Reilly Brennan

2012 24 Hours of Le Mans Couch Kit: Streams, Entry Lists, Good Stuff

Another Le Mans means another awesome day of watching from across the Atlantic via a series of tubes. If you want to follow along, I’ve pulled together some of the better resources here, in my recurring lazyman’s Couch Kit series. 

(Note: this page updates frequently throughout the week and weekend)

Start time: 3:00PM CET (9AM Eastern), Saturday June 16

U.S. TV coverage explained: Speed’s coverage of the race is primarily on its TV channel, with 23 hours on air. Unfortunately the experience is broken up across a few sections because they cut away to NASCAR for a bit, during which they are live on Speed.com. Here is the full schedule (Eastern times) for U.S.

• Speed TV: 8:30AM - 1PM
• Speed.com: 1PM - 2:30PM
• Speed TV: 2:30PM - 7PM
• Speed.com: 7:00PM - 7:30PM
• Speed TV: 7:30PM - remainder of race (through 9AM Sunday) 

Audio Stream

• Radio Le Mans: The team at Radio Le Mans does round-the-clock, we-never-stop coverage and they are quite good — and funny, which is what you need when you cover something for 24 hours.
• Team streams: Flying Lizards, JRM

TV / web streams

• Speed.tv splits their coverage between broadcast and online, meaning that when it’s on TV it’s not online. That is sort of frustrating, but when the feed is on it is very, very crisp. When the full feed isn’t available online, they do show Corvette on-board.
• ACO feed: ACO gave their official feed to DailyMotion here. There are some other team-related streams below the feed.
• Corvette on-board: Actually the same as the Speed link above, but showing only Corvette when Speed doesn’t show their coverage online. Confused yet? 
• Audi on-board: In addition to dominating Le Mans, Audi dominates web streaming as well with bandwith, quality and coverage that is in keeping with their herrschaft.
• Eurosport: This one shows Eurosport, with Radio Le Mans as its audio (ads go away after 30 seconds) — I should note this one has been very stable. This is another (ads disappear after 30 sec) — thanks to Rory O’Connor for this one. Or try here for Eurosport Germany link.
• Ten Sport: a TV station from Australia, who will provide coverage of the entire race. Update: deggis4 comes in hot with some tips on how to access this outside of the outback — see the comments below.

Timing/Scoring

• ACO / WEC: Official timing and scoring from Le Mans
• Baekdal’s dashboard: A mix of a twitter feed from official sources and timing and scoring. Here’s Baekdal’s dashboard for iPhone/iPad optimized viewing.

Phone / mobile apps

• Radio Le Mans on iPhone: Download F-stream (free) from iTunes and then add this URL in as a new Favorite (go to Edit, then add a new station). Thanks to Dan Edmunds for this tip!
• Radio Le Mans on Windows Phone: Requires Windows 7 or later. Thanks Brian Roche for the tip!
• ACO iPhone app: (has timing/scoring built in) I don’t think there’s an Android version.
• Baekdal iPhone optimized page. 

Entry List

• Spotter’s Guide: A great visual view of the entries, from the great Andy Blackmore (direct link to PDF).
• Official ACO entry list: From the sanctioning body (opens PDF)

Other useful stuff

• Twitter searches: #LM24, #LeMans, #WEC, Metacool racers list, @almsnotes, @24hoursoflemans (official feed)
• Drive will be online live from YouTube for 25 hours, in the words of the team there: “we are not broadcasting the race, we are broadcasting interviews and discussions from the track and the New York Studio.” I love Drive and expect we’ll see good stuff from them throughout the day.
• Michael Fuller’s notes from Le Mans on the always incredible Mulsanne’s Corner. 
• Technical review from Racecar Engineering (PDF, requires email)
• Audi released another awesome installment of Truth in 24 from the 2011 race (high res YouTube link). (Part I - 2010 race is here, too.)

2011 info

• Winner average speed: 125.06 mph
• Winner’s total laps: 355 (record)
• Winners: Fassler, Lotterer, Treluyer (Audi R18 TDI, named ‘Red Sonja’)
• Winners: being awesome below