Le Mans: life inside the Nissan garage

The world's most famous endurance race ought not to be known at the 24 Heures du Mans. It's a lot, lot longer than 24 hours.

My first garage shift kicks off on the Friday morning before the race, and the Nismo LMP1 team has been flat-out at the circuit for a week already.

I start my work experience stint with professional graphic designer, Sean. Drafted into the team for his expertise in applying vinyl wraps in his day job, we'll be spending the afternoon making sure every spare carbon panel is fully stickered up in Nissan livery.

Pictures: Simon Thompson

First up, the extra gullwing doors for the #23 GT-R LM Nismo, driven by Mardenborough, Chilton, and Gene.

The chrome red wrap Nissan's picked for the door tops costs £125 - per square metre. So cutting it to length accurately is critical.

Problem is, rubbing a Stanley knife against a seriously tough carbon door knackers the blade. Sean estimates he's got through 200 blades wrapping the three cars. Probably a few more after he's tidied up my ham-fisted efforts.

The wrap is applied to the door skin, and then warmed to 500 degrees with a heat gun to set it in place. Air bubbles are smoothed out, and the finished door is hung on the garage wall with other various bodywork spares. One door down, another three to go...

While my fingers cool down from pinching the damned wrap, I'm beckoned away to do some sanding. Nissan's garage, as one of the bigger LMP1 teams, is generously sized.

Obviously the three concrete pens are the same size as every other team's, but Nissan has a large temporary motorhome erected as well, and as the team's right at the end of the pit lane, can afford to spill out into the paddock a little.

This is where the spares truck, mobile workshop and tyre sets are stored. We'll visit them later.

Phil Spencer - not he of celeb estate agent fame - describes himself as the ‘go-to-guy'. He hands me a chair, a handful of white plastic clips, and a sheet of sandpaper.

This is not one of the more glamorous jobs in motorsport, but it does demonstrate the attention to details needed to go racing at Le Mans.

My mentor is an old hand at this. Phil was Ayrton Senna's chief engineer back at Toleman in the 1980s, He was the guy in charge of the car on that rainy day in Monaco in 1984 when Senna charged after Alain Prost in near impossible conditions, chased by Stefan Bellof.

Since then he's worked in Indy Car, DTM, and various F1 teams. After 44 years and counting in racing, he's Nismo's Mr Fix It. He's also sanded half of his clips while I've been gassing about Senna. Concentrate...

Sized no bigger than a 5p piece, these tiny clips will clasp the wiring looms against the inside of the bonnet, all around the raging bi-turbo V6 engine. But Nissan's found the clips don't like sticking to the shiny carbon surface, so a quick rub with sandpaper distresses the surface enough to keep the wiring in place.

Half an hour later, with my fingernails filed haphazardly and a localized cloud of dust hovering about, I've got a pile of sanded clips reading for fitting. Next job please.

A dishcloth and some polish are thrust in my direction. Fearing a dose of housework is imminent, I'm led through the bowels of the garage, past the telemetry centre with its banks of screens and headphone-clad operators all chattering away in code.

Olympic champion Sir Chris Hoy is stood observing proceedings, no doubt considering his own debut at la Sarthe in exactly 12 months time.

Phil and I shuffle past three LMP1 cars in various states of undress, and venture out into the scorching pit lane. With Nissan gamely allowing spectators to peer inside the garage, there's quite an audience gathered against the temporary fence, peering at the bonnet and rear clamshell panels basking tin the afternoon sun. This is where the polish comes in.

Oddly, it's not just the colourful side of the bodywork that need a buff up. I'm also instructed to tip the rear clam on its end and give the rear diffuser and venturi tunnels a mirror shine: a slipperier surface will make the car's aerodynamics more efficient.

Chatting with the fans and polishing the GT-R LM's bodywork, it's a good opportunity to take stock of the entire garage. Given how hard Nissan's had to fight to be ready for the race, the general atmosphere is remarkably positive.

No one is dashing around, panicking or appearing remotely unruffled. The garage is exquisitely clean, highly organised, and the mechanics, elbow deep in their car's respective V6s, are in good spirits. Mostly poking fun at one another for the dubious content of their music playlists.

An hour or so later, the panels are looking tidier, my cleaning rags are ruined, and two of the three Nissans are still in pieces. Next door, the Riley Motorsports crew are loudly practicing pit stops on their Dodge Viper GTS-R, much to the entertainment of the crowd.

Time for the Nissans to make some noise of their own. The #21 car is on an intravenous drip, hooked up to a network of pipes pumping warm fluids around its precious engine.

The V6's internals must reach at least 50 degrees before the engineers will even think about firing it up. Once it gets the thumbs up, the start sequence is approved and the V6 launches into a droning, reverberating idle.

At last, it's alive. Nissan has ignition. Satisfaction smears itself across the faces of the engineers stood around the thrumming engine. The other two crews keep their heads down and crack on with the job in hand.

As darkness falls on the Friday night, and heavy engineering gives way to laptop-fettled set-up, photographer Simon and I are allowed a hall pass to go and get some rest.

The rest of the team will be in the garage until 3am, and then back in at 6am to prepare the car for a 45-minute practice session at 9. Then the cars will require a tear-down and rebuild before the race finally begins at 3pm.

Ex-Royal Marines would make good endurance racing crews - it's at an equivalent level of energy, discipline and ingenuity.

Ironically, it's after the race actually starts on Saturday afternoon that the mechanics look most relaxed. Picnic chairs are erected in the garage around the television screens, and the team observes the Nissans fighting back from their grid penalty.

I'm outside. It's hot. The afternoon is warm, but I've joined the tyre team, and temperatures outside - next to the heated tents where fresh tyres are stored - are sweltering.

Irishman Sean and Welshman Elwy are overseeing my attempts at ‘tyre duties', which begins with filling the heater units up with diesel. Most of it ends up on my hands. I'm still trying to get the smell off.

It's key to keep listening to the team radio via the headsets, knowing when to prepare a new set and make space for a used one as the car heads for a pit stop.

Gloves are a must too - the tyres are red hot whether fresh or straight off the car. Those tyre warmer blankets you see on race coverage aren't like your nan's electric blanket - they're a searing, 100°C piece of equipment.

As soon as a used set of wheels are carried from the pit lane to our prep area, we get to work lathering them in soap and hosing the wheels. As the rims themselves will be reused, it's critical to peel off the wheel weights and remove as much brake dust as possible, to make life more pleasant for the tyre fitters.

A man from Michelin watches on, taking pressure, temperature and wear readings in the sticky, hot evening.

If a tyre is free of cuts, it's set aside for ‘peeling'. I'm handed what looks like an art-class glue gun with a razor blade attached, but is actually a sort of turbocharged hairdryer that heats the metal blade to over 650 degrees. By scraping it across the used tyre, worn rubber and debris is removed, revealing fresh, sticky new rubber underneath.

It's critical to help the team minimise tyre usage, but it's sweaty, knackering work. Elwy can peel the tyre in beautiful sweeping motions like a celebrity chef with an onion.

My first attempt reminds me of my first go at wet-shaving, and needs salvaging by the pros, while I pick molten flecks of rubber from my arms. It already feels like a long night, but that might just be the rubber fumes.

Needing some air, I head for the team's spares truck to find more gloves. On board, there's something much cooler than just spares - an actual workshop crammed into the lorry.

A technician sits at a workbench, TIG-welding an exhaust component requested by the team. Around him are vices, sanders, and all manner of metal-working kit.

The piece of pipe is a polished work of art, the sort of industrial-looking item you could exhibit in a gallery or mount on your wall. Instead, this one's destined for a short, brutal life in an LMP1 car.

Given the materials and level of skill involved, the sort of investment it takes to get a Le Mans race project off the ground starts to boggle the mind. No wonder none of the team dare estimate a figure of how much this whole operation has cost.

As the night wears on, and with the relentless attrition of pit stops and repairs doing its best to dent Nismo morale, my stamina gives way. At around 2.30am, I squat down against the garage wall to make some notes, and wake up ten minutes later.

The unflustered team says it's a good idea for me to go and get some proper rest, and I'm too tired to argue. How they're still on the ball and able to support the most complex racing car in decades is patently beyond me.

The following morning, I join assistant race engineer Simon on race control. Headsets donned, we can listen in to the engineers and drivers keeping each other posted on the car's behaviour.

Car 21 is out after suspension failure, so we're perched where the car's crew would've been sat, guiding the Nismo through the final hour of the race.

The screens ahead show the remaining car's status, from speed and circuit position to myriad temperature readings and fluid level measurements. There are so many hundreds of sensors on the car, the team doesn't have the capacity to store data from all of them at any given moment.

So they prioritise, and cycle the readings shown throughout the race. Imagine you've got four Excel spreadsheets open in front of you, and you're trying to isolate one cell, which keeps changing its reading. It's headache-inducing stuff.

3pm draws closer. The team are watching the Porsche mechanics slap each others' backs as the #19 car draws closer to an historic win, chased hard by its red-painted compatriot and the almost vanquished Audi.

Nissan's aim is to get one car to the finish, and despite a weekend dominated by bad luck and reliability woes, the venerable red #23 car, with its polished bodywork long dirtied, is almost there.

And so, just after 3, as the grandstand stands to applaud, the remaining running GT-R LM sweeps past the jubilant, exhausted team who wait to greet it on the pit wall.

Hands are shaken, backs patted, foreheads wiped, and tears hastily wiped away. It's a lovely moment, set to a backdrop of warm applause by the appreciative La Sarthe crowd.

Nissan has made it to the finish on its Le Mans comeback, and the big clear-up can wait. The embattled crew is off for a beer. You can't say they haven't earned it.