The strangest Le Mans ever

Has there ever been a more weird Le Mans than that which took place 30 years ago this week? It was a race in which some of the cars that took part weren’t meant to be there and others that were meant to be there didn’t take part. It was a race where the car on pole was over three seconds a lap slower than the car starting down in 11th place, which itself was almost 40 seconds a lap (yes, 40) faster than the car immediately ahead of it on the grid.

It was a race that attracted the smallest entry in almost 60 years and was won by a car of a kind that had never won before, nor has since, and that would not come close to even troubling the podium in any other round of the 1991 Sportscar World Championship season. And you think sports car racing is in a strange place right now…