Road to Le Mans Race 2, 2022

  

The most interesting car in the race was this  Hydrogen Electric Prototype car, the Mission H24.

For those who got there early enough on Saturday, the last warm up race for the 24 Hours of Le Mans , was the second Road to Le Mans race for LMP3 and GT3 cars.  This is the flagship race and third round of the Michelin Le Mans Cup calendar.  The race was over 55 minutes and the winning car completed 11 laps.  The race was won by a Ligier driven by Michael Benham and Duncan Tappy from the other 44 cars that started.  There were some surprisingly good drivers and top teams in this race.

Particularly interesting this year is the Mission H24 car that is competing in the series. It is a hydrogen-electric prototype that it is part of a project to have a hydrogen powered class compete in the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans.  It is propelled by 2 electric motors which are powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.  It has zero emissions and runs in a special experimental category.  Total Energies have created a special mobile hydrogen refuelling station for it.  It had to refuel a few times during the race and was slower than the LMP3 and GT3 cars, but this could be the future.  I was actually quite excited by seeing it.

Another view of the Hydrogen car.  It completed 9 laps of Le Mans in just under one hour driven by the development driver Stéphane Richelmi.  It sounded different to both the other cars in the race and Formula E cars.

The first lap of the Road to Le Mans race 2.  These are the leaders.

The first lap of the Road to Le Mans race 2.  This is further down the field and we start to see the GT3 cars.

This is the second placed car - a LMP3 Ligier JS320-Nissan. This was driven by Mads Siljehaug and Freddy Hunt.  Freddy is the son of 1976 World Champion James Hunt.

The 3rd placed Ligier of Alexander Mattschull and Tom Dillman.

The other make of car in LMP3 was this Duqueine M30 D08 Nissan. This ios the fourth placed car of Kratz and Weiss.

In GT3 it was nice to see the Honda NSX.  This one won the class in the hands of Kasper Jensen and Kristian Poulsen.

John Etherton asserts his copyright to all of the photos on this blogpost.  However, you may post the photos elsewhere on the web as long as you credit the photographer, John Etherton, and this blog post, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com and provide a link to this page.

John Etherton affirme son droit d'auteur à l'ensemble des photos sur ce billet de blog. Cependant, vous pouvez poster des photos ailleurs sur le web aussi longtemps que vous créditez le photographe, John Etherton, et ce blog, Rouenlesafx@blogspot.com et fournissez un lien vers cette page.

LMP3 Racing.

The No.6 Ligier crashed out after 4 laps.  It caused a safety car.