The DSC team arrived at Le Mans for race week yesterday with others following through to Tuesday next week.

First up for Photographic Editor David Lord and his partner in pictorial crime Peter ‘Pedro’ May was a run around the full circuit.

“That big black cloud is definitely going in the other direction” No it wasn’t, 1 Hour and 12 minutes later a pair of drowned rats returned. Impressive stuff, and with their Garmin GPS trackers active a nice souvenir image too!

On the way around the boys passed the site of Marco Sorensen’s test day accident, at the second kink on the run down to Indianapolis, and the photographic evidence of the impact point, and the wreckage, shows several things –

That Aston Martin Racing’s Technical Director Dan Sayers and his team built a VERY strong car. That the impact was enormous, and that Marco Sorensen was a very lucky boy!

The bits and pieces collected from trackside the following day by the young son of our Le Mans host are terrifyingly tiny and, in the case of the alloy components, simply decimated.

All is now well of course with AMR having built up a replacement car inside a week, the car will be scrutineered, alongside its sister car, tomorrow.

Our first stop in race week is always at Tertre Rouge, to take a moment to remember our friend. Unbelievably it has been five years since we, and you, lost Allan Simonsen.

And another one to remember today, it’s been just over three years since we lost another old mate. Sleep well David Stephens.