Race and classic pictures

Spectacular celebrations at Le Mans' climax

This weekend has been all about the Le Mans 24 Hours race and Fernando Alonso's ultimately successful mission to secure the second leg of the Triple Crown of motorsports.

In turns of racing, this year's race might have been about as competitive as your average Monaco GP, thanks to Toyota being the only factory team left in the field with LMP1 hybrid technology. In many ways they only had themselves to beat.

But that's to take nothing away from the drivers - Alonso and his team mates Kazuki Nakajima and Sébastien Buemi, not to mention Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López in the second Toyota who kept them honest throughout.

And just as is the case with Monaco, there's something about Le Mans which transcends the action out on track. It's also one of motor racing's premier social events, with tens of thousands of fans watching through the night in a marathon effort of their own.

And at the end we get the pay-off: the classic way in which the flag is shown to the cars crossing the finish line, and the crowds rushing onto the Circuit de la Sarthe to hail their heroes on the podium.

It's a weekend unlike any other on the motorsports calendar, and this year's event more than lived up to the expectations. And with Alonso's win, it might have major repercussions for what the two-time world champion decides to do in 2019...

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.