Construction at Le Mans

After all my pontificating about the best bits of Le Mans, it turns out that much of the track has been torn up over the winter in a series of construction projects.

The first chicane before the Dunlop bridge has been tightened, and in doing so the track has moved away from the grandstand on the outside by quite some distance, approximately 50 metres.

Tertre Rouge is due to be re-profiled in 2007 , supposedly for safety, but the shallower angle will actually make entrance speeds to the Mulsanne Straight higher. What's worse however is that a new tramline that runs to the sports complex inside the track near Tertre Rouge has caused the demolition of the Tertre Rouge bar! What a tragedy! At least they're enlarging the embankment on the inside of the corner, so we'll just have to grab some beers and food and sit there at sunset instead.

The village / vendor area is undergoing massive changes, and to be honest that's probably for the best - it was never the finest part of the facility.

Maybe the worst news of all would be if the rumour was true of a chicane between Mulsanne Corner and Indianapolis. This would make the fastest part of the current track much slower, and remove a lot of what Le Mans is all about: sustained high speed racing.