Notice anything different ...?

[SimoN138]

Another great trip completed and only 360 days 'till next year's race start ... but a few things had changed this year i noticed ...

- the loos behind the stand 16 had been painted red!
- the spectator banking upstream of the ford chicanes was blocked off for hospitality apart from the very end by the big tv
- the two temporary garages blocked up the gap where we used to enter for friday pit walk ... necessitating a small detour via 'pit in' which caused a bit of confusion

anyone notice anything else different this year? ...

[anonymous-user]

New water thing (taps / waste disposal) and an extra bit of tarmac'd road in Houx. Trap number 1 now has a lock on the door !

[wsn03]

I cycle the back roads to Mulsanne straight. Normally there are armed police on the roundabouts, lots of them. There were none this year.

Security was light, they only touched our bags from the outside. Even at Moto 24 they searched the contents. At midnight they didn't even check them externally

[RC1807]

Bleu Nord camp site:
Shower block floors were regularly cleaned
stters had paper during the whole weekend!
Security fencing gaps towards the track entrance were blocked off, for the most part

At the track:
Some stters even had soap dispensers with soap IN them!

Panorama Bar:
Cheese platters this year were much better than last year
Pommerey Rosé champers was up to €100 / bottle
They sold 3l. bottles of Rosé wine for a mere €160 / bottle


Oh, and the wrong Toyota beat the other Toyota!

[Blink982]

As above the United garages caused no end of confusion (to me anyway) to work out how to get to the pits. The French aren't very good at signs so you just have to crack on and work it out yourself.

[Truckosaurus]

The inside of the ACO stand has been refurbished and they've added a second drinks-only bar.

However if the queue is > 2 people it now blocks the stairs.

I'm sure it wasn't my imagination but the prices at the food stands was less than last year. (plus the ACO stand has gone back to hand made sandwiches not rubbish pre-made ones).

[butaclor]

Price of beer had dropped ,it was possible to find a large beer sub 8 Euro's.

[//j17]

They decided to mess with the post-race traffic flow again and, as usual made it worse.

Rather than sending people out from the overflow car parks past Bleu Sud towards Arnage they sent them down to join everyone else on the road past MB. Also meant the road was still closed 2hrs after the race so I couldn't make the traffic-free Bleu Sud->Arnage escape and had to join the crawl on the MB road.


Probably the biggest change though was the beer. An actual choice of Kronenbourg or Carlsburg at most bars, not just Kronenbourg or Kronenbourg - but no Guinnes tent, a Carlsburg one instead.

[B'stard Child]

Tthe number of people walking, cycling and on motorised scooters around at night with no high vis clothing or lights is way more than I remember it was really unnerving driving around to get to Mulsanne or Arnage - Not funny and someone will get hurt soon......

[RL17]

Had loads of average speed camera zone messages on Waze and saw loads of short cameras in bushes planted alongside of urban dual carriage ways around Le Mans and Arnage.

Do they have average speed zones on A28 too?

Don't remember them last year.

Plus landowner dispute meant there was a long rally stage through BSJ to campsite inside circuit at start of Porsche curves.

[Cass63]

What used to be the Guinness tent is loads better and better staff with a smile. Great improvement. The bogs in bsj were much better, cleaner and bog roll till the end, police came into the camp a lot, which is new.

[DS240]

Truckosaurus said:

The inside of the ACO stand has been refurbished and they've added a second drinks-only bar.

However if the queue is > 2 people it now blocks the stairs.

Within 30secs I could see it was a problem... who designed and decided that location was the best place to put the drinks bar. Stupid! It could have been rectified quickly by taking the table to the left out and putting a queuing line from the left hand side. But no, a struggle all weekend to get up the stairs.

They also closed the usual exit gate, used all week of Expo car park at the finish of the race so everyone had to try and get out what had been entrance all week. Luckily made an escape through the camping section next to it. It has worked for many years without issues so why the sudden change?

I think it is also about time they came up with a solution of a separate pedestrian and vehicle access from the main entrance under the track to the village area, also separating the cars crossing that village area.