In honor of the 78th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2010, the michelinracingusa.com staff offers 24 bits of Le Mans history, factoids and trivia. See www.michelinracingusa.com for updates, features and the complete list, plus Rick Dole photos.

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Note 19 of 24: Nowhere to Hide

The weather forecast for race day at Le Mans includes rain.  If the forecasters are right, the warm up, pre-race ceremonies and several hours of the race could all include varying levels of rain. Thankfully, the preliminary forecast is most of the race is expected to be dry.

The combination of wet and dry conditions, and the always-exciting transitions from one to the other, only add to the total test that is Le Mans.

In 2008, Audi spent considerable time in practice and qualifying sessions working on a range of set ups to prepare for the possibility of wet conditions.  Peugeot was incredibly fast in the dry, but its full-attack, low downforce set-ups would lose time in the wet.  It rained.

Audi prevailed in a classic battle, brilliantly documented in Audi’s award winning film, Truth in 24.

This year, the scenario is a bit different.   Peugeot, which extracted revenge at Le Mans in 2009, is now in its fourth and final season with its current models. They have many hundreds of miles of wet running.  The Audi team is in the newer car, albeit well developed and was quickest in the wet in today’s warm-up.

Racing in the wet, especially in the dark, on a fast, low-downforce circuit is part of the set-up of Le Mans and sports car endurance racing. Every weakness in the car, set-up, drivers or strategy is exposed. There is nowhere to hide. The truth emerges.