When you experience the 24 Hours of Le Mans, there is a lot to see and do.

Especially on your first time.

But there are certain ones that you should certainly not miss.

These happen during the week, and are your best chances at a good look at the cars.

Since there are several free practice and qualifying events, both during day and night time, you don't have the concentration of people you have in the actual race weekend (more on that later).

Both are very much self explanatory. Free practice are for drivers and engineers to test the cars themselves and get familiar with the track and current conditions.

Qualifying on the other hand, is a bit more exciting, because it has two stages. The normal stage is where everyone laps around the track, and positions are determined by the lap times. This is what normal qualifying is.

Mind you that these are divided by category, so there's no mix in qualifying between Hypercars, LMP2/LMGT3 cars.

But then you have Hyperpole.

This is what makes regular qualifying exciting as well, because the Hyperpole is only accessible by the 15 fastest Hypercars, 12 fastest LMP2s and 12 fastest LMGT3s.

In Hyperpole round 1, the 5 slowest Hypercars get knocked out, as do the 4 slowest LMP2 and LMGT3 cars.

Finally, in Hyperpole round 2, the remaining 10 Hypercars, 8 LMP2 and 8 LMGT3 cars fight for the final standings in the starting grid.

It really is exciting, since someone can actually be last doing very badly and just getting into Hyperpole rounds, but then get the top place. Or vice versa!

The main event is the 24 Hours race during the weekend, but that does not mean there are not other races to have fun with.

In these kind of big events you often have some support races.

In this case, you could also see the Porsche Sprint Challenge, Ford Mustang Challenge and the Road to Le Mans.

The first two are single manufacturer races where the name says everything about what you can expect. Fun fact: Frankie Muniz of “Malcolm in the Middle” fame was racing at one of the Mustangs!

The Road to Le Mans, however, is extra interesting.

It is part of the Michelin Le Mans Cup and includes teams from GT3 and LMP3 categories.

But there’s a catch: The stakes are high.

The teams in Road to Le Mans are competing for a chance to be part of the "grown up Le Mans" in a following year, so they give it everything and more.

Day 3 of my trip was a very warm Wednesday June 11th.

It kept getting warmer and warmer, as 30ºC was felt early in the morning already.

Since it was so warm, I took the chance to visit the museum. I was planning on doing so anyway, but spending a couple of hours indoors with AC was definitely extra tempting.

The only thing I didn’t love is that they have a weird rule of "backpacks in the front". Not sure why, maybe not to knock stuff down unknowingly with your backpack on the back?

What I do know, is that walking with a heavy, camera gear filled backpack on the front was not very pleasant.

That said, the museum was very nice, albeit a bit small. I expected it to be a bit bigger.

This shall be rectified soon, as they were expanding it during my visit. I’ve seen a lot of construction equipment on the outside and the updated version seems it will be quite bigger, which is very exciting.

I will not spoil “everything” that is inside so that you can awe yourself once there too, but I want to share some highlights and tell you about the general layout of the museum.

You enter through a hallway that showcases several personalities that are important for the 24 Hours of Le Mans history, like of course but not limited to, winning drivers.

There are several scale models scattered around the museum, with a huge section that includes probably every single top 3 cars of any year that the 24 Hours of Le Mans has run.

Which is over 100 years, if you remember we recently celebrated the centenaire. That’s a ton of model cars!

Speaking of centenaire, those following for a longer time will remember that I did a special artwork to celebrate the 100 years of Le Mans, that included the Chenard-Walcker that won the first race in 1923.

The idea behind the illustration was to evoke a sense of “evolution” and “changing times”. The main point of focus is the modern Oreca 07 racing car #14 by Nielsen Racing. As the eye goes further down the race track, you start seeing a shift in the asphalt that turns into a dirt road showing the Chenard-Walcker racing. This is how the viewer goes back in time.

This very same car is the center piece of the model cars section of the museum.

You also have some more complex dioramas with certain scenes of Le Mans throughout history that even light up. It shows that a lot of attention to detail has been given here.

In terms of real sized cars, you can find several 24 Hours of Le Mans participants, from different moments in time.

Something I love about seeing these kinds of cars, are what I call “Battle Scars”. These are cars that raced. Every mark, dent and crack tells a story. And I’m here for it.

They even had a temporary exhibition with an homage to Bruce McLaren. I had the pleasure of seeing once again, McLaren F1 GTRs in the flesh. Lots of them actually!

This part I can really spoil to you, since as the exhibition is over, you will not find it if you go today.

Here are some of my favourite pictures.

As you might know, I am writing and illustrating a book. The topic is “Homologation Specials” (tentative title, will change) and some of you already are in the waitlist.

If this is a topic you think you would enjoy knowing more of, and seeing how the book is done, I invite you to join the waitlist.

The waitlist is part of this same newsletter, and there are exclusive updates with information and stories about how this book is being created, that I share there not to overwhelm regular readers that might be a bit less interested in it.

If this sounds like something for you, join by clicking the button below:

If you’re still not convinced you will like it, read more about it here.

Let me know what you think of this article by replying to this email or via social media.

Your comments, replies, shares and encouragement help me steer the wheel in the right direction, so don’t hesitate to send your feedback my way ❤️

And if you feel like gifting yourself or someone else something original and made with love from the Creating Lightly store, you can see the current physical things available in the button below:

As always, thank you so much for your support.

I hope you have a great week ahead.

Juanma