24 HEAVEN

The Le Mans 24 Hours always delivers drama, atmosphere, thrills and excitement, but its 100th anniversary was extra special

- Piers Ward

Three in the morning is not a time I've seen recently. Long gone are my clubbing days and the kids are now old enough that we're spared those brain-scraping wake-ups.

But at Le Mans, 03:00 is perhaps the greatest time. It's when the best drivers and teams know they can make a difference, when all about them are at their lowest ebb and concentration starts to lapse. Eleven hours in, 13 to go: this is the time.

And at this particular Le Mans, no one should miss it. This is the centenary anniversary of the greatest race, with the sort of stories and legendary moments that make it feel like a Hollywood script. Heck, there's even a Nascar running around.

It's why photographer Max Edleston and I are perking our tired bodies up with a trip around the famous Ferris wheel, another tick in a box of trying to experience as much of Le Mans as possible within the 24 hours. €24 later and we're sailing high over the circuit, right by the Ford chicane. A slight moment of vertigo aside, it's a unique perspective on the corners and speeds.

The weekend had started in the sort of rarefied fashion we journalists are lucky to experience. A drive down to Le Mans in a Ferrari Purosangue (comfortable and effortless, yet also razor sharp when needed), then into interviews with Ferrari's Le Mans drivers the following morning.

For a group of people who had just locked out the front row in the hyperpole shootout, they looked remarkably calm. Reflective, almost. There was an air of underlying confidence, knowing they were quick, but a huge amount of modesty about the scale of the task at hand. As Miguel Molina (car # 50) put it: "We can only do our race and do our job, and then see where we are at the end of the race. We need to think about finishing the race first."