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In a world where the familiarity of certain places, timelines and social rituals underpins the appeal, many things had changed at Le Mans last weekend. The gendarmerie remains as diligent as ever in apprehending speeding Britons, while the TVR, Caterham and classic Jaguar sets still cruise down the slow but nostalgic N138. For those in a real hurry, the A28 autoroute has finally completed its spread from Le Mans to Rouen.
They have mildly recontoured the circuit, too, in the scary curves before the Dunlop Bridge. But between test and race weekends, they had reverted to the old pit-lane exit, because everybody save the organisers thought the new bike-racer-friendly one, hidden over the brow and needing only a target on the side of the emerging cars to present the perfect T-bone opportunity, was too dangerous to contemplate.
In town on Friday night, they had to squeeze the traditional drivers' parade around the ugly plastic barriers delineating Le Mans' messy three-year plan to give the town an urban tramway system. The predominantly British crowds outside the bars and cafes surrounding the Place de la Republique no longer looked out on the old square but on graffiti-scrawled hoardings hiding more public works. But they still ate, drank and partied in their noisy, good- natured thousands, somehow managing to retain the all-pervading Le Mans bonhomie.
Far worse, on the pretext of the old, tatty jumble of on-circuit bars and friteries, bistros and boutiques, champagne stalls and bookshops no longer satisfying health and safety expectations, they had demolished the old "village''. By...