This article is dedicated to Ash. A very good friend of mine who is going through some rough times health-wise and whom without this article, series or even trip would have probably never happened. I’m able to write all these articles because he’s part of my life. This is my way of giving him my warmest thanks and best wishes in all he’s going through.

We finally got here. Race weekend. I hope you were looking forward to this one, because if there’s anything that you will do when you go here, for sure, is enjoy race weekend.

I am not going to talk about the race itself since you can read about it everywhere.

My angle will be about the race weekend experience itself.

The race starts at 4 pm on Saturday, but people start going early to the trackside to save their spots. The reason is that start and end of the race are the most packed moments of the 24 hours, predictably.

In between, there's people who stay all day, people who come and go to their campsite, some who roam from spot to spot to get different views, and so on. Every one lives the 24 hours on their own terms, and this is my own experience retold.

One of the benefits of the ACO subscription is access to the La Chapelle private sector. Since it's a private sector, there is much less people than in the public ones. Don't get me wrong, the place is far from empty, and by race start it's PACKED. But other places end up packed way earlier, so plan accordingly. The crowds were such that phone signal was virtually non-existent.

In our case, one of my buddies and I got up at 6:30 am, showered and went over with some chairs to save space for the four of us. We got there at around 8 am, got a coffee and some croissants for breakfast. Then we set the chairs up in place, and enjoyed.

We couldn't have asked for a better place in that area of the track. It was just after the Dunlop curve and bridge, but before the "Esses" that precede the famous Tertre Rouge right hander.

The previous week had been very cloudless and warm. This day was mostly overcast with a very decent temperature, which I was very grateful for.

We discussed a bit about this before, but let's dive a bit deeper.

The day started at around 10 am with the Ford Mustang Challenge. Fun fact: Frankie Muniz from “Malcolm In The Middle” fame was racing in this category, and he got 2nd place! Which is the best result he can get if he wants to stay in the middle between two race positions :P

After that, there was the Road to Le Mans race, with aspiring GT3 and LMP2 teams competing with each other for a possibility to get a spot in a future full Le Mans race as mentioned before.

At 12 there was a warm-up before the actual 24 hour race.

This was a very nice short opportunity for the audience to already see everyone in action. Cold tyres meant some people went of track though! Just where we were sitting, a car went straight through one of the Total Energies sign. Luckily no one was hurt or no significant damage was made.

There was also a Peugeot 205 GTI parade, in an effort from Peugeot to promote the recently announced 208 GTI (which sadly seems to be electric only, for now). It was such a pleasure to see so many units, in great shape and all the different paint colours present.

Finally the last thing that happened before the wait towards the race after the warm up, was a very nice and deserved show of love to the Marshalls.

They are the reason we can enjoy motorsport. I am forever thankful to them for making this possible and more importantly, as safe as it can be for everyone involved.

How fitting is it for a 24 hour race to start with a 24ºC temperature? Everything aligned for it to be a perfect experience.

On the first few laps after 4:00 pm, the pack was together. After some more, the difference in performance was evident.

I asked one of my friends how he did to keep track of the positions, and he said that he knew what kind of time each category did per lap, so when seeing a car go by, he roughly knew when it would come by again, and with that, compare positions to the previous lap.

Me, a simple noob, relied on the numbers on the side of the cars. Each car in the Hypercar and LMGT3 categories has a small square screen on the side, showing what's their current position in their own category.

The problem is that LMP2 cars don't have this, so after a few laps where I could follow them, and after them starting to pit in, the plot for LMP2 positions was completely lost for me.

To fight this, they sell some noise cancelling headphones with FM radio. I didn't get one, but they are very popular to be able to properly follow the race. And the enjoyment of being there in the race vs really following the race as a sport is something I will talk about later.

Some hours after enjoying our original spot, we took a walk to find another spot to watch the race from.

One does not really dimension how big the circuit is, or how far away these spots are, until you try walking between them. I think it took between half and one hour to walk from our first to our second spot, due to distance as well as amount of people.

We ended spending some time in the Ford chicane where very close up pictures were taken. Sadly, that place had not one, but two sets of fences, making pictures look good especially difficult. But some since I was taking panning shots that sort of blur whatever's in front and behind the car, some decent shots were possible.

Back when I went to the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2024, I arranged with my friend Antony Ingram to meet and get to know each other. Due to unforeseen circumstances, we had to cancel that and we never met.

Until this day!

He arrived on Thursday I think, and we managed to arrange a quick meetup after my time in the Ford Chicane.

I love Ant's written and visual work, and you should definitely give him a follow if you don't yet. We had a lovely chat and he even took a film portrait of me that came out pretty great!

After meeting Ant, I did get a bite (worse salad ever) and kept going. I wanted to try to get some nice night shots. More on these results later.

At 12 there was a fireworks + drone show. I was honestly expecting it to be a bit more impressive but it was not that much. Maybe I just was too far away for it to be more of a shock.

My last spot of "the day" (I mean, before going for a nap) was just between the Esses and Tertre Rouge.

I tried to get some night panning shots but they are too difficult for me yet, so I barely got anything decent. I did get some nice long exposure light trails though.

At this point I noticed I somehow, somewhere, lost a little knob that goes on the quick release plate of my tripod, so my tripod is now half useless. A bummer by then, since I barely used it and these night shots were the main thing I wanted to use it for.

At around 1:20 am I packed my things up after this and started to walk back to camp for some sleep.

I probably arrived a bit over 40 minutes later and after setting everything up, went to bed at around 2:30 am with an alarm set at 5:30 am. The idea was to see and take some pictures during sunrise, but clouds were not really promising. End of a fantastic day 6.

I woke up and went out at around 6:00 am in the end. Since it was cloudy, the possibilities for good sunrise pictures were slim for me.

One thing that I initially thought about was of going around to Arnage and other farther away points of the circuit.

The reason I did not is because since it was my first visit, I didn't really feel like waiting in queues for buses.

A lot of people would be thinking the same, so queues and wait times would be really crazy. There was a high chance of wasting 2 hours of race or more, just to move around. Maybe something for the next time.

I went again to La Chappelle where we started our race, to get some nice early morning pictures.

Got myself some coffee (worst I ever had), a croissant and a pain au chocolat for later. The pain au chocolat ended in my backpack and I forgot about it until mid morning, but that was good. 2nd breakfast, Hobbit style.

The light for photography at this moment was beautiful, even if a bit cloudy. It was soft thanks to the clouds, and warm looking. The reflections due to the angle were very interesting.

After a few hours I decided to get a move on. Mid morning I went to a spot I found near the Village (where the brand stands and merch businesses are), right after the exit of the pits. It was a really nice place to watch cars going by both slow and fast.

I met my buddy Stu here as well! We have been trying to sync during the whole week, but we were never able to. I'm glad we could! We chatted for about 2 hours probably. Great chap, great chat. Really one of my favourite things about going to events is meeting people I interact with online, but in real life.

If you want to meet up, your best upcoming chance is EMWalhalla 2026, probably! So come over to the Netherlands since this event is free, and lets have a chat around cool cars if you’re up for it!

A bit over 1 pm, I went to get some lunch. Chicken tenders and some fries this time. Luckily there was not a ton of people queueing, so it was a pleasant experience and they were great.

After lunch I went again to a place close to where we started the race. I set up camp there and saved space for my friends so we could watch the end of the race there.

About an hour later they arrived and we sat there together. We spent the remaining hours until the checkered flag was shown, making the #83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P, the winner of the 93rd 24 Hours of Le Mans race.

Ferrari had 3 out of the first 4 positions, so another outstanding year for them. Sadly one of the cars (#50 that finished in 4th place) ended up being disqualified in the post-race scrutineering due to some irregularities. Specifically "The irregularity concerned the absence of four bolts from the central rear wing support."

After the race finished, the track was opened and fans flooded it to celebrate. It was a great sight I did not want much part of since I honestly had enough of crowds already by then.

We roamed while crowds became less intense, and went back to camp to rest for a while.

I took a shower before the facilities went to hell. The whole event is pretty well organised, but one of the things I think is terrible, is that the moment the race finishes, every service around stops.

This has no logic. You are are allowed to camp until end of Monday. You should receive service until then, or at least, until the end of Sunday night.

Toilets and showers start clogging due to the lack of maintenance, and once they're done, they're done. You have to keep looking for a decent one, if there's even any. Terrible closure to an otherwise great experience.

I am glad my friends were experienced and had already warned me about this, but it has been happening for years and there's no other reason than "lame cost cutting" affecting the most hardcore fans that want to stay as much as possible and maybe not drive back in a sleepy, dangerous state after a 24 hours race.

This should change.

I considered heading back home the moment the race finished, but with only 3 hours of sleep and an 8 hour drive alone ahead, it was not at all wise to do so.

I got up early and started preparing my return. Packed everything up and put it in the car. I also helped the guys to tear the camp down as much as I could, since I had the silly idea of going to my Dutch lesson that evening at 7:30 pm.

The trip itself was about to be an 8 hours one without stops or detours. Counting those in, it ended up being from 10 am to 8 pm, so around 10 hours.

My lovely wife expected me with dinner. That was a huge comfort after so much time out and driving. I missed her and our two cats so much. I had a great time, but was happy to be home again.

And with that, my friends, we conclude the story of how “Your First Time at Le Mans” may look like.

If you read until here, THANK YOU.

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