Ayse's 'Occasional Blog'
Monday 10th August 2020
Nothing to Report
So, it's now been over three weeks since my last blog post and, as the title implies, there isn't really a great deal to report on. We're all still waiting to find out what the French government have to say on 15th August about the current 5000 limit on gatherings. With some Covid hotspots appearing in France (one worryingly close in Mayenne) and an increase in Covid cases in neighbouring Belgium, causing the UK government to add Belgium to the 14 quarantine for returning travellers, it all still looks very pessimistic.
Last Thursday the ACO President Pierre Fillon was keeping his options open, clearly still hoping to have spectators at the race, but now only talking of having 'four or five villages, maybe more....', so he clearly doesn't know yet what the ACO are going to be permitted to do - if anything. Meanwhile, those ticket holders who haven't yet given up hope of getting to the race (and a lot have) are waiting patiently for news, not only of whether they're going to be able to go, but where they are going to be 'villaged' when they get there. It's tough to be optimistic right now about the chances of getting there and even tougher to imagine what the experience is going to be like.
In the meantime we had a cracking ELMS race yesterday at Spa in which my son (who came to Le Mans with me in 2017/18) was working for Nielsen Racing as pit crew on their #7 LMP3 car - which finished on the podium in 2nd place in class. A terrific result. And we even caught one of the pitstops on the live stream - see below - he is wearing the red gloves on the front left tyre change. Irrespective of whether I get to Le Mans in September, he should be there for the Road to Le Mans race.
More updates in due course.
