Still No Problems!
Sir,
Laurence Meredith (Motor Sport, August 1988) must have been extremely unfortunate to witness the scenes of bad crowd behaviour he described at Le Mans.
I watched the race from various parts of the circuit for pretty well the whole 24 hours, and can honestly state that I did not see any spectator trouble or even unpleasant incidents. It was in fact a great tribute to the sport as a whole that approximately 250,000 people could behave so well. Not only did I not see anybody drunk, but I didn’t even witness the dreaded Le Mans pickpocket!
The invasion of the finishing area at the end of the race by the British fans was inevitable under the circumstances of the fantastic Jaguar win, but it was done in a very good-humoured and harmless way. Surely the applause given to the finishing Porsches by the British fans bears witness to that?
The misbehaving Englishmen Mr Meredith encountered must have been a small minority.
Stephen Lant
Sheffield, South Yorkshire