Ferrari Mailing List: Re: FYI: 24 Hours of Le Mans Ferrari/ Kubica week resume.

[Hunter Schultz (hunter.schultz]

Wow. Terrific write up and it sounds like you had a great time. Thanks for all 
the tips!


Sent from my iPhone

> On Jul 7, 2025, at 7:21 PM, Michel Savard <mysavard [at] videotron.ca> wrote:
> 
> I was at the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2 weeks ago. For those interested in going 
> in a near future, here are a few tips. I was there from wednesday to sunday:
> 
> You can buy a ticket for the week only, the race only or both. I went for 
> both. The whole thing lasts 8 days. I think it was $500 cad total.
> 
> if you can find a hotel room in the city of Le Mans, try to get one close to 
> a red tramway (super comfortable and silent and fast) stop. The last stop 
> south gets you a few meters from the racetrack. Any blue tramway stop is good 
> because you can get off at the train station and then get on a red-line 
> tramway. Pretty easy, 2 euros each way.
> 
> Wednesday: I spent the day in the city. Old Le Mans is pretty cool. Old City 
> and 2 big churches are worth spending time. Food … well this is France. No 
> problem, plenty of choices. All done while walking around. Starting on 
> General Leclerc Street right in front of the train station, is the walk of 
> fame. Just like in Hollywood, they have plaques on the sidewalk of Le Mans 
> winners. Feet and hands imprint in cast iron (or something like that). I took 
> a picture of all of them.
> 
> Thursday: Racetrack all day long. They have lots of 30/45/60 minutes races of 
> different categories (Porsche, Mustang) great fun, but I was amazed at how 
> many yellow and red flags they had. Lots of amateur I guess in those support 
> races. On a 13 kms-long track, these take a lot of time off the race time. I 
> gave up quickly in watching those.
> Worth watching though was the all-in practice for 3 hours in late afternoon. 
> All-in because EVERYBODY (62 cars I think) was on the racetrack. Pretty 
> awesome. I even took a 10-minute helicopter ride for 150 euros around the 
> racetrack. Pilot went around twice. A great opportunity for fantastic videos.
> 
> Friday: 2 support races, did a lot of shopping: Steve McQueen is still very 
> big…. and very expensive. I didn’t buy any souvenir with his name on it. 
> That’s how expensive it was. I got 9 books about him here in my little museum 
> but I couldn’t afford anything there. if you like model cars, they have 
> thousands of choices. Mostly 1/43rd and other scales. I got the usual, pins, 
> keychains, t-shirt, polo shirt, small travel bag (very cool one). But the big 
> one for friday is the walk around the track. Start at 15h00, 13.4 kms of 
> walking, I did it in 3 hours, twice they stopped us to check we all had our 
> ticket. So, that slowed us a lot. I guess they are afraid some people will 
> get on the track through the forest or something. Again I took pictures all 
> along the racetrack. Took picture for straight line, then 100m sign before 
> each turn or chicane, picture in the turn, out of the turn and then over 
> again same pattern for 13 kms.
> 
> Museum is super, no waiting. Go there during the week. Too many people 
> saturday and sunday, I saw long lines. Little circular room with 4,478 1/43 
> model cars of past participants, 7-8 models of pits from early years and 
> plenty of cars of course.
> 
> Food: Usual burgers and fries, but this being France, you can have some 
> pretty awesome food that you never get at racetracks around the world. Beer 
> 10 euros. Pasta with salmon 15 euros. WOW!
> 
> Paddocks were accessible. So, you can see mechanics taking cars apart within 
> 3 feet from you.
> 
> Raceday saturday: If you have a reserved seat, no problem. If not, you better 
> get there super super early. Even if the start is at 16h. I was sitting in a 
> grandstand just in front of the Ferrari pits (4), see picture included when 
> Kubica won. The grid walk is even bigger than in Formula 1. With about 60 
> cars, that’s a lot of VIPs. Roger Federer was invited to say the famous 
> “Pilotes démarrez vos moteurs”.
> 
> And away they went.
> 
> I actually stayed up for the 24 hours. Pretty brutal at 66 years old. But I 
> did it and was very proud. I’ll never do that again. You really don’t see 
> much. I walked all night long to have different views. People fall asleep 
> absolutely anywhere, it’s funny. I got out sunday 16h right after the race
> <gagnant2.jpeg>
> . Back at my friend's apartment, I saw the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix live 
> on television. Cool isn’t it ? That means I stayed up for 40 hours all in 
> all. I slept for 10 hours after that.
> 
> I hope this helps to convince you to go go go.
> 
> I retired last december and already I got 3 big ones off my bucket list: 
> Australian F1 race, 24 Hours of Le Mans and Roland-Garros tennis tournament.
> Next one is in october (21-26), in Mugello for the Finali Mondiali Ferrari.
> 
> Forza Ferrari
> 
> Michael Savard
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