Here’s the last element in our Le Mans 24 Hour diary series, this time with an incredible selection of images contributed by the great Andrew ‘Skippy’ Hall.

IT’S SIX FIFTEEN in the morning.

The sun rises early here this time of year, but this morning it’s shrouded in cloud – the last vestiges of weather that had swept across the area the evening before, causing all the usual rain related chaos that rain usually causes.

As a result, the resulting pre dawn gloom feels like it lasts for an eternity, failing to shake the final throws of night until it’s warm enough for the cloud to burn off and the sun to poke through.

It’s eerie at the Circuit De La Sarthe at this time of morning. It’s not dramatic like it is at midnight nor is it buzzing like it is in the late afternoon when the field erupts away into turn one to the adulation of 335,000 people, all seemingly crammed together despite the enormity of the circuit they’re attending.

Instead it’s as if there’s a fog in the air, that malaise when your brain struggles to quite see what’s ahead – though it’s the brain that is the issue here, not a lack of real visibility.

Fourteen hours into the race, and coming off the back of fifteen minutes of uncomfortable sleep stretched across the back seat of a Porsche Cayenne – comfortable a long distance hauler the Porsche is, a comfortable bed it does not make – and three hours of a commentary stint, I am in need of stimulation.

So it’s off to the Ford Chicane, the final complex of the 13.6km lap that brings the cars back to the huge Tribunes – grandstands – that like the main straight.

From our commentary point in the international TV compound it’s a short amble, down some steps, into the tunnel and beneath the circuit and over to the outer. Turn right and head up to the main stands or left, and the Chicane. I take the latter.

There’s signs of life in this early haze: there’s a small line of people at the only food stand open, serving coffee and, of course, the ubiquitous French croissant.

Next to that, there people lie asleep on the lawn, seemingly fallen where they last sat the night before. They are ignored, left to sleep the sleep of someone who was having a big day before.

Suddenly the circuit bursts into view on the left, separated by catch fencing and the demarcation lane for emergency vehicles and the odd, bleary eyed photographer hoping for a magic sunrise shot but only finding grey. Next time.

The first car into view is a Porsche 911 RSR because of course it is.

It bursts into view in front of the massive, temporary corporate stands on drivers left, located adjacent to the Virage Recordoment. Casa Ferrari is particularly impressive, as is the Peugeot one though none beat Porsche: they have a massive and very permanent Experience Centre on the right hand side of the road. There not much sign of life there at this time of the morning, the Hoffbrau well and truly parked for the time being.

Ahh yes, the RSR. It’s the AO Racing car, bright green with the gigantic mouth and teeth on the front. Dubbed ‘rexy’, it’s a fan favourite. At 6:15am, it’s my caffeine hit.

LM GTE cars are incredible, like a GT3 that has taken all the drugs to bulk up. They’re angry and the RSRs characteristic howl sounds like a wild animal having a particular satisfying moment.

Rexy brakes, down through the gears and into the first part of the Ford Chicane, front slightly bouncing with the traditional Porsche bounce and the front rotors glowing.

Nipping the kerbs, it rotates quickly through the first left and right, and then there’s a quick blat into the second part where it does it again.

When the car gets the straight, the noise is amplified by the stands either side, it’s like a tunnel for flat six morning glory. It’s delicious.

One of the Chip Ganassi-run Cadillac’s burst into view next and the Hypercars are visibly so much quicker. I think its Sebastian Bourdais at the wheel of the Gold-nosed car and it looks angry as they make up time for earlier delays.

By this point of the race I’d already proclaimed the big V.R as my favourite car. It’s simple and clean lines make it seem as if it’s come from the 1990s, but the soundtrack from the 5.5 litre V8 is right out of pure imagination of what a racing car should be.

It’s angry and guttural and in many ways reminds me of the thunder produced by a certain Audi in local Sports Sedans.

The downshifts are a rifle-like series of explosions and then there’s a phase in the acceleration curve through the rev range when it just sounds plain mean.

Compared to the turbocharged cars around it, the big Caddy’s are a breath of fresh air.

There’s one of the ubiquitous Gibson-powered LMP2 cars next and for a moment I think it’s going to have an off – but instead he’s heading to pit lane. The way the cars attack the pit limit line is breathtaking, especially when the Hypercars come in with the rears smoking as they extract as much Regen energy from their hybrid systems.

Finally, the leaders are on their way to me.

It’s the Toyota first. The TG010 is a good looking car but it’s relatively undramatic (as much as a top flight Le Mans car can be, anyway) in both it’s appearance and sound. It’s much quieter than the American cars and even most of the GTE machines. But you can determine it’s intent.

Seb Buemi is behind the wheel and he is hustling, even this far into the race the pace is utterly relentless, unset the 3’30 mark and closer to the ’27s. There’s visibly energy in the way it attacks the kerbs and on the exit of the second of four corners in the final complex there’s a fistful of opposite lock directed at the front wheels as the car oversteers in reaction to hitting the kerb.

It looks like a qualifier, not hour fourteen of a race.

As the Toyota, leading, vanishes up towards Dunlop the Ferrari appears.

The 499P is visually more exciting than the Toyota, instantly more aggressive in form with the trip of sharkfins at the back – two supporting the enormous rear wing – a visual highlight.

The Ferraris 2.9 litre turbo V6 sounds more gruff than the Toyota and perhaps a little louder. But as it is with F1 if there’s a criticism with this modern era of motorsport it’s that the aural appeal doesn’t quite match the aesthetics. The Ferrari looks like it needs a 12,000 RPM V12 – none of this V6 anti-climax.

Still, it’s mega quick. Allesandro Pier Guidi is storming and has cut seconds out of the Toyota as they charge towards the next stops, which will come in a few laps.

Regardless, the only cars in the world that visibly stop, turn and accelerate as visibly spectacularly as a current Le Mans Hypercars are those of a Grand Prix variety. They may be 10 seconds slower than they were five years ago, but they are impressively violent.

And with that, the haze of the morning is lifted, all thoughts of tiredness pushed aside – if temporarily – as Le Mans awakens to a new day.

Coffee is good, sure, but this.. this is the far better morning tonic to get your day started. I’d very much like it every day, please.

**

THAT Ferrari versus Toyota battle became the crux of this year’s race, once the challenge of the Porsches had dissolved and the Peugeots stopped being the surprise packet that they became.

The Blue-nosed Cadillac grimly held on to the lead lap throughout the night, but really this was a show that boiled down to Toyota versus Ferrari.

The world’s biggest car manufacturer versus the world’s most popular one.

This would be an intense battle in any race, but that it should last for as long as it did adds to making it as memorable as I’m sure it will be.

This wasn’t big, it was titanic. It was utterly relentless and in a 24 hour race it was a case of seconds being the difference. When you got your head around that, and watched the attitude of the cars – still at maximum attack that far into the race – it becomes even more remarkable.

Some will claim Toyota were nobbled too much by pre event Balance of Performance changes and it’s a reasonable arguments, but the reality was there was little to split these two on race day.

The Ferraris advantage was that it was quicker in a straight line : confident that they could overtake should they be behind on track position.

The compelling strategic battle was also exciting: more often than not they’d pit together. One stop the Ferrari would gain the advantage by not taking tyres. The next time it’d be the Toyota. This went on all race, stint after stint. Not so much a game of car and mouse, more a game of lion versus tiger. The regular switching of roles from hunted to hunter was a fascinating narrative of this remarkable battle.

Ferrari’s raw race pace ultimately saw them gain a track position advantage as the race moved into it’s closing quarter and Toyota started needing to innovate in a bid to give them options – do something different, then at least if you lose, you’ve tried.

AF Corse, though, were magnificent… Very un-Ferrari, in a way. Completely confident in their position, their pace and their plan, when Toyota pitted out of sequence in a bid to get late track position, they merely followed one lap later.

Heaven only knows how the F1 would have reacted , but in this case it was a very Germanic, efficient and systematic performance from a passionate, vibrant Italian team.

In the end, Toyota probably wasn’t going to beat the Ferrari this year, even without Rio Hirakowa’s off late in the race. The 499 was just too good and too good everywhere. The Ts010 just didn’t quite have enough on this day, though they went down swinging.

This was an incredible race. though the ultimate distance covered was small by recent standards, the intensity was beyond anything almost anyone would have expected.

In the wild early hours the Ferrari, Toyota, Cadillac, Porches and Peugeots all duelled as it it was a sprint race. What is that battle going to be like next year when Lamborghini and Alpine join the fun, or when Roger Penske and the Stuttgart chiefs give their 963s a big tune up. You can bet their response to their failures of this year will be savage. What is that all going to look like?

I think it’s safe to say that while the centennial celebrations dominated the lead up to this year’s 91st running of the Le Mans classic, once the race took hold it delivered enough to suggest that this race is headed for a classic period where the completion is likely to go, just possibly, beyond annoying we currently see in motorsport today.

If the mighty, intense, 22-hour long war between Ferrari and Toyota was the entrée to that new era, the main course is going to be one for the history books, for sure.

**