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.