Mark Webbers Porsche 919 looking somewhat alien-like during the June 2014 running of the Le Mans 24 Hour classic…
He shared the car with Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley, the trio led the race a couple of times, as late as during the twenty-first hour but a broken roll bar forced them into the pits at that point and the car was retired.
Ultimately the Andre Lotterer/Marcel Fassler/Benoit Treluyer Audi R18 e-tron 4 litre turbo-diesel V6 won from the similar car of Tom Kristenson/Marc Gene/Lucas di Grassi with the Toyota TS040 Hybrid 3.7 litre V8- its crew Anthony Davidson/Sebastien Buemi/Nicolas Lapierre, third.
The best placed Porker was in eleventh- Marc Lieb/Romain Dumas/Neel Jani aboard the 2 litre turbo-V4 919 Hybrid. Webber and Co completed 346 laps but were non-classified, the winners did 379.
Most of you will recall Mark Webber left Formula 1 for Endurance Racing at the end of 2013 doing three seasons with Porsche before his retirement at the end of 2016.
He won the World Endurance Drivers Championship together with Hartley and Bernhard in 2015, the trio took eight wins over the three years they raced together helping Porsche win the Manufacturers Championship In 2015 and 2016.
Getty Images is an orgy of photography, regular readers will be well aware of the value of the resource to me, do have a look- key ‘Le Mans’ into the search engine and the 62,351 images which pop up will keep you busy for a while.
This piece is visual, with a focus on the more creative of Getty’s Mark Webber 2014 ‘Lee Manz’, as Larry Perkins calls it, shots. More on the Porsche 919; https://primotipo.com/2016/02/10/testing-testing/
My posts may be a bit hap-hazard over the next three weeks, I am on safari in England and Italy for a bit.
Credits…
Getty Images
Tailpiece…
Finito…
primotipo... 
More farty than arty. Art is almost devoid from modern racing as the festooning of cars with a barrage of advertising signs reduces them to a corporate blur.all set off on a racetrack that looks like a child’s play mat.
Great pictures Mark , lots of imagination from the photographer & thankyou for posting them . Have an enjoyable holiday too & thanks for keeping us all entertained this year with your articles ! . Best regards , Brian .
Thanks Brian,
It’s not a racing holiday as such but am seeing the ‘Schlumpf Collection’, Alfa Museum and Tazios Museum too- will be fun! Mark
I beg to differ, Bill.
The photographers of all these pictures have deliberately cut through what offends you, and displayed excellent expressions of the movement, colour, drama and tension involved in a race which, by its very nature, can become confusing and tedious.
I’m as put off by garish advertising and sterile racetracks as you are, but Mark’s choices here have been carefully selected because he’s noticed what I’ve seen….that maybe the photographers are over it as well, and have decided to maximise the ‘romance’ and defy the parasites who modify traditions for their own ends.
My son is a professional sports photographer, and he spends his days working out how to get around the visual barriers put in place by the hangers-on, which clutter the view of all sports.
Qantas Wallabies……how dare they!!
Lynton, Bill,
I think it’s really clear that if you look at the Getty Archive, and I’m not suggesting that is the only place, that the modern generation of photographers, using better equipment than, say, Rudy Mailander, are succeeding in creating some amazing work despite the backgrounds and in some cases the ‘ugly’ cars which are their subjects.
Just key F1 and Bathurst 12 Hour into Getty and see what you think.
I think a few more of these ‘photographic essays’ without too many words are interesting.
Yves Debraine, Bernard Cahier, Rainer Schlegelmilch and the like had much better ‘raw material’ to work with than the guys of today but their is some great art out there now too.
Mark
Hi Mark’ checked out the Getty site and while they are well captured shots they have one hundred pages of sameness due to the uniform corporate subject matter be it Bathurst or F1. Contrast them with a historic event and see what produces more appealing images. In the end it is personal taste, but I know what tickles my fancy.
P.S. F1 and Le Mans have ceased to be sporting events. https://youtu.be/QdalHDSQRDk
[…] Milking plenty of teev, ‘paper and online coverage. Nice. The shot below is Webber’s 919 at Le Mans in 2014, check out this article; https://primotipo.com/2019/07/18/le-mans-arty-farty/ […]