Le Mans Classic: “Every driver’s dream is a track, for viewers it’s the cars.” P. Peter
The commemorative races were held on the La Sarthe circuit in Le Mans in the west of France from 6 to 8 July 2018. It was a luxurious sight, an event for historical cars from the 24-hour race. The biggest highlights were cars from the stables of Mercedes, Porsche, Renault, Ferrari, Bugatti, Bristol and Bentley and four former Formula 1 drivers including the world champion and two Grand Prix winners, who participated in the event: Jenson Button, René Arnoux, Jacques Laffite and Paul Belmondo.
A magical story that breaks records
As concerns the inception of this unique race, it was started in 2002 by Peter Auto in cooperation with the Automobile Club de l’Ouest. The event organiser is Patrick Peter. Le Mans Classic offers a great retrospective of the legendary Le Mans 24 Hours. It is held every two years and garners vast audience favour. This year, the race was attended by 123,000 spectators, who had the chance to see almost 550 race cars on the track and 8,500 veteran cars, and 180 clubs presenting an incredible 60 brands.
Sensational: “1000” Porsche cars in one place
A special highlight of the Le Mans even was the combined celebration of several anniversaries: in particular the 40th anniversary of Alpine’s victory in the Le Mans 24 Hours and the 70th anniversary of the “birth” of the luxurious Porsche 356, and 50 years since the creation of the Porsche 908 type.
The Le Mans Classic 2018 race was divided into six categories for cars from various periods. A luxurious special event was the separate Porsche race, which was open for cars built between 1952 and 1973. Porsche has a massive fan base in Le Mans, so this is no surprise. There were an incredible number of luxury cars by this premium automobile brand to be seen on the race track.
What does Le Mans pride itself on?
The event consists of a series of races for cars which participated in the Le Mans 24 Hours race or similar cars of the same model. The race track can be accessed only with a car built before 1979. All the cars are divided into six periods. The driver must have a FIA International Competition license, meaning that they must be professional-level drivers.
