[LM24] Right Hand drive at Le Mans

[AllonFS]

I was looking again at a poster I got last year at LM which has pictures of all the winning cars. I noticed that nearly all the cars are RHD, and even where the driver is pretty central they tend to be on the right side of central! Bentleys and Jags I can understand, but Alfas, Ferraris, GT40s, Matras and Porsches?

I vaguely know that sportscars and touring cars have reasons for using LHD or RHD, something to do with centre of gravity, clockwise vs. anticlockwise track etc. If anyone can offer more techinical reasons I would appreciate it.

[fausto]

Audi and WM are/were LHD....

[cybersdorf]

Here's my attempt at an explanation:
Most European race tracks are raced in a clockwise direction, and on most of those the pit lane is on the inside of the track; so when the driver comes in to make a pit stop, he is on the right side (literally) of the car without getting in the way of oncoming traffic.
That's the scientific explanation.
The one that makes more sense to me is that post-war motor racing basically originated from Britain, and most sportscars, and later puropse built racecars, came from there as well. So I guess the world just stuck with the RHD for racing puropses. The gear change is on the right side of the driver in most racecars anyway so it probably isn't so difficult for drivers from "LHD countries" to adjust.
Does it make much of a difference, though; as the example of the R8 shows, LHD isn't a handicap at all

[choked_wasp]

It also depends on the way the gearbox is setup. If the linkage is on the right of the gearbox then it is easier to put the driver on the right.

[mac]

As a clockwise circuit, it is only natural that the driver wants to get as close to the apex on as many corners as possible. The cars are usually purposely built for LeMans and there are more right handers than left handers, consequently the driver would prefer to be on the right hand side. It is easier to be more accurate on corners where you are on the inside. Try it in your road car. That's my theory anyway.

[AllonFS]

Originally posted by mac
The cars are usually purposely built for LeMans and there are more right handers than left handers, consequently the driver would prefer to be on the right hand side. It is easier to be more accurate on corners where you are on the inside. Try it in your road car.

I did, but my Peugeot 306 kept being lapped by the R8s!

Thanks for the responses, all seem to make sense. So now my little 306 has two lots of racing heritage; Le Mans winning marque and RHD...