A quick shout out to current Formula 1 driver Heikki Kovalainen, who remembered Franck whilst being quizzed by F1.com. The Ask the Expert feature puts tricky questions to F1 drivers, with the subjects being loosely associated with their lives.
Heikki also managed to get the highest score of the ten or so drivers quizzed so far. He is officially now a friend of the site.
Finally, there is word on the official FKM site regarding the Le Mans race. A couple of days ago, The Joker (site admin, I believe) posted reaction to the 24 hour race.
On the entire day:
Sweet and sour… that’s what these 24 Hours in Le Mans taste like. But with three podiums for his three last participations, I think the stats and figures are pretty good! FKM wants to win in Le Mans. It didn’t work this year, that was pretty close though, but for sure he will keep fighting and he will make it for sure!
On doing things differently:
Franck wouldn’t be able to do anything more, even if he had to race again tomorrow the 24. He would do exactly the same thing, race the same stints… He may just try to have two fibulas instead just one but that’s it!
On what’s next:
Franck will probably be racing in Portimao in Portugal. Peugeot will be racing with two cars and should provide the drivers line up for this Le Mans Series event pretty soon. Fingers crossed, Franck will be there!
Read the entire thing here, and visit the gallery for updated photos.
Also, can I just say a big YES for the site having an English version now? Saves on the Google Translate nonsense.
And there it was, Le Mans in all its glory. Franck started the race, Bourdais finished it, and between the three drivers, they came in second. It was a race of high attrition, with the Audi’s struggling, giving Peugeot their best change to break their rival’s run of victories. Good for Peugeot, they managed a win, bad for Franck it was the other team.
The #8 Peugeot at the hands of FKM, Bourdais and Sarrazin led for the start of the race, but spent an unfortunate ten minutes in the pits with a wheel problem that saw the lead change hands. Towards the end of the race, Bourdais was gaining on his sister team at the front, but there was a notion that the team had been told not to race each other. Peugeot didn’t want to risk their chance at a win. Montagny was not impressed:
“I am quite happy with my performance, but I am not really happy otherwise if we stay the way we are now. I’m super happy for the team, but not really happy for myself. The car is fine. Sometimes when we go to other tracks we struggle a little bit with some stuff on the car, but the car is made for this track – it’s super good on this track.”
Marc Gene, on the winning team was gracious:
“I want to thank my team-mates because they followed team orders and didn’t fight at the end. They deserved to win as much as we did. It was not very easy for them to be behind us.”
I’m with Franck, though. The poor guy raced his heart out, probably in considerable pain (although he wasn’t limping onto the podium, so perhaps it is not too bad?), and all he is left with is a second place and a broken leg that needs mending.
Photo: Eric Gilbert/Motorsport.com
It’s unclear exactly how this slipped through the net, but it turns out even Radio Le Mans didn’t know until they asked the man himself why he was limping.
That’s right, Franck has only gone and injured himself.
During training in the Alps, Franck made it through all the rockclimbing and dangerous stuff with ease, but then stood on the ball during a game of footie, and broke his fibula.
Apparently, he is still able to drive, although he is limping, and it’s unclear whether his time in the car will have to be reduced due to the injury.
All in all, it looks like it’s going to be a painful weekend.
Free Practice ran for six hours last night, with teams getting a feel for the circuit both in daylight hours, and during the night. The requirements were for new drivers to run at least ten laps, and all drivers to complete three in the darkness.
I watched some of the live timing screens but couldn’t dedicate six hours to it (sadly). Instead, I’ve scoured the web for news regarding our hero, his team, and his rivals.
At the end of the session (pdf of final times here), Audi finished on top, the #9 was third, and Franck’s car was fifth. However, it’s worth pointing out that despite coming in behind four other cars, the #8 was the fastest car out on track, with a speed clocked at 301 km/h (pdf here). Let’s hope that speed translates into qualifying.
Photo: Eric Gilbert/Motorsport.com
The Le Mans site has confirmed that all the cars got through the second day of scrutineering successfully, with the following words of wisdom:
None of the cars had any problems today and will all be expected to appear in the first free practice sessions tomorrow (Wednesday) from 18:00. The forecast is for yet more rain, but it will get warmer and dryer for the weekend and the legendary 24 hours of Le Mans.
Here are some photos from scrutineering day two:
The winning team.
Franck ponders the upcoming race.
The 908 meets it’s people.
We have also got the full schedule for the entire weekend as follows:
We’ll be live commenting the whole thing over at Sidepodcast.com (will provide a link nearer the time). Hopefully, we can find some online video to watch as well. Have also found that Autosport will be providing live updates which always comes in handy. Naturally, Radio Le Mans will be covering everything.
Photo credits: Eric Gilbert/Motorsport.com
Although the race isn’t until the weekend, preparations for Le Mans have been taking place for a long time, and the action really begins this week.
Yesterday, Monday, the cars began to face scrutineering, with Audi going first. Peugeot are due to be inspected today. Scrutineering isn’t just a chance for the regulators to check all regulations are being met, but it’s also a time for the fans to get a great view of the cars close up, and some of the drivers as well. This is really important for 2009, as there’s no test day for the Le Mans race this week. Apparently it rained yesterday, but was still a good day.
The scrutineering procedure is as follows (thanks to the official Le Mans site):
The Audi cars passed scrutineering as did all examined on Monday. It’s too early to tell for Tuesday, but we’re not expecting any problems with the Peugeots either.
A couple of words of wisdom from Peugeot Sport team members (none from Franck yet – boo.)
Nicolas Minassian thinks it will be a tough fight, but the team have done all they can:
We’re the best prepared and the whole team is ready. Our testing and our knowledge of the car put us in a better position than last year. Concerning performance, last year we were way in front of the others. This year the gap is quite narrow.
Meanwhile, team manager Olivier Quesnel is a man of few words:
It’s the greatest race in the world and also the most beautiful. There’s nothing more to say about it.
