Absolutely Insane Stories From the 24 Hours of Le Mans!

The 24 Hours of Le-Mans is one of the oldest and most exciting form of motorsport! Every year we see awesome highlights, but in some years, those highlight are absolutely crazy stories! In this article you will read about some of the most insane and awesome stories from the 24 Hours of Le Mans!

1. 

Nowadays there is a limit on how long one driver can spend in the cockpit of the car, which is 4 hours. However in 1950, there was no restrictions. This led driver pairing Louis Rosier and his son, Jean-Louis Rosier, to devise the best and craziest  plan in the history of Le Mans! Of the 24 hours Louie spent 23 hours, 15 minutes, and 17 seconds driving the car,  with his son only driving for 2 laps in the middle of the race while his father had a bathroom and food break! Ridiculous! They even ended up winning the race! Ridiculous! 

2. 

During the traditional style Le Mans race in start in 1969 saw drivers run across the track and jump into their cars before quickly driving off. This will change when driver Jacky Ickx walked slowly to his car in protest of the start style, which saw drivers rarely fastening their seat belts.  The previous year, Willy Mairesse crashed on the first lap while trying to properly close the door of his car at speed on the Mulsanne Straight; the crash would have been avoided entirely if not for the Le Mans-style start, and it ended Mairesse's racing career. 

Jacky went on to astonishingly win the Le Mans in his Ford Gt40 by just a few seconds! This was the closest ever unstaged win at Le Mans! In 1970 the traditional start was stopped due to safety reasons and drivers were strapped in properly to start the race!

3.

 The Welter Racing car.

Le Mans is mostly about building the fastest and most durable cars but this not always the case. In 1988, the Welter Racing team entered the race having only one goal, and that was to set the fastest time on the Mulsanne Straight! The Peugeot WM88 wasn't competitive, but it set a awesome speed of 400 kilometres  an hour on the Mulsanne Straight!  

 The long straight at the top of the map is the Mulsanne Straight!

Chicanes were added to the straight a couple years later and the record set by the Peugeot from the Welter Racing Team was unlikely to be broken forever. 

4. In the early races of Le Mans, there were only 12 corners in the Le Sarthe racing track. When Jacky Oliver set a lap record of 3:18.4 in 1971, nobody thought that the record would ever be broken. Nowadays, the track layout has changed to from 12  turns to 38 turns, so of course nobody would break the track record right? Wrong. In 2015, the Le Mans prototypes were so fast that the Audi r-18 E-Tron Quattro broke the track record twice in the race! Driver Andre Lotterer set the eye watering time of 3:17.647!  

 The new track with 38 turns!

 5.

Nowadays Le Mans cars are the most technically advanced race cars there is, but in 1938, it was the complete opposite! The race winning Alfa Romeo was fixed mid race by something very crazy! The Alfa Romeo had got a fuel leak that was patched up by one of the mechanics chewing gum! The Alfa Romeo went on to win the race by 10 seconds!

Comment below what story YOU think was the craziest!