more precaution for the race?
00:52:57It's very hard to now start to read the race.
00:53:00I mean, we just had a few laps in slippery conditions now, the safety car.
00:53:05We really have to wait and see how the race unfolds.
00:53:08It's too early.
00:53:09Thank you, Alex.
00:53:10Well, we've lost an Aston Martin.
00:53:13And as we sort of expected, we have lost our internet here as well.
00:53:17Down pit road comes the 81.
00:53:19Ferrari, Rui Agouache, bringing that car in.
00:53:24Let's go back down to the pit lane, catch up with another of our drivers.
00:53:29Benoit Trilu, you in any case surprised by the start of this race?
00:53:33Not really.
00:53:34I mean, we have seen the Toyota were pretty quick this morning.
00:53:37And also during the qualifying, that kind of condition, they were pretty good.
00:53:41So we are not really surprised.
00:53:43And we are pretty happy that it's going to be a fun race.
00:53:46And it's always better to fight with the other opposing than in between sister cars.
00:53:52For sure, we're going to fight between sister cars.
00:53:54But to have a nice race like that, it reminds me of 2011.
00:53:59So it's going to be fun.
00:54:00I like that kind of condition.
00:54:02Okay.
00:54:02Thank you very much.
00:54:03Thanks.
00:54:03Well, there you go.
00:54:04And that is the attitude there from Audi.
00:54:07You know, we'd rather beat somebody good than beat ourselves up.
00:54:11And 2011, of course, that's when they were battling so hard against Toyota.
00:54:16And for that team, their first win against Toyota, against Peugeot, same color cars, white and blue and pretty quick.
00:54:22And, yeah, whether Toyota have found a little bit more from the Michelin tire remains to be seen.
00:54:34And talking about Michelin tire, Corvette, part of Corvette's problem, they believe, is a new Michelin tire that Michelin have brought for this race, which was tried out at Spa.
00:54:43And the Spa six hours, the second race, the second round of the World Endurance Championship, their rivals here, so Porsche and Ferrari and Aston Martin, used the same compound of tire.
00:54:55But Corvette have not used it before they came here to Le Mans.
00:54:58And it's taken them.
00:54:59So, you know, the other guys had practice qualifying and six hours to get their heads around what the new construction is doing, what the new tire is doing.
00:55:08And said, you know, we started here.
00:55:10So, and, of course, so much of it was red flagged and so much of it was wet.
00:55:13So, they believe at least a part of their deficit to their rivals in the dry here is because they're not working the tire as well as they used to work the old one.
00:55:24Well, there is Alan Simonson's Aston Martin, still waiting, very second hand.
00:55:28He's no longer in the car, clearly.
00:55:30So, we're waiting for news of him.
00:55:32And, of course, as soon as we get it, we'll bring it to you.
00:55:35And as soon as we hear anything about this G-Drive car, Shin Unikano stays in.
00:55:39Or is he?
00:55:40I can't see now.
00:55:41Yes, he is.
00:55:42You can just see a helmet there, but they're clearly changing something inside and looks as though that might have been a management system stroke battery area.
00:55:49There's usually not much else down inside the driver's cockpit.
00:55:52So, the reason we're taking so long at the Tetra Rouge incident is that car has punched a hole in the barriers.
00:55:58We saw the trucks there replacing barriers.
00:56:01Not for the first time this week, we have to say.
00:56:03Wednesday night, particularly, we had a lot of barrier bashing.
00:56:06And that was actually absolutely unprotected outside rail at Tetra Rouge.
00:56:10No tires in front of it.
00:56:12And straight into the metal barriers.
00:56:14Yeah, I know.
00:56:14It's not been good.
00:56:15I think he's perhaps even hit it a couple times in different places.
00:56:18It's hard for us to tell without having seen it.
00:56:20But certainly, it seems to be the theme.
00:56:22We keep saying that.
00:56:23We've had seven red flags from Wednesday through to this morning.
00:56:27So, in every single session, we've had a red flag, which is unbelievable.
00:56:30I don't remember that ever happening at Le Mans.
00:56:32I'm sure it has many years ago, but certainly not since I've been around.
00:56:35But if this had been qualifying, of course, it would have been red flagged immediately.
00:56:38Oh, absolutely, yeah.
00:56:39But historically, the Le Mans 24 hours has never been red flagged during the actual race period.
00:56:44Even with the 1955 accident and the Aston Martin, double Aston Martin crash, we were talking about the other night, Martin.
00:56:50And, of course, the multiple Bentley crashes and everything else.
00:56:53No, they have not stopped the race.
00:56:56And it seems unlikely they will.
00:56:58Well, Toyota, they're loving these opening laps because, actually, after Wednesday's practice,
00:57:03they were looking pretty down at heel because they were really lacking in pace for Audi.
00:57:08And, of course, qualifying is one thing and racing is another.
00:57:11And the first ten laps are one thing and the remaining 130 or whatever it is, 300, are something different.
00:57:18That's the end and probably the final impact of that Aston Martin and Christopher Nygaard put his head in his hands.
00:57:28I'm afraid.
00:57:29And even Christian Poulsen almost in tears.
00:57:31Yeah.
00:57:31And he could just see.
00:57:32I'm pretty sure I would be in tears if that had just happened 14 minutes into the Le Mans 24 hours.
00:57:37I mean, it's just I will do my best to try and figure out what's happened there.
00:57:41But let's get back to the issue at hand for all of the drivers right now.
00:57:45They're sitting out there on a very, very long, long safety car period in what's probably drying conditions but not completely dry.
00:57:54And it's going to be really difficult for them with the tires now.
00:57:57These tires are going to be cold no matter how much moving around the circuit they do.
00:58:01They won't be warm enough.
00:58:03They're going to need to focus on getting their brakes rewarmed up.
00:58:05Well, all of the prototype cars will have a double carbon, carbon disc and carbon pads, which won't come to you straight away without looking after them.
00:58:13So everyone's going to have to be thinking hard about that.
00:58:15Are they changing a drinks bottle there or something?
00:58:17Probably like everybody else in the paddock, he's gone back to the Murphy's garage for a cup of tea.
00:58:22Proper cup of tea.
00:58:24That was bad.
00:58:26No, no, no.
00:58:27And talking of Murphy's, we're just talking about the Corvettes and trying the new Michelin this weekend.
00:58:32This is actually Corvette's 100th race with Michelin.
00:58:35Wow.
00:58:36As it's changing from Goodyear.
00:58:37So Murphy's Law, they're having tire problems.
00:58:39Oh, well, they're getting on top of it.
00:58:41All sorts of anniversaries here.
00:58:43Of course, it is the 90th anniversary of the first ever Le Mans race.
00:58:47Of which it's the 30th time, 30th year since I came first.
00:58:51100th year of Aston Martin in existence.
00:58:5450 years of the 911.
00:58:5760 years since Duncan Hamilton won in 1953 in a C-Type Jaguar.
00:59:02His grandson, Archie, will race in this race with a 60-year-old orange in his pocket.
00:59:07A good luck mascot from his father from that 1953 win for Jaguar.
00:59:11And so many more.
00:59:12I think that was a driver getting ready to get into one of the Corvettes.
00:59:15He looked like he was sort of frantically getting ready.
00:59:18Which says to me, they've suddenly said, right, we're going to pit this lap.
00:59:20Get ready to get in.
00:59:21Now, the question is, I had a feeling that was in the Labra garage.
00:59:27Julian Canal is in the 50 car.
00:59:30And Philippe Dumas is in the 70 car.
00:59:33So I wonder if Jacques Lecomte is thinking about changing drivers in one of his cars.
00:59:42It is Labra who are going for a drive.
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