Weekend tip: Racing around the clock 🎥
LE MANS AND DTM This weekend has it all. Some professionals will be competing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, others in the DTM at the Nürburgring. As a spectator, you'll get your money's worth live or at home on TV. After last year's dreary ghost race, the first-ever August weekend will see the [...]
After last year's dreary ghost race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, held for the first time on an August weekend, is really getting into the spirit. A limited number of spectators are again allowed, and the lap times achieved by the individual teams in practice and qualifying promise pure excitement after several years of Toyota's monopoly.
Toyota against Alpine and Glickenhaus
Toyota Gazoo Racing remains the favorite with its two GR010 hypercars, especially since they were the best at the distance in the previous rounds of the FIA World Endurance Championship. However, Alpine's only car, based on an LMP1 Oreca without a hybrid, is on a par. The French last won at Le Mans 43 years ago.
The two new hypercars from Glickenhaus can also keep up the pace over one lap and are the crowd favorites for many. However, Le Mans has its own laws, and no competitor knows them as well as world championship leader Toyota.
Sébastien Buemi can make history
So after the failure in the Formula E World Championship, Sébastien Buemi can and may hope for a successful performance. His number 8 car qualified for second place on the grid in the hyperpole qualifying of the fastest six cars from each category on Thursday evening. The pole position - the first for a modern hypercar - was taken by his teammate Kamui Kobayashi.
With a victory - the fourth in a row - the Swiss and his Japanese regular partner Kazuki Nakajima could make history. Geneva dual citizen Nicolas Lapierre (always drives as a Frenchman) starts from third position with Alpine.
Chance for the fastest LMP2 teams
Perhaps an LMP2 team will also prevail in the end. After all, the sports prototypes in the second category are only minimally slower following the neutering of the top cars by the new hypercar regulations, at least on one lap.
If the five hypercars weaken, it could see the first overall victory by an LMP2 team. It almost happened four years ago, when only a Porsche 919 Hybrid completed the 24 hours faster.
Scherer, Delétraz and Trummer with ambitions
Two of the four Swiss in LMP2 have legitimate hopes of making the podium. Fabio Scherer won at Spa and Monza with United Autosports, so it doesn't matter if bad luck in traffic meant that he didn't make it into the Hyperpole qualifying and therefore only managed to start 12th in class. The main thing is that the speed at the distance is there.
On the other hand, Louis Delétraz and his team are further ahead. He qualified the Oreca-Gibson from Team WRT for the second-best LMP2 position on the fourth row of the grid. Fifth place in the only WEC event so far in Portiugal and the victories in the ELMS are also encouraging for him. With Rebellion, the Geneva native missed the podium by just 70 seconds last year.
For Simon Trummer with his U.S. team and Esteban Garcia with the Swiss-flagged Realteam Racing, the main aim is to achieve a top finish in the Pro-Am sub-table due to the driver line-up. But ideally, anything is possible for them, too.
Neel Jani keeps GT flag flying high
In the GTE-Pro class, the eight teams from Porsche, Ferrari and Corvette, who will send their best representatives from grid positions 1, 2 and 3, will give each other nothing. Here, race luck and strategy - in which Porsche is always good - will also play a role.
After wins at Spa and Monza and second place in Portugal, anything less than a podium would be a huge disappointment for Neel Jani. The accident of his team partner Kevin Estre, who was destined for qualifying, and the resulting sixth place on the GT grid do nothing to change that.
The Americans, for their part, will compete at Le Mans 2021 for the first time with the new mid-engine Corvette C8.R, moreover after many years without Marcel Fässler.
In terms of numbers, the strongest class is LM-GTE Am, in which a top-10 result would be a small success for Rahel Frey, LM rookie Rolf Ineichen and Thomas Flohr. As ninth in the last two years, the Solothurn driver and her Ferrari partners have achieved this brilliantly.
Here is the provisional classification of the qualifying and here the provisional starting grid with the nominated starting drivers.
The highlights from the Hyperpole qualifying session suggest that there will be plenty of spectacle in the race as well.
TV live around the clock
The free-TV channel RTL NITRO will broadcast the endurance classic at Le Mans live in full on Saturday from 3:30 p.m. until Sunday after the finish at 4 p.m.. Eurosport's sports channels will also provide extensive coverage of the 89th edition of the classic race.
The paid apps of the World Endurance Championship WEC and the Le Mans organizer ACO offer a live stream as well as clear timing.
Nico Müller must make up DTM points
The DTM drivers will be racing at the Nürburgring for a shorter period of time, but with no less concentration. For Nico Müller in Team Rosberg's Audi R8, the primary objective is to find his way back to the top of the field after two recent mixed weekends. The fact that he has an experienced new team-mate in factory driver Christopher Haase as a replacement for the American Dev Gore, who is unable to race, is certainly not a disadvantage - keyword: data comparison.
Philip Ellis has already made the leap to the top with his sensational victory at Lausitz. But the Mercedes driver wants to confirm this with another podium. With the addition of a Porsche - a first ever in the history of the DTM - there are seven brands on the grid for the first time, spread across 23 drivers.
GT4 premiere by Miklas Born
Both DTM races will be broadcast on Sat1 on free TV from 1 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday (start 1.30 p.m.). The DTM Trophy for GT4 drivers, in which St. Gallen's Lucas Mauron and, for the first time, Basel's Miklas Born on an Audi R8 and Neuchâtel's Yann Zimmer on a BMW M4 are competing, can be seen live on Sport1 (start at 3.10 p.m. each day).
On the streaming portal online platform DTM Grid even all races from the Nürburgring, including those in the supporting program, can be seen.
The trailer for the 2021 DTM at the Nürburgring. So far, there have been five race winners in six races.