For our second gallery of images from the SpeedChills.com photographer Craig Robertson we look at the most controversial of the classes. At the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans, the LM GTE Pro class came with regulatory arm wrestling as standard. From the start of the week there was rule based controversy as the new for 2016 Ford GT cars tipped all the sand they had been carrying all season out on the race track and set times no-one could match.
Unsurprisingly this led to the ACO taking the rare step of adjusting the Balance of Performance between qualifying and the race. Still the Fords and the only other completely new car, the Ferrari 488 GTE were the class of the field. Disaster over night for the AF Corse run 488s left GTE Pro a battle of the American teams with Risi Competizione the only car which could hope to break a Ford lockout on the podium. In the dying minutes of the race the Houston based team were doing just that, sitting second and hoping to catch the leading #68 Ford.
Que protest and counter protest, the issuing of trophies, followed by the revocation of trophies and the re-issuing of trophies. The LM GTE Pro race was a good one, spoiled by playground fighting at the flag. None of which detracts from the thrill of seeing cars we could one day hope to own slogging it out for a full day on one of the worlds most impressive racing facilities. Here are Craig’s best photos from the LM GTE Pro class, with a couple of Drivers Parade images for good measure.
All of the photographs on this page are used with the kind permission of Craig Robertson and SpeedChills.com.