The 24 Hours of Le Mans will run as two separate 12 hour races after locals complained about disruption and noise, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest has announced.
The two races will run in daytime hours only, to allow roads to be opened up in between so the considerable disruption caused by the races is kept to a minimum.
The track the French endurance classic uses, the Circuit de la Sarthe, is made up of mostly public roads, including the Hunaudières road, a major road connecting the towns of Le Mans and Mulsanne together.
The ACO has been slowly converting many of the roads used by the race to dedicated race circuit in recent years, to lessen the disruption caused. The latest included a new section of road built near the Indianapolis and Arnage corners, enabling the former public road to be converted to race track.
The Hunaudières also has chicanes, which were added in 1990 and have always been dedicated race track. The road is known as the Mulsanne Straight to English-speaking fans during the race.
Sources say if the locals continue to complain the race could even be run in the future on the Bugatti Circuit, the ACO’s own separate race track which uses the straight finish straight and Dunlop Chicane area of the regular 24 hour track.
In a statement the ACO said: “It is a shame that we have to cut the race in two, but we have to take the locals’ concerns and complaints into consideration as we continue to hold the race well into the 21st century.”
Disclaimer: Fear not sportscar fans! This is merely an article written to fool you. An April Fool, one might say…
BS more woke idiots, stealing everything next it will be only electric cars so as not to hurt the enviornment all BS
Bro it’s April fools.
Calm down Karen
Didn’t read the end I take it…
Exactly 💯…this is sad
I wasn’t surprised. The frogs are kings of the workers. Ha ha ha
Way to overreact to a joke, numbnuts.
Loser.
Imagine being the kind of person who blames everything on wokeness without knowing what it is? Even though this is an obvious joke, isn’t this kind of overreaction the kind of thibk a person who uses words like ‘woke’ would describe as ‘snowflake’ behaviour…
Hahahahaha That’s classic. So funny. 😂
Yea right had me for a min or two, then I realised what day it’s. your not making a fool out of me. No April fools or me.
I forgot what day it is.
You had me seething in anger as I was standing on the bagel shop line.
It was honestly very easy to believe with all the craziness that goes on with entitled people in this world.
Well done….
You guys got me good!!! I was going crazy…until I reached the end.
Not convinced as April fools day locals are known to moan a lot yep another great race flushed down the drain
not funny
You’re right, it’s not funny… IT’S HILARIOUS…LOL!!
Beautiful. Every race fan who reads this through will have a smile on his face today.
You guys managed to ruin my day, until the end of this column!
It would seem reasonable to believe this story, because of all the craziness going.
Thanks for the laugh!!
Haha! Good one!
Got me
Glad this only April Fool joke. I was about give up on WEC series altogether also have already done with Formula 1.
You may have heard about locals complaining about noise at Laguna Seca Weathertech Raceway in Monterey California. That was real, and recent, but was squashed (“settled” for $0) by Monterey County that owns the racetrack and surrounding park. But perhaps that inspired this…. Maybe that’s why I knew immediately what this was.