An enduring spectacle – with a serious side

Le Mans has been described as a "24-hour party with one hell of a race attached". But there is more to it than that. For the companies behind the racing teams it's a chance to try out engineering and fuels in a gruelling and very public arena, writes Alex Forbes

BY 4am I'd had enough. I'd watched the racing on and off for 13 hours, drunk one or two glasses of champagne too many, and been whizzed around an airfield in an Audi R8 by a professional racing driver – scary but exhilarating. It was time to go back to Audi's temporary racing hotel to get a few hours' sleep. Besides, it had started raining. Out on the track, in the faint stirrings of dawn, the drivers of the mud-spattered cars still in the race were a little past the half-way point. They still had another 11 hours to go, at speeds of up to 340 km an hour (210 miles an hour), to complete what many regard as the world's fastest, toughest and most famous endurance race: Le Mans. This year was t