Le Mans the unique experience

“Yes, of course it’s scary,” says Martin Brundle when asked about the fear factor of driving at Le Mans. “But there’s an ambience at [the circuit] that you don’t find anywhere else. Inside the cockpit, at night, it’s just you and your car on the Mulsanne Straight doing well over 200mph… It’s an amazing feeling.” A sensation that thousands of fans wish they could experience, but which only a tiny minority of drivers actually feel each year.

We can’t get you a drive at the Le Mans 24 Hours here at Motor Sport. Sorry… But we do offer you the chance to get up close to a unique collection of 20 Le Mans cars at Autosport International at the NEC from January 11-14. Motor Sport presents the ‘Celebration of Le Mans’ display which includes the winning Jaguar C-type from 1953, a 1930 Bentley Blower 41/2, a 1968 Ford MkII and the 1988 Jaguar XJR-9 LM winner plus the Porsche 962C that it beat.

You may have noticed the latter pair on our cover this month. We reunite the rivals and drive them on track together for our track test (page 32), which starts our Celebration of Le Mans feature section. I hope you enjoy it.

See you at the Motor Sport stand at the Show. Richard Robinson, Editor