title: Eurojackpot

text: The first event when multiple players have won the same divided jackpot was on 7 January 2017. For the first time, five people (one from each German federal states of Berlin, Niedersachsen and Hessen, with a winner from Denmark and one from the Netherlands) won 18,000,000.00 Euro after a week when the maximum Jackpot with 90,000,000.00 Euro hadn't been drawn. It was followed by the next multiple 5+2 win on 10 February, when a Hungarian player won the country's biggest-ever lottery prize (overtaking the most famous 5/90 "Ötöslottó"'s record with 5092 million Forint, which was 19˙216˙280,26 Euro as in the currency of 28 November 2003).


title: Eurojackpot

text: A Finnish syndicate of 50 players from Siilinjärvi, who had played a system ticket with 4 predictions in the 7/3 system mode for a total amount of 504.00 Euro, won on August 23, 2019 the maximum jackpot amount plus further winnings from the lower prize categories thus the record win of 91,938,695.00 Euro (84,174,472.21 GBP).


title: Eurojackpot

text: On 22 November 2019, 2 German and 1 Hungarian player won 90,000,000.00 Euro. Each player won 30,000,000.00 Euro (The one Hungarian player won more than 10 billion Forint, which is the country's biggest-ever lottery prize, overtaking again the most famous 5/90 "Ötöslottó"'s most record with 6431 million Forint, which was 24˙267˙124,51 Euro as in the currency of 28 March 2020).


title: Eurojackpot

text: The final capped 90,000,000.00 Euro jackpot was won on March 18, 2022, by tickets purchased in Finland and Norway.


title: Eurojackpot

text: The Eurojackpot lottery was proposed in 2006, to compete with the EuroMillions lottery. By virtue of a large number of participating countries, the EuroMillions is able to offer considerably larger jackpots than those offered in a single national lottery. After seeing the success of EuroMillions, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Slovenia, Italy and the Netherlands met in Amsterdam in November 2011 to complete the negotiations for the Eurojackpot lottery and to begin the roll out in 2012. After the negotiations, Estonia also decided to participate in the lottery. The first ticket sales began on March 17, 2012 while the first ever draw took place on March 23, 2012.


title: Eurojackpot

text: Spain joined the Eurojackpot from 30 June 2012 with the ticket concession granted to ONCE, the National Organization of Spanish blind people. On February 1, 2013 Croatia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden came along. The Czech Republic and Hungary joined the Eurojackpot from October 10, 2014, Slovakia from October 9, 2015 and Poland from September 15, 2017. In comparison, the Eurojackpot has a wider reach of potential players with an audience in local countries of 300 million, compared to the Euromillions of 217 million.


title: Eurojackpot

text: The gameplay changed on Friday October 10, 2014 with the number of the smaller set, the "Euro Numbers", in the Perle machine (later changed with a machine named as Opale XL) increasing from 8 to 10. The odds of winning the jackpot decreased from 1:59,325,280 to 1 in 95,344,200. In March 2022, there will be further changes to the game rules. The guess range for Euro Numbers will expand from 1-10 to 1-12. The jackpot cap will grow to €120 million. In addition, the new EuroJackpot rules will also bring a new draw on Tuesday. The first drawing with the new rules is planned for March 25, 2022 and the ticket prices will not change. The odds for winning the jackpot will be decreased to 1:139,838,160


title: Eurojackpot

text: Eurojackpot is available to the residents of the countries participating in the official draw i.e. Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. Czech Republic and Hungary joined in October 2014. Slovakia joined in October 2015 and Poland in September 2017. The organisers also provide official websites to support retail sales, where it is possible to view the results of the draws shortly after they are recorded.


title: Eurojackpot

text: A number of non-official online lottery sites provide tickets or bets on the Eurojackpot lottery. Some of these operators are state-licensed, while others are not. Generally, lottery tickets are restricted to purchase by adults, according to the Age of majority in a particular country. Countries such as Slovenia, Iceland and Italy restrict most private operators from offering lotteries.


title: Isometry

text: In mathematics, an isometry (or congruence, or congruent transformation) is a distance-preserving transformation between metric spaces, usually assumed to be bijective. The word isometry is derived from the Ancient Greek: ἴσος "isos" meaning "equal", and μέτρον "metron" meaning "measure".


title: Isometry

text: Given a metric space (loosely, a set and a scheme for assigning distances between elements of the set), an isometry is a transformation which maps elements to the same or another metric space such that the distance between the image elements in the new metric space is equal to the distance between the elements in the original metric space.


title: Isometry

text: In a two-dimensional or three-dimensional Euclidean space, two geometric figures are congruent if they are related by an isometry;


title: Isometry

text: the isometry that relates them is either a rigid motion (translation or rotation), or a composition of a rigid motion and a reflection.


title: Isometry

text: Isometries are often used in constructions where one space is embedded in another space. For instance, the completion of a metric space formula_1 involves an isometry from formula_1 into formula_3 a quotient set of the space of Cauchy sequences on formula_4


title: Isometry

text: The original space formula_1 is thus isometrically isomorphic to a subspace of a complete metric space, and it is usually identified with this subspace.


title: Isometry

text: Other embedding constructions show that every metric space is isometrically isomorphic to a closed subset of some normed vector space and that every complete metric space is isometrically isomorphic to a closed subset of some Banach space.


title: Isometry

text: An isometry is automatically injective; otherwise two distinct points, "a" and "b", could be mapped to the same point, thereby contradicting the coincidence axiom of the metric "d".


title: Isometry

text: This proof is similar to the proof that an order embedding between partially ordered sets is injective. Clearly, every isometry between metric spaces is a topological embedding.


title: Isometry

text: A global isometry, isometric isomorphism or congruence mapping is a bijective isometry. Like any other bijection, a global isometry has a function inverse.


title: Isometry

text: The set of bijective isometries from a metric space to itself forms a group with respect to function composition, called the isometry group.


title: Isometry

text: A path isometry or arcwise isometry is a map which preserves the lengths of curves; such a map is not necessarily an isometry in the distance preserving sense, and it need not necessarily be bijective, or even injective.


title: Isometry

text: This term is often abridged to simply "isometry", so one should take care to determine from context which type is intended.


title: Isometry

text: Given two normed vector spaces formula_15 and formula_16 a linear isometry is a linear map formula_17 that preserves the norms:


title: Isometry

text: for all formula_21 which is equivalent to saying that formula_22 This also implies that isometries preserve inner products, as


title: Isometry

text: Linear isometries are not always unitary operators, though, as those require additionally that formula_24 and formula_25


title: Isometry

text: An isometry of a manifold is any (smooth) mapping of that manifold into itself, or into another manifold that preserves the notion of distance between points.


title: Isometry

text: The definition of an isometry requires the notion of a metric on the manifold; a manifold with a (positive-definite) metric is a Riemannian manifold, one with an indefinite metric is a pseudo-Riemannian manifold. Thus, isometries are studied in Riemannian geometry.


title: Isometry

text: A local isometry from one (pseudo-)Riemannian manifold to another is a map which pulls back the metric tensor on the second manifold to the metric tensor on the first. When such a map is also a diffeomorphism, such a map is called an isometry (or isometric isomorphism), and provides a notion of isomorphism ("sameness") in the category Rm of Riemannian manifolds.


title: Isometry

text: Let formula_28 and formula_29 be two (pseudo-)Riemannian manifolds, and let formula_30 be a diffeomorphism. Then formula_31 is called an isometry (or isometric isomorphism) if


title: Isometry

text: Equivalently, in terms of the pushforward formula_36 we have that for any two vector fields formula_37 on formula_1 (i.e. sections of the tangent bundle formula_39),


title: Isometry

text: If formula_31 is a local diffeomorphism such that formula_42 then formula_43 is called a local isometry.


title: Isometry

text: A collection of isometries typically form a group, the isometry group. When the group is a continuous group, the infinitesimal generators of the group are the Killing vector fields.


title: Isometry

text: The Myers–Steenrod theorem states that every isometry between two connected Riemannian manifolds is smooth (differentiable). A second form of this theorem states that the isometry group of a Riemannian manifold is a Lie group.


title: Christy Moore

text: Christopher Andrew "Christy" Moore (born 7 May 1945) is an Irish folk singer, songwriter and guitarist. In addition to his significant success as an individual, he is one of the founding members of Planxty and Moving Hearts. His first album, "Paddy" "on the Road" was recorded with Dominic Behan in 1969. In 2007, he was named as Ireland's greatest living musician in RTÉ's People of the Year Awards.


title: Christy Moore

text: Moore was born in Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland and attended Newbridge College. His mother Nancy Moore was a Fine Gael election candidate. He was originally a bank employee who wanted to express himself using traditional music. During a bank strike in 1966, which lasted twelve weeks, he went to England, as many striking officials did, but didn't return when the strike was settled. "I had a wild and wonderful time in England, with no bank manager looking over my shoulder," he said. Doing general labouring work, he frequented the folk clubs and the Irish music pubs where he met Seamus Ennis, Margaret Barry, Luke Kelly, Martin Byrnes and many other traditional musicians. When Irish singing trio The Grehan Sisters, with whom Moore was previously acquainted, moved to the north of England from Dublin in 1967, they assisted Moore to get a higher profile by giving him contacts and support slots on their concerts.


title: Christy Moore

text: 1973 brought his first major release, "Prosperous", which brought together the four musicians who shortly thereafter formed Planxty: Liam O'Flynn, Andy Irvine and Dónal Lunny. For a time they called themselves "CLAD", an acronym of their names, but soon decided on Planxty.


title: Christy Moore

text: After leaving Planxty in 1975, Moore continued on his solo career, reforming his old band on occasion (which he has been doing ever since). He also formed the band Moving Hearts with Lunny and five other musicians in 1980. In 1987 he appeared on Gay Byrne's "The Late Late Show" performing with The Dubliners for their 25th anniversary. In 2000, he published his autobiography, "One Voice".


title: Christy Moore

text: Moore's earlier lifestyle resulted in a decline in health and several operations. Moore's battle with alcohol, and subsequent heart operations, have taken their toll. At the end of the 1990s, Moore reduced his workload for medical reasons.


title: Christy Moore

text: Some of Moore's songs are heavily influenced by drink and the effects of drink, his song "Delirium Tremens" being a good example. Listening to Johnny Mulhern's song "Hard Cases" caused Moore to recall the Galway drinking scene with local musicians Mickey Finn, Pete Galligan, Corky and Terry Smith.


title: Christy Moore

text: On 17 April 2009, Moore released his first new studio album in four years, entitled "Listen", and promoted it through a series of live gigs.


title: Christy Moore

text: In December 2011, Moore released the album "Folk Tale". His next album "Where I Come From" was released in November 2013 and features a new protest song called "Arthur's Day". The album peaked at number three in the Irish album charts. "On the road" was released in November 2017, while his most recent album "Magic Nights" was released in November 2019.


title: Christy Moore

text: Moore is best known for his political and social commentary which reflects a left-wing, Irish republican perspective, despite the fact that his mother was a Fine Gael county councillor and parliamentary candidate in Kildare. He supported the republican H-Block protestors with the albums "H-Block" in 1978, the launch of which was raided by the police, and "The Spirit of Freedom". He has also recorded songs by the hunger striker Bobby Sands, including "Back Home in Derry" which is based on Gordon Lightfoot's song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". He ceased supporting the military activities of the IRA in 1987 as a result of the Enniskillen bombing.


title: Christy Moore

text: Political songs he has performed throughout his career include Mick Hanly's "On the Blanket" about the protests of republican prisoners, "Viva la Quinta Brigada", about the Irishmen who fought in the Spanish Civil War against Franco, and "Minds Locked Shut" about Bloody Sunday in Derry.


title: Christy Moore

text: Moore has endorsed a long list of leftist support causes, ranging from El Salvador to Mary Robinson in the 1990 presidential election. He has incorporated songs about Salvador Allende ('Allende') and Ronald Reagan ('Ronnie Reagon') into his repertoire.


title: Christy Moore

text: At the Glastonbury Festival in 2005, he sang about the Palestinian solidarity activist Rachel Corrie. He supported the anti-nuclear movement in Ireland playing in many concerts and at festivals in Carnsore Point for the cause.


title: Christy Moore

text: "They Never Came Home" is a song about the Stardust fire of 1981 where 48 people died. The song was recorded on the "Ordinary Man" album and was released on the B-side of a single in 1985. The song achieved notoriety when Moore was taken to court over claims in the song prejudical to an ongoing court case determining compensation. For instance, the song claimed, "hundreds of children are injured and maimed, and all just because the fire exits were chained". Mr Justice Murphy ordered the "Ordinary Man" album to be withdrawn from the shops, and costs were awarded against Moore. "Another Song is Born" was recorded for the album's re-release. "They Never Came Home" later appeared on his box set and on the album "Where I come from".


title: Christy Moore

text: Moore's brother Barry, whose stage name is Luka Bloom, is also a singer-songwriter. His nephew, Conor Byrne, is also a traditional flautist and tin whistle player, with Christy appearing on his "Wind Dancer" album.


title: Christy Moore

text: In October 2004, Moore was stopped and detained by Special Branch officers at the Welsh port of Holyhead, taken into an office and questioned about the lyrics of his songs. The following day, he released a statement saying: "My driver and I were stopped and held for two hours at Holyhead last Monday, under the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2002. My driver and I were held separately in two interrogation rooms. I found the whole experience threatening. I was questioned about the contents of my briefcase." Despite initial reports to the contrary, the singer's van, which was full of musical equipment, was not searched. "I was questioned about lyrics of songs and I was asked a lot of personal questions about members of my family and my children and about my home. At no time was I given any explanation as to why I was being held and interrogated in this manner", he added. He said the fact that Irish people are still being treated this way on their way to Britain is very "saddening". "I had hoped to deal with this matter out of the public domain. But seeing as it has become a news item, I feel the need to offer my side of the story. I found the whole affair quite frightening."


title: Christy Moore

text: In June 2007, Moore was a guest on the BBC radio programme "Desert Island Discs". He selected mainly Irish folk music that had inspired him and spoke of personal and political issues that had shaped his life, choosing a set of Uilleann pipes as his luxury item and The English and Scottish Popular Ballads as his choice book.


title: Christy Moore

text: In 2010 Christy Moore's song "Lisdoonvarna" which he wrote gained entry in "The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry".


title: Christy Moore

text: On Sunday 10 July 2011 Moore joined Coldplay on stage at the 2011 Oxegen Festival performing the song "Ride On".


title: Beth Rigby

text: Elizabeth Frances Rigby (born 19 February 1976) is a British journalist. She has worked for Sky News since 2016 and became its political editor in 2019. She has previously worked as a newspaper journalist for the "Financial Times" and "The Times".


title: Beth Rigby

text: Rigby was born in Colchester, Essex, UK. She grew up in Buckinghamshire, and attended Beaconsfield High School, a girls' grammar school. Her father was a businessman and her mother was a headteacher. Rigby graduated with a first in social and political science from Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. She went on to gain a master's degree in economics and development studies from the Institute of Latin American Studies at the University of London.


title: Beth Rigby

text: After graduation, Rigby spent a period of time teaching English in Portugal, before joining the "Financial Times" as a graduate trainee in 1998. Her roles at the newspaper included hedge fund correspondent, retail correspondent and consumer industries editor, before she became chief political correspondent in 2010 and deputy political editor in January 2013. She joined "The Times" in 2015 as media editor before moving to Sky News in 2016, initially as senior political correspondent, before being promoted in July 2018 to deputy political editor. In February 2019 she was appointed political editor and took up the post on 12 April 2019, replacing Faisal Islam, who had joined BBC News as economics editor.


title: Beth Rigby

text: According to the "i", Rigby is known for "her trademark dark bob and red lipstick, her distinctive diction and [...] her persistent questioning of senior politicians".


title: Beth Rigby

text: In December 2020, Rigby was criticised for breaching London's tier 2 COVID-19 restrictions by attending a restaurant to celebrate the birthday of Sky presenter Kay Burley, and was taken off air until March 2021. Rigby had offered to resign over the breach, later saying, "it was potentially damaging for the channel... it had upset my colleagues, and I felt absolutely wretched about that". John Ryley, the head of Sky News, declined her offer to resign.


title: Beth Rigby

text: Following Laura Kuenssberg's announcement of her departure as BBC News' political editor, Rigby was associated with the position. Rigby presents a talk show on Thursday nights on Sky News called "Beth Rigby Interviews", which launched in March 2022. According to Andrew Billen of "The Times", Rigby will stay on as Sky News' political editor until at least the next general election.


title: Beth Rigby

text: She is married to Angelo Acanfora and they have two children. Her husband worked as a graphic designer but became a stay-at-home dad in 2016. She lives in North London.


title: Beth Rigby

text: Her mother died of lung cancer at the age of 62, and her brother Alex died of thymic carcinoma at the age of 42.


title: Kantarō Suzuki

text: Baron was a Japanese general and politician. He was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy, member and final leader of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association and Prime Minister of Japan from 7 April to 17 August 1945.


title: Kantarō Suzuki

text: Suzuki was born on 18 January 1868, in Izumi Province (present-day Sakai, Osaka), the first son of local governor ("daikan") of Sekiyado Domain Suzuki Yoshinori. He grew up in the city of Sekiyado, Kazusa Province (present-day Noda, Chiba Prefecture).


title: Kantarō Suzuki

text: Suzuki entered the 14th class of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy in 1884, graduating 13th of 45 cadets in 1887. Suzuki served on the corvettes , and cruiser as a midshipman. On being commissioned as ensign, he served on the corvette , corvette , corvette Jingei, ironclad , and gunboat . After his promotion to lieutenant on 21 December 1892, he served as chief navigator on the corvettes , , and .


title: Kantarō Suzuki

text: Suzuki served in the First Sino-Japanese War, commanding a torpedo boat and participated in a night torpedo assault in the Battle of Weihaiwei in 1895. Afterwards, he was promoted to lieutenant commander on 28 June 1898 after graduation from the Naval Staff College and assigned to a number of staff positions including that of naval attaché to Germany from 1901 to 1903. On his return, he was promoted to commander on 26 September 1903. He came to be known as the leading torpedo warfare expert in the Imperial Japanese Navy.


title: Kantarō Suzuki

text: During the Russo-Japanese War, Suzuki commanded Destroyer Division 2 in 1904, which picked up survivors of the Port Arthur Blockade Squadron during the Battle of Port Arthur. He was appointed executive officer of the cruiser on 26 February 1904, aboard which he participated in the Battle of the Yellow Sea. During the pivotal Battle of Tsushima, Suzuki was commander of Destroyer Division 4 under the IJN 2nd Fleet, which assisted in sinking the Russian battleship .


title: Kantarō Suzuki

text: After the war, Suzuki was promoted to captain on 28 September 1907 and commanded the destroyer Akashi (1908), followed by the cruiser (1909), battleship (1911) and cruiser (1912). Promoted to rear admiral on 23 May 1913 and assigned to command the Maizuru Naval District. Suzuki became Vice Minister of the Navy from 1914 to 1917, during World War I. Promoted to vice admiral on 1 June 1917, he brought the cruisers and to San Francisco in early 1918 with 1,000 cadets, and was received by U.S. Navy Rear Admiral William Fullam. The Japanese cruisers then proceeded to South America. After stints as Commandant of the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy, Commander of the IJN 2nd Fleet, then the IJN 3rd Fleet, then Kure Naval District, he became a full admiral on 3 August 1923. Suzuki became Commander in Chief of Combined Fleet in 1924. After serving as Chief of Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff from 15 April 1925 to 22 January 1929, he retired and accepted the position as Privy Councillor and Grand Chamberlain from 1929 to 1936.


title: Kantarō Suzuki

text: Suzuki narrowly escaped assassination in the February 26 Incident in 1936; the would-be assassin's bullet remained inside his body for the rest of his life, and was only revealed upon his cremation. Suzuki was opposed to Japan's war with the United States, before and throughout World War II.


title: Kantarō Suzuki

text: On 7 April 1945, Prime Minister Kuniaki Koiso resigned and Suzuki was appointed to take his place at the age of seventy-seven. He simultaneously held the portfolios for Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Greater East Asia.


title: Kantarō Suzuki

text: Prime Minister Suzuki contributed to the final peace negotiations with the Allied Powers in World War II. He was involved in calling two unprecedented imperial conferences which helped resolve the split within the Japanese Imperial Cabinet over the Potsdam Declaration. He outlined the terms to Emperor Hirohito who had already agreed to accept unconditional surrender. This went strongly against the military faction of the cabinet, who desired to continue the war in hopes of negotiating a more favorable peace agreement. Part of this faction attempted to assassinate Suzuki twice in the Kyūjō Incident on the morning of 15 August 1945.


title: Kantarō Suzuki

text: After the surrender of Japan became public, Suzuki resigned and Prince Higashikuni became next prime minister. Suzuki was the Chairman of the Privy Council from 7 August 1944 to 7 June 1945 and again after the surrender of Japan from 15 December 1945 to 13 June 1946.


title: Kantarō Suzuki

text: Suzuki died of natural causes. His grave is in his home town of Noda, Chiba. One of his two sons became director of Japan's immigration service, while the other was a successful lawyer.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: Night Watch () is a 2004 Russian urban fantasy supernatural thriller film directed by Timur Bekmambetov and written by Bekmambetov and Laeta Kalogridis. It is loosely based on the 1998 novel "The Night Watch" by Sergei Lukyanenko.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: It was Russia's submission to the 77th Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not accepted as a nominee. The film received a limited theatrical release in the United States, where it grossed $1.5 million. It overperformed in the American home video market, generating more than $9.5 million in home video sales and $12 million in home video rentals. It received mixed reviews from critics.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: Since the beginning of time, there have been "Others" – humans endowed with supernatural abilities – and for just as long, the Others have been divided between the forces of Light and Dark. In Medieval times, the armies of both sides met by chance, and a great battle began. Seeing that neither side had a clear advantage, the two faction leaders, Geser and Zavulon, called a truce and each side commissioned a quasi-police force to ensure it was kept; the Light side's force was called the Night Watch and the Dark side's force was called the Day Watch.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: In modern-day Moscow, Anton Gorodetsky () visits a witch named Daria and asks her to cast a spell to return his wife to him, agreeing that she should miscarry her illegitimate child as part of it. Just as the spell is about to be completed, two figures burst in and restrain Daria, preventing her from completing the spell. When they notice that Anton is able to see them, they realize that he is also an Other.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: Twelve years later, Anton has enlisted in the Night Watch. While policing Moscow, he encounters several portents that Geser says are linked to an ancient prophecy of an immensely powerful Other that will end the stalemate between Light and Dark, but will be more likely to join the Dark. Anton's investigations lead him to a nurse, Svetlana, whom disaster seems to follow everywhere, and a young boy named Yegor.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: In the film's climax, Anton prevents a catastrophic storm from leveling Moscow, when he realizes that Svetlana is an Other, and begins teaching her to control her power. But in the process, Anton realizes that Yegor is his own son, and that his wife was pregnant with him when Anton tried to have a spell cast on her (believing, mistakenly, that the father of the child was his wife's lover, not himself). Learning that his own father tried to kill him before he was born turns Yegor – the Other of the prophecy – against Anton and towards Zavulon, which was the latter's plan all along. In helpless rage, Anton strikes Zavulon, while saying in voice over that, although the prophecy has come true and the Dark's victory seems inevitable, he will not give up.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: In 2000, an independent Moscow company invited a director from St. Petersburg, Sergei Vinokurov, the script was written by Renata Litvinova. Artemy Troitsky was expected to star in the film as Anton Gorodetsky, and for the role of the light magician Geser Ivan Okhlobystin was chosen. But the work on the film stalled, which was largely in part of the tiny budget of 50 thousand dollars. And then Channel One, the government-owned TV channel, bought from the publisher the rights to adapt the novel and invited Timur Bekmambetov to write and direct the film.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: Concerning the casting, Bekmambetov described that he needed an actor for the role of Gorodetsky who was handsome, slightly naive, slightly cunning and that "his eyes must show that he has a conscience".


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: Part of the challenge for such a big-budget fantasy film was creating hundreds of visual effects (VFX) shots to which a modern audience is accustomed. 16 Russian VFX studios and several freelancers were used, each chosen for their individual strengths. Many shots were created by different artists across different time zones, using the Internet to share data and images.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: The film was the first big-budget Russian supernatural movie and one of the first blockbusters made after the collapse of the Soviet film industry. The film was produced by Channel One, with a budget of US$4.2 million. It was shot in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: The film contains several songs from rock bands, e.g. "Jack" by the Belarusian group TT-34 and "Spanish" by Drum Ecstasy.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: The song played in the credits of the international version of the movie is called "Shatter" and performed by the Welsh rock band Feeder. The track was a top 20 hit single in the United Kingdom charting at #11 in 2005, to coincide with the international release of the film. The song playing during the end credits of the American release of Night Watch is "Fearless" by The Bravery. In the original Russian version it is a rap song Nochnoy dozor (Finalnyy rep) performed by Uma2rman.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: The original score album by Yuri Poteyenko was released in 2021 by the russian label Keepmoving Records in a limited edition with 300 copies. The score from the sequel (Day Watch) has been released in 2020 by the same label.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: After premiering at the Moscow Film Festival on 27 June 2004, it went on general cinema release across the CIS on 8 July 2004. The film was extremely successful, becoming the highest-grossing Russian release ever, grossing US$16.7 million in Russia alone, thus grossing more in Russia than "". The sequel, "Day Watch", was released across the CIS on 1 January 2006.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: The film attracted the attention of 20th Century Fox through its Fox Searchlight Pictures label, which paid $4 million to acquire the worldwide distribution rights (excluding Russia and the Baltic states) of "Night Watch" and its sequel "Day Watch".


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: "Night Watch" holds a 60% rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 132 reviews, with an average score of 6.05/10; the consensus states: "This Russian horror/fantasy film pits darkness and light against each other using snazzy CGI visuals to create an extraordinary atmosphere of a dank, gloomy city wrestling with dread." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 58 out of 100, based on 32 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: Leslie Felperin from "Variety" noted the film's allusions to various classic sci-fi and horror pictures and praised the Moscow setting, eccentric characters, and lavish special effects.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: Stephen Holden from "The New York Times" wrote that the picture is "narratively muddled and crammed with many more vampires, shape-shifters and sorcerers than one movie can handle, but it bursts with a sick, carnivorous glee in its own fiendish games".


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: In 2010, Empire published a list of one hundred best films in the history of world cinema — "Night Watch" took the hundredth place in it.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: One year after the Russian release, the international distribution began. Other than a London premiere at the Odeon West End as part of the Frightfest horror film festival, that screened amid heavy security on 28 August 2005, the first European country outside CIS was Spain where it was released on 2 September 2005. By mid October it had been released in most European countries, and on 17 February 2006 it had a limited release in the United States, followed by a full release on 3 March. By 13 February 2006 (i.e. before the U.S. release) it had grossed US$32 million.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: The "international version" of the film debuted in the United Kingdom. In the prologue and epilogue, the Russian voice-over has been dubbed in English, but for the rest of the film features stylized subtitles appearing in odd places around the screen, often animated to emphasise or complement the action. For example, in a scene in which Yegor is being called by a Dark vampire, he is in a pool and the camera is underwater. The caption appears as blood red text that dissolves as blood would in water. In another scene, as a character walks across the scene from left to right, the caption is revealed as his body crosses the screen. In addition, many of the scenes that were present in the Russian theatrical release were omitted, while, at the same time, some scenes were re-cut or added. The International version is shorter by 10 minutes. The DVD was released in the UK on 24 April 2006. The zone 4 DVD had the option of either a Russian or an English audiotrack. Subtitles were simply plain white text at the bottom of the screen. The International version of both "Night Watch" and its sequel, "Day Watch", are now available in HD on Vudu. The HDX encodes are based on the International release and retain the original Russian dialog track with the stylized subtitles.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: The original Russian "Director's Cut" of the film was released, apart from Russia, in some European countries on DVD by 20th Century FOX. The only difference of this version from the original Russian version is the absence of the opening credits.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: A third film, titled "Twilight Watch" (previously "Dusk Watch"), was announced by 20th Century Fox, however Timur instead directed "Wanted" for Universal Pictures. He went on to say that "Twilight Watch" would be too much like "Wanted", and so to avoid working in an artistic rut the project would need to be either distinctively changed, passed to another director, or simply delayed so that intervening projects could be completed.


title: Night Watch (2004 film)

text: In 2005, a "fan re-dub" was released under the title "Nochnoi Bazar" ("Night Chat"). The project was initiated by the writer Sergei Lukyanenko as a nod to popular (illegal) fan re-dubs by "Goblin" (Dmitry Puchkov). However, this fan redub was made with full consent of the filmmakers and copyright holders and released on DVD by Channel One Russia. The script was written by the Russian comedian Alexander Bachilo, the song parodies were written and composed by Alexander Pushnoy. The narration was done by Leonid Volodarskiy, a popular voiceover translator of pirated videoreleases in the Soviet Union.


title: Nimesh Patel

text: Nimesh Patel (Gujarati: નિમેશ પટેલ; born 1986) is an American comedian and television writer. In 2017, he became the first Indian American writer on "Saturday Night Live".


title: Nimesh Patel

text: Nimesh Patel was born in Parsippany, New Jersey into an Indian Gujarati Hindu family. After immigrating to Newark in the 1970s as a 17-year-old, Patel's father worked as a cashier at a Macy's before opening a liquor store in nearby Irvington.


title: Nimesh Patel

text: After graduating high school, Patel moved to New York City to attend New York University where he pursued an undergraduate pre-medical degree, a decision he concedes was influenced by his parents' desire for him to seek a stable, high-paying career. However, during his junior year, Patel changed majors and eventually graduated from the New York University's Stern School of Business with a degree in finance in 2008.


title: Nimesh Patel

text: Patel resides in Brooklyn and is a regular comic at the Comedy Cellar, a comedy club in Greenwich Village, Lower Manhattan. Patel is Hindu and identifies as one, although he does not practice.


title: Nimesh Patel

text: During his freshman year at NYU, Patel attended a show of Dave Chapelle's at The Comedy Cellar in Manhattan. Before leaving early to prepare for an exam the next morning, Patel found himself the subject of a joke from Chapelle, a moment he credits with sparking an interest in comedy: "I always thought about comedy from then on, but I never thought it was something I could do."


title: Nimesh Patel

text: Having earned a bachelor's degree in finance during the 2008 Financial Crisis, Patel struggled to find a position within the industry and instead picked up a series of short-lived odd jobs while living with his parents. He eventually joined his cousin as a temp for Bloomberg before interning at New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC).


title: Nimesh Patel

text: After performing his first stand-up show at The Stress Factory in New Brunswick, New Jersey in August 2009, Patel's internship at EDC brought him closer to the New York City comedy scene where he became a regular feature at Matchless in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.


title: Nimesh Patel

text: In 2012, Patel joined Michael Che and Mike Denny in hosting Broken Comedy, a weekly comedy night at Matchless. Calling Matchless "the greatest place to do a comedy show," Patel attributes his more informal, conversational "just talking" approach to comedy to his six years spent hosting shows at the venue. During a 2015 show, Patel caught the attention of Chris Rock, prompting Rock's representatives to email Patel with an invitation to join his writing team for the 88th Academy Awards ceremony. In 2017, Patel began working as a full-time writer for "Saturday Night Live", mainly writing jokes for "Weekend Update," a segment co-hosted by Che. In 2018, Patel was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for his work on "SNL".


title: Nimesh Patel

text: He also wrote material for Hasan Minhaj's 2017 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner appearance.


title: Nimesh Patel

text: A week after his first television appearance on "Late Night with Seth Meyers" in July 2018, Patel's agent informed him that he would not be returning to SNL. Later that year, on November 30, 2018, roughly twenty-four minutes into a comedy set, Patel was interrupted and asked to leave by the organizers of "cultureSHOCK: Reclaim", an event for Asian representation hosted by Columbia University's Asian American Alliance. In December, Patel published an op-ed in the "New York Times" recounting the joke that prompted his removal and explaining his reaction: I open by saying I live in Hell’s Kitchen, a diverse area in New York populated by, among others, gay black men who are not shy about telling me they don’t approve of what I’m wearing. I try to learn things from everyone I encounter, and one day I realize oh, this is how you know being gay can’t be a choice — no one would choose to be gay if they’re already black. No one is doubling down on hardship. Then I say, no black dude wakes up and thinks that being a black man in America is too easy. No black dude says, “I’m going to put on a Madonna halter top and some Jordans and make an Indian dude real uncomfortable.” That’s not a choice.


title: Nimesh Patel

text: ... The student organizers were within their rights to pull me offstage; people are just as within their rights to be offended by anything, as comedians are within their rights to say anything. I believe the student leaders were wrong to cut my mic, but as a person, I cannot control how people think and how they react.


title: Nimesh Patel

text: ...I do not think we should let the actions of a small group — actions that get blown out of proportion because they feed a narrative many people want to hear — paint college campuses as bad places to perform and paint this next generation as doomed.Patel also posted a video of his full Columbia set a week after the event in response to a series of articles and online backlash he believed to be untruthful or had misrepresented the event.


title: Nimesh Patel

text: He has also featured as a comedy and politics panelist at the Foreign Affairs Symposium at Johns Hopkins University and appeared on "@midnight" and "Comedy Knockout."


title: Nimesh Patel

text: Patel's main comedic influences are Chris Rock, Larry David and Patrice O’Neal. Informal, conversational, and at times controversial, Patel considers his comedy to be "socially aware and willfully ignorant."


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: The 89th 24 Hours of Le Mans (French: "89 24 Heures du Mans") was a 24-hour automobile endurance race for Le Mans Prototype (LMP) and Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance (LMGTE) cars held between 21 and 22 August 2021, at the Circuit de la Sarthe, close to Le Mans, France, before 50,000 spectators. It was the event's 89th edition, as organised by the automotive group, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) since 1923. The event, the fourth round of the 2021 FIA World Endurance Championship, was postponed from June to August to increase the likelihood of admitting spectators to the race amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in France. A test day was held a week prior to the event on 15 August.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: The race was the first Le Mans event to feature the new Le Mans Hypercar regulations as its highest class, replacing the LMP1 class. A Toyota GR010 Hybrid shared by Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López began from pole position after Kobayashi set the overall fastest lap time in the hyperpole session. The trio led for most of the race to achieve their first Le Mans victories and Toyota's fourth in succession. Their teammates Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Kazuki Nakajima finished two laps behind in second; Alpine's Nicolas Lapierre, André Negrão and Matthieu Vaxivière, who shared an Alpine A480-Gibson car, completed the overall podium.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: The debuting Team WRT squad of Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi won the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class by 0.727 seconds over Jota Sport's Tom Blomqvist, Sean Gelael and Stoffel Vandoorne after the second WRT crew of Louis Delétraz, Robert Kubica and Ye Yifei failed to complete the final lap because of a throttle sensor problem stopping their class-leading Oreca 07 entry. Ferrari won the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Professional (LMGTE Pro) class with an AF Corse-fielded Ferrari 488 GTE Evo shared by James Calado, Côme Ledogar and Alessandro Pier Guidi beating Corvette Racing's Nicky Catsburg, Antonio García and Jordan Taylor in a Chevrolet Corvette C8.R by 41.686 seconds. The Italian marque also won the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Amateur (LMGTE Am) category for the first time with AF Corse's Nicklas Nielsen, François Perrodo and Alessio Rovera ahead of TF Sport's Felipe Fraga, Ben Keating and Dylan Pereira in an Aston Martin Vantage AMR.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: Conway, Kobayashi and López's victory promoted them atop the Hypercar Drivers' Championship by nine points over their teammates, Buemi, Hartley and Nakajima, whose second-place finish demoted them to second. Alpine's Lapierre, Negrão and Vaxivière maintained their hold on third position. Calado and Pier Guidi, with 124 points, overtook Porsche's Kévin Estre and Neel Jani for the GTE Drivers' Championship. Toyota and Ferrari left Le Mans as the respective Hypercar World Endurance and GTE Manufacturers' Championship leaders with two races left in the season.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: Pre-race, Toyota trio Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Kazuki Nakajima led the Hypercar Drivers' Championship with 75 points, over their teammates Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López with 69 points. With 60 points, Alpine's Nicolas Lapierre, André Negrão and Matthieu Vaxivière were third, with Glickenhaus' Romain Dumas and Richard Westbrook fourth. In the GTE Drivers' Championship, Porsche's Kévin Estre and Neel Jani led with 76 points ahead of AF Corse's James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi in second, and their third-placed teammates Miguel Molina and Daniel Serra. Toyota led Alpine in the Hypercar World Endurance Championship, and Ferrari led Porsche in the GTE Manufacturers' Championship.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: The 2021 event, the 89th running of the race, was to be staged at the Circuit de la Sarthe close to Le Mans, France, between 12 and 13 June; because of the COVID-19 pandemic in France, the ACO postponed it to 21 and 22 August to increase the likelihood of admitting spectators pending easing of global travel restrictions based on local vaccine administration rates. It was made the fourth, not the third round of the 2021 FIA World Endurance Championship. The ACO confirmed it would admit a maximum of about 50,000 spectators to the circuit, approximately 20 per cent of its normal 250,000 attendance. Attendees had to present a French Government health passport proving full vaccination, a negative COVID-19 lateral flow test taken within 48 hours, or provide proof of a previous COVID infection between fifteen days to six months and be deemed immune. Face masks had to be worn; the paddock was separated from each of the fan sections.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: A new Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) class, with regulations intended to reduce costs and improve competition created jointly by the ACO and the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), replaced the ageing and more expensive Le Mans Prototype LMP1 category. Manufacturers were allowed to construct either specifications of road-going cars or specifically-designed prototype vehicles powered by either a hybrid or a non-hybrid system. The minimum weight and maximum power output of LMH class cars were capped.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: Entries for the race were open from 4 December 2020 to 23 February 2021. The ACO granted 62 invitations and entries were divided between the LMH, Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2), Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Professional (LMGTE Pro) and Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Amateur (LMGTE Am) classes.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: Teams that won their class in the 2020 24 Hours of Le Mans, or won championships in the European Le Mans Series (ELMS), Asian Le Mans Series (ALMS), and the Michelin Le Mans Cup (MLMC) earned automatic entry invitations. The second-place finishers in the 2020 ELMS in LMP2 and LMGTE championships each earned an automatic invitation. Two participants from the IMSA SportsCar Championship (IMSA) were chosen by the ACO to be automatic entries, regardless of their performance or category. As teams were granted invitations, they were allowed to change their cars from the previous year but not their category. The European and Asian LMP3 (Le Mans Prototype 3) champion was required to field an entry in LMP2. The MLMC Group GT3 (GT3) champion was limited to the LMGTE Am category.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: The ACO announced the final list of automatic entries on 5 March 2021. GPX Racing chose to forgo its automatic invitation because the team did not believe they had the equipment necessary to compete at Le Mans.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: The ACO announced the full 62 car entry list on 9 March. In addition to the 33 guaranteed WEC entries, 14 came from the ELMS, five from IMSA, seven from the ALMS and two one-off Le Mans entries. There were 30 cars in the two LMP classes, 31 in each of the two LMGTE categories and one innovative entry. In addition to the 62 entries given invitations for the race, four were put on a reserve list to replace any withdrawn or ungranted invitations. Reserve entries were ordered with the first replacing the first withdrawal from the race, regardless of the class and entry. They were chosen based on their sporting and technical quality, fan, media and public interest and commitment, and loyalty to other ACO-administered series.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: The Garage 56 concept to test new technologies at Le Mans returned after a half-decade absence. The ACO granted the innovative spot to Frédéric Sausset's La Filière by SRT41 team, who had deferred their planned entry from the 2020 event to the following year's race because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It entered the Graff-prepared  84 Oreca 07-Gibson car converted to an adapted automobile fitted with a braking, clutch and throttle system controlled by paraplegic drivers Takuma Aoki and Nigel Bailly from a hand-controlled steering wheel. Their non-disabled co-driver Matthieu Lahaye could drive the vehicle normally. The team participated in the four-hour ELMS rounds in France and Spain as a precursor to the longer race at Le Mans.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: The FIA and ACO imposed a balance of performance to maintain a separation between the Hypercar and LMP2 categories. The Alpine A480-Gibson car received a maximum stint energy allowance of , a reduction from or eight per cent from the preceding 6 Hours of Monza. The Glickenhaus SCG 007 LMH and Toyota GR010 Hybrid vehicles had no performance changes. In LMGTE Pro, of weight was removed from the Ferrari 488 GTE Evo for easier handling, and its fuel capacity was raised by . The Porsche 911 RSR-19 received weight, fuel capacity, and air restrictor diameter increases. The LMGTE Am minimum weights were shared by each team per manufacturer, with the Ferraris and Porsches heavier than their Pro equivalents and the Aston Martin Vantage AMR lighter at .


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: A test day held on 15 August, one week prior to the race, required all entrants to participate in eight hours of driving divided into two sessions. A majority of signed drivers were involved as well as actor Michael Fassbender driving the No. 77 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche; Emmanuel Collard was the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari's test driver; Laurents Hörr shared the Duqueine Team Oreca 07-Gibson; Gustavo Menezes was nominated to drive both of the Glickenhaus entries, and Pierre Sancinéna joined SRT41's team for test day. Only 11 drivers were granted dispensation to miss testing because they were entered in Formula E's season-ending Berlin ePrix.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: Toyota led the first session with a 3:31.263-minute lap by Hartley in the No. 8 Toyota. Lapierre was a quarter of a second slower in the grandfathered LMP1 No. 36 Alpine A480 car; Conway's No. 7 Toyota recorded the third-quickest lap. Olivier Pla put the No. 709 Glickenhaus fourth overall. Paul di Resta set the fastest LMP2 lap time with a 3:33.429 driving the No. 23 United Autosports Oreca, ahead of Phil Hanson's No. 22 sister car, Ye Yifei's debuting No. 41 Team WRT entry and Oliver Jarvis' No. 82 Risi Competizione vehicle. Porsche were first and second in LMGTE Pro with Estre's No. 92 car ahead of the No. 91 sister team of Gianmaria Bruni. The highest-placed Ferrari was Calado's third-placed No. 51 AF Corse entry. Marcos Gomes' No. 98 Aston Martin led LMGTE Am from Alessio Picariello's No. 18 Absolute Racing and Julien Andlauer's No. 88 Dempsey-Proton Porsches. Separate accidents by Satori Hoshino's No. 777 D'Station Racing Aston Martin at the Porsche Curves, Tom Gamble's GR Racing No. 86 Porsche and John Hartstone under braking for the first Mulsanne chicane in Aston Martin's No. 95 entry on the Mulsanne Straight led to stoppages during the session.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: The second session saw Glickenhaus move atop when Pla turned in a 3:29.115-minute lap in the No. 709 car with less than ten minutes left. Conway improved the No. 7 Toyota to second place after leading for most of the session; Nakajima's No. 8 car went from first to third. Lapierre's No. 36 Alpine was fourth with Romain Dumas' No. 708 Gilckenhaus fifth. Paul-Loup Chatin bettered LMP2's fastest lap with a time of 3:31.105, leading IDEC Sport's No. 48 team ahead of Will Stevens' No. 65 Panis Racing car and Louis Delétraz's No. 41 WRT entry. United Autosports fell to fourth and fifth after laps by Di Resta and Filipe Albuquerque. In LMGTE Pro, Porsche took the first three positions as Earl Bamber led with a 3:52.901-minute time in the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Porsche, but he did not better Estre's first session lap. The German company also led in LMGTE Am with the fastest lap set by Harry Tincknell in the No. 99 Proton Competition car. There were three deployments of the full course yellow flag procedure. Roberto Lacorte stopped Cetilar Racing's No. 47 Ferrari before Mulsanne corner with a rear axle failure, Scott Andrews ran wide onto artificial grass and into the Porsche Curves gravel trap in Kessel's No. 57 Ferrari and Bruni spun entering the Dunlop chicane.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: IDEC Sport reconstructed the No. 17 Oreca around a new chassis during the session following contact with Dwight Merriman and the No. 31 WRT car. IDEC subsequently signed former Rebellion driver Thomas Laurent to share the No. 17 car replacing the injured Kyle Tilley, who had withdrawn from the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: The first three-hour practice session took place on the afternoon of 18 August. López lapped fastest at 3:29.309, 0.086 seconds quicker than Negrao in second, who was 0.001 seconds ahead of Nakajima in third. Hanson led LMP2, followed by Nyck de Vries' No. 26 G-Drive Racing entry with a 3:29.441-minute lap, and Tom Blomqvist's No. 28 Jota car; they finished fourth, fifth and eighth quickest overall. The trio separated Westbrook's and Pla's Glickenhaus Hypercars in sixth and seventh overall. Daniel Serra's No. 52 AF Corse Ferrari led the Pro class of LMGTE with a 3:50.123-minute lap as Nick Tandy's No. 64 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R was within 0.040 seconds of the Ferrari. Matteo Cairoli's No. 56 Team Project 1 Porsche was fastest in LMGTE Am and the third-quickest amongst all LMGTE entrants as Porsche occupied first to fourth in the Amateur category. Marco Sørensen damaged the No. 20 High Class Racing car's front-right corner in a collision with a tyre barrier exiting the pit lane. António Félix da Costa's No. 28 Jota entry collided with Antonio Fuoco's No. 47 Cetilar car at Tertre Rouge turn; both accidents forced separate stoppages to the session.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: The shorter two-hour session followed that evening. Buemi led with a 3:29.351-minute lap ahead of his teammate Kobayashi by 0.387 seconds as Pipo Derani carried the No. 708 Glickenhaus to third. Jota's Anthony Davidson recorded the fastest LMP2 lap with a time of 3:32.390. Norman Nato's No. 70 Realteam Racing and the No. 22 United Autosports and No. 26 G-Drive cars were second to fourth. Porsche led both LMGTE classes with Laurens Vanthoor's WeatherTech and Frédéric Makowiecki's No. 91 cars heading the Pro category with Andlauer the fastest Amateur class driver in the No. 88 Dempsey-Proton vehicle over Jeroen Bleekemolen's No. 388 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari. Serra locked up heavily at Mulsanne Corner and sustained a right-front puncture damaging his car's right-front corner. With the car stopped just past Arnage corner, this caused a red-flag period for removal and debris cleanup. The session concluded three minutes early when Robby Foley struck the Tertre Rouge corner tyre barriers with the rear of the No. 46 Project 1 car. Foley left the vehicle unaided.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: Less than ten minutes before the third practice session, the FIA Endurance Committee issued an updated bulletin detailing immediate balance of performance adjustments to the LMGTE Pro and Am class Ferrari 488 GTEs, lowering its boost levels across all RPM ranges equating to a decrease of and consequently reducing the car's fuel capacity by .


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: The next three-hour session was held the following afternoon. Lapierre's lap of 3:26.594 set late in the session demoted Conway to second. Hartley was third with Pla fourth. Félix da Costa set LMP2's quickest lap of 3:30.213, moving Fabio Scherer's No. 22 United Autosports car to second with his teammate Di Resta third. Estre led LMGTE Pro as Bamber's WeatherTech and Richard Lietz's No. 91 entries ensured the German marque held the first three positions in class. Porsche occupied the top four places in LMGTE Am with Andlauer's No. 88 Dempsey-Proton car leading Cairoli's No. 56 Project 1 and Matt Campbell's No. 77 Dempsey-Proton entries. There were a series of accidents stopping the session twice. Separate crashes by Merriman's No. 17 IDEC car and Juan Pablo Montoya's No. 21 DragonSpeed entering the Dunlop Curve corner saw front and rear damage to both vehicles and required repairs to the right-hand side barriers and track cleanups. Nakajima removed the No. 8 Toyota's rear wing crashing into the left-hand Indianapolis corner wall and returned to the pit lane following trackside recovery.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: The final two-hour session was staged later that evening, beginning ten minutes late because of a delay in Hyperpole. Nakajima led with a 3: 27.994-minute time, followed by Lapierre in second, Kobayashi in third, and Ryan Briscoe's No. 709 Glickenhaus in fourth. Franco Colapinto put the No. 26 G-Drive car atop LMP2 at 3:31.414, ahead of Job van Uitert's No. 29 Racing Team Nederland and Albuquerque's No. 22 United Autosports entries. Vanthoor's WeatherTech Porsche led LMGTE Pro and Nicklas Nielsen's AF Corse's No. 83 Ferrari paced LMGTE Am. The session was ended prematurely, with fifteen minutes remaining, when Ollie Milroy lost control of the Inception Ferrari on the inside kerb entering the Ford Chicane at high speed and damaging its right-rear corner against the barrier. IDEC sidelined its No. 17 car for repairs following its third practice session accident as was the No. 49 High Class car, which was undergoing an engine change. Inception Racing worked late in the evening to rebuild their Ferrari around a replacement chassis.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: Divided into two sessions, the first one-hour qualifying session determined the race's starting order except for the fastest six vehicles in each class. They advanced to a half-hour shootout called "Le Mans Hyperpole", which determined the car to start on pole position in all four classes. Cars were placed in starting order by category, with every Hypercar at the front of the field regardless of lap time, followed by LMP2, LMGTE Pro and LMGTE Am. The vehicles were placed with the six qualifying hyperpole cars by quickest hyperpole session lap time first, followed by the rest of the non-qualifying hyperpole class vehicles by fastest lap time set during the first qualifying session.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: The five entries in the LMP1 class progressed to the hyperpole portion of qualifying with the fastest time being a 3:26.279-minute lap by Kobayashi in the No. 7 Toyota in the first half of the session. In LMP2, the qualifiers were Félix da Costa's No. 38 Jota entry along with entries from De Vries of Racing Team Nederland, Delétraz's No. 41 WRT car, Panis Racing's No. 65 car with Will Stevens, and the No. 32 and 23 United Autosports vehicles of Nico Jamin and Di Resta. The LMGTE Pro hyperpole qualifiers were Serra's No. 52 and Calado's 51 AF Corse Ferraris as well as Estre's No. 92 Porsche, Tandy's No. 64 Corvette, Hub Auto Racing's Dries Vanthoor and Bruni's No. 91 Porsche. LMGTE Am saw the four competing manufacturers qualify for the hyperpole portion of qualifying. They were Andlauer's No. 88 Dempsey-Proton Porsche, Ben Barker's GR Racing entry, Fuoco's No. 47 Cetilar Ferrari, Inception Racing's No. 71 Ferrari used by Ben Barnicoat, Cairoli's No. 56 Team Project 1 Porsche and TF Sport's No. 33 Aston Martin of Felipe Fraga. Paul Dalla Lana lost control of the No. 98 Aston Martin and spun backwards in the gravel trap at the Dunlop Esses. Rahel Frey's No. 85 Ferrari almost did the same at this corner. Both incidents disrupted the session.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: Kobayashi recorded the fastest lap at 3:23.900 to achieve his fourth pole position and third in succession in five years at Le Mans. Hartley put the other Toyota second and Lapierre's Alpine was the highest-placed grandfathered LMP1 car third ahead of the Glickenhaus' of Pla and Dumas. Jota's Félix da Costa claimed the LMP2 pole position with a 3:27.950-minute lap. In second through sixth were the WRT (Delétraz), Panis Racing (Stevens), G-Drive (De Vries), and the United Autosports (Jamin and Di Resta) entries. The three GTE manufacturers occupied the first three places in LMGTE Pro. Dries Vanthoor secured the class pole position in the HubAuto Porsche ahead of Serra of AF Corse and Tandy's Corvette. Porsche qualified in the first three positions in LMGTE Am with Andlauer's Dempsey-Proton vehicle on pole position from Barker's GR Racing entry and Cairoli's Project 1 car. Estre lost control entering Indianapolis corner and damaged the No. 92 Porsche's rear-end, striking the barrier on the driver's right at high speed, which stopped the session with 22 minutes remaining.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: After qualifying, Porsche began replacing the No. 92 car's heavily damaged chassis with a replacement but were not permitted by ACO regulations to switch the vehicle completely. Porsche were given a 20-minute shakedown session to test the reconstructed vehicle on the nearby Le Mans Airport runway during the night of 20 August. The WEC Committee opted to lower the LMGTE Pro-class Chevrolet Corvette C8.R's minimum weight by to and reduce its fuel capacity by ; the Ferrari 488 GTE Evo's fuel capacity was reduced by in a Balance of Performance adjustment. That same day, IDEC withdrew its No. 17 car following Merriman's third practice session accident, lowering the field to 61 entries.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: A 15-minute warm-up session for teams to check their cars took place on the morning of 21 August. Buemi lapped fastest at 3:28.529 with his teammate Conway second-quickest and Lapierre third for Alpine. United Autosports' Alex Lynn Led LMP2 with a 3:32.841-minute lap from teammate Jamin in second. Estre was fastest in LMGTE Pro from his Porsche teammate Bruni; Barnicoat put Ferrari quickest in LMGTE Am. While the session passed with no major incidents, Robin Frijns, Sean Gelael, Robert Kubica and Ricky Taylor each lost control of their LMP2 cars; all were undamaged.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: At the start, the circuit was wet from a heavy rain that fell less than an hour before the event began. The ambient temperature was between and the track temperature ranged from . John Elkann, Ferrari's chairperson, waved the French tricolor at 16:00 local time to start the event in front of 50,000 spectators, as race control declared the running of three formation laps behind the safety car because of the wet conditions. Leaving the grid, Tommy Milner appeared to experience difficulty accelerating his No. 64 Corvette past the stalled High Class ORECA LMP2 entry that was slow to drive away from the grid after a mechanic left a movable jack on the car's rear. Because of a fogged-up front windscreen limiting visibility, Calado, in the No. 51 Ferrari, hit Milner, damaging the Corvette's diffuser.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: Green flag action commenced after 13 minutes. Pla, who locked the No. 708 Glickenhaus' brakes on the wet circuit entering turn two, hit Buemi's No. 8 Toyota on the rear-left wheel, sending him spinning onto the Dunlop Chicane run-off area, and damaging the Glickenhaus' right-front bodywork. Race control gave Pla a 10-second stop-and-go penalty, deeming him responsible for the collision. Buemi stopped on the Mulsanne Straight's side to reset the Toyota fully before driving wide onto Arnage corner's run-off area, losing more than 90 seconds to teammate Conway. Lapierre moved Alpine to second before falling to fifth by the end of the first hour, spinning without car damage at Indianapolis turn on the third racing lap and losing a minute. Félix da Costa moved Jota's LMP2 car past the non-hybrid LMH entries to be second overall as Buemi returned to third just before every team made pit stops to change from intermediate to dry tyres when the circuit began to dry after half an hour. Maxime Martin relinquished the LMGTE Pro pole-sitting HubAuto team's category lead to Milner after spinning at the Dunlop Bridge following a collision with the Racing Team India Eurasia LMP2 car, dropping Martin to eighth in class. Molina and Calado's No. 52 and 51 Ferraris shared the category lead until swift work by Corvette in the switch to dry tyres gave the LMGTE Pro lead back to Milner. Andlauer led LMGTE Am before the drying track slowed him and Fuoco overtook him for the class lead. Nielsen later passed Fuoco after the first pit stop cycle.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: Buemi had returned the No. 8 Toyota to second place 71 minutes in and was within a minute of his teammate Conway. Not long after, Milner was struggling to cope with tyre wear, which was affecting the No. 64 Corvette. Molina moved the No. 52 Ferrari past him for the LMGTE Pro lead into the first Mulsanne Chicane after the two drivers were involved in a short duel. Pier Guidi's No. 51 sister Ferrari later overtook Milner for second in category before briefly taking the class lead for himself to begin the third hour. Conway had an anxious moment when he brought the No. 7 Toyota into the pit lane to replace a rear-left tyre with two slow punctures on it. He would later reclaim the overall lead from his teammate Buemi. Soon after, Buemi and Arnold Robin's No. 39 Graff car made contact driving into the Dunlop Chicane, leading Toyota to inspect the No. 8 entry for potential rim damage. Light rain began falling on portions of the circuit after 2 hours but soon stopped. Davidson became stuck deep in the gravel approaching the Dunlop Chicane, possibly because of the light rain and attempting to avoid Andrew Haryanto's spun No. 18 Absolute Racing Porsche ahead of him. He lost a lap and two minutes in LMP2 and forfeited the class lead to Colapinto's No. 26 G-Drive car.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: Gomes in the LMGTE Am second-placed No. 98 Aston Martin put his left-hand tyres onto artificial grass, entering the right-hand Indianapolis corner and spun across the left-hand side gravel trap into the tyre barrier. He was unhurt and exited the car unassisted, but the vehicle was retired because of the damage it sustained. Race control deployed three safety cars to enable repairs to the barrier and car recovery. During the safety car period, several teams made pit stops. Blomqvist's No. 28 Jota entry took the LMP2 lead with Wayne Boyd's No. 23 United Autosports and James Allen's No. 65 Panis cars second and third in category after Colapinto and Job van Uitert's Racing Team Nederland cars stopped and were demoted to fourth and fifth, respectively. Dylan Pereira extended the No. 33 TF Aston Martin's gap to 75 seconds over the rest of the LMGTE Am field. Kobayashi's No. 7 Toyota was 73 seconds ahead of Hartley's No. 8 car when racing resumed with the first three overall cars separated by the safety cars. The LMGTE Pro lead became a battle between Jordan Taylor's No. 63 Corvette and Côme Ledogar and Sam Bird's AF Corse Ferraris as Pereira's No. 33 Aston Martin and François Perrodo's No. 83 Ferrari vied for first in LMGTE Am.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: Stoffel Vandoorne and Boyd battled for the LMP2 lead; the two collided on multiple occasions before Boyd pulled away from Vandoorne in slower traffic through the Porsche Curves and Colapinto was able to challenge Vandoorne for second in class. Hartley made a pit stop in the No. 8 Toyota for a right-rear tyre replacement as a precaution because of a possible puncture and dropped farther back from the No. 7 sister car. As night fell, Bird was lapping Brendan Iribe's Inception LMGTE Am car when the two collided driving into the Ford Chicane, sending the No. 52 car spinning. Bird lost one minute and remained second in LMGTE Pro. Rain began falling again and Manuel Maldonado's No. 32 United Autosports car went straight across the inside gravel at the Dunlop Chicane and struck his teammate Di Resta's LMP2-leading No. 23 entry at the chicane atop a hill. Not long after, Colapinto lost control of the No. 26 G-Drive entry at high speed entering the Porsche Curves and hit Sophia Flörsch's No. 1 Richard Mille Racing car he was passing. As Flörsch reversed across the circuit, Tom Cloet could not react in time and struck the No. 1 car's side with his No. 74 Racing Team India Eurasia entry. Both drivers were unhurt. The No. 1 car was retired; Flörsch was transported to the medical centre since the vehicle's medical light had come on; tests deemed her fit. Safety cars were required for a second time because of the accidents; green flag racing resumed 21 minutes later.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: In LMGTE Pro, the safety car had allowed the lead between the two AF Corse cars to grow as Nicky Catsburg briefly took the class lead in the No. 63 Corvette before Calado retook it. Jota's No. 28 entry had a 90-second stop-and-go penalty imposed on it because Blomqvist crossed the white line denoting the pit lane exit when the green light was accidentally illuminated instead of being held to rejoin when the nearest, not the next safety car passed by. The penalty promoted Stevens' No. 65 Panis car to the LMP2 lead before Delétraz's No. 41 WRT entry passed it on the Mulsanne Straight. During the seventh hour, the LMGTE Am-leading Fraga's No. 33 TF Aston Martin and Egidio Perfetti's No. 56 Project 1 Porsche crashed separately but simultaneously into the first Mulsanne Chicane tyre wall, possibly because both drivers hit debris in the area. The Porsche retired because of car damage as Fraga dropped to fourth in LMGTE Am after making a pit stop for a rear splitter replacement and a right-rear puncture replacement. The safety cars were brought out for the third time for approximately half an hour. During this safety car period, the No. 64 Corvette was driven into the garage for a rear diffuser replacement to rectify a vibration felt by driver Alexander Sims and a brake switch.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: When racing resumed, Vaxivière lost control of the Alpine by locking its wheels on a damp patch in the braking zone. He beached sideways in the gravel at the first Mulsanne Chicane and required extraction. The incident promoted Derani's No. 708 Glickenhaus to third, as Vaxivière was demoted to fifth. Before the eighth hour ended, Rui Andrade lost control of the No. 25 G-Drive car at high speed and crashed backwards into the right-hand side tyre barrier through the Dunlop Bridge braking zone, leading to the entry's retirement. The safety cars were dispatched for the fourth time for car recovery; racing continued almost half an hour later. Lapierre was able to return the Alpine to third overall following a short duel with Pla's No. 708 Glickenhaus in slower traffic and lapping around two seconds quicker than Pla. Cooper MacNeil lost control of the sixth-placed LMGTE Pro WeatherTech Porsche on the Ford Chicane entry kerbs and crashed into the left-hand tyre barrier, activating the medical light. MacNeil drove the car slowly into the garage, where it was retired because of heavy right-hand side damage. At mid-point, Kobayashi led overall ahead of his teammate Hartley. Milesi and Yifei Ye's WRT cars led LMP2, and AF Corse held sway in both the LMGTE classes.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: In the early morning, Ye's No. 41 WRT vehicle moved into the LMP2 lead after he overtook his teammate Milesi's No. 31 entry before Frijns reclaimed the class lead. Kobayashi had an anxious moment when he locked the No. 7 Toyota's tyres braking into Indianapolis corner and decided to stop the car at the turn's exit on the run-off area just before the tyre barrier. Though the tyre lockup lost him 20 seconds to his teammate Hartley, he retained the overall lead. The No. 22 United Autosports vehicle's hold on third in LMP2 was relinquished to Jota's No. 28 team when it entered the garage for alternator repairs, which lasted 90 minutes. Molina subsequently ceded the No. 52 AF Corse Ferrari's hold on third place in LMGTE Pro to Estre's No. 92 Porsche because of a front-left suspension failure requiring half an hour of significant repairs by his team. The main on-track action at this point was the battle for third in LMP2 between Sean Gelael's and later Blomqvist's No. 28 Jota and Stevens' No. 65 Panis cars.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: With eight hours remaining, one of Toyota's electronic systems engineers noticed a problem with their two cars on the telemetry fuel pressure trace system. The fuel pump filters at the tank's bottom began clogging with mix of grease from the fuel nozzle connectors and polyurethane particles from a collapsing inner fuel bladder inside the tank's fuel cell. The bladder's inner walls rubbed against each other to produce the particles when fuel levels decreased and a small vacuum which collapsed the tank. The problem was traced to the bowsers storing fuel in the pit lane being contaminated with aluminium oxide particles. The team's stints were incrementally reduced from the normal 13 laps just before two-thirds race distance. Lead systems engineer Dominique Gardener thought of a procedure for drivers to press a button on the steering wheel while braking and accelerating in and out of corners that activated a system embedded in the vehicle's electronic system that deactivated and reactivated the fuel pumps to manage fuel consumption, and to attempt to produce pressure to clear the filter. Buemi's No. 8 Toyota fell more than three minutes behind Kobayashi's race-leading No. 7 Toyota when he stopped briefly on the straight after Mulsanne corner to reset the car by changing multiple gear settings. The No. 52 Ferrari suffered a further setback when Bird brought the car to the garage for right-front bodywork repairs, the result of a front-right puncture that left debris on the circuit.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: In LMGTE Pro, both factory Porsches battled for third as Catsburg's No. 63 Corvette drew closer to Calado and Ledogar's No. 51 Ferrari for the category lead when Ledogar made a pit stop to change brakes. In the 21st hour, Pereira and Ben Keating were able to recover from TF Sport's earlier puncture by lapping faster than Perrodo's and Alessio Rovera's No. 83 Ferrari and moved the No. 33 Aston Martin back to the LMGTE Am lead. Hartley's second-placed No. 8 Toyota drove into the pit lane for less than two minutes to repair a malfunctioning right-hand side door. A mechanic did this using a laptop they plugged into the car. The stop dropped him a lap behind López, the overall race leader. A blocked air jack delayed the LMP2-leading No. 31 WRT car taken over by Frijns, causing him to make two pit stops to switch tyres and a subsequent collision with an LMGTE Am-class Porsche. The No. 31 WRT car relinquished the category lead they had held for 135 consecutive laps to Ye's No. 41 sister vehicle. WRT used giant inflatable pillows placed under the car. This allowed the team to install tyres on a single axle one end at a time, bypassing the faulty jack.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: TF Sport's Keating ceded the LMGTE Am lead he had held for eight laps to Rovera's No. 83 Ferrari, as the Aston Martin had to be driven to the pit lane because of a misfiring engine. Makowiecki's fourth-placed LMGTE Pro No. 91 Porsche braked later than expected from a loss of brake pressure into the Ford Chicane and removed the car's rear diffuser and bodywork housing after driving over a grassy hill just off the racing surface. Race control instructed Makowiecki to enter the pit lane. Rear-end repairs lasted more than five minutes, but the No. 91 car retained fourth in class. Just as he began the final lap with less than three minutes remaining, Ye's LMP2-leading No. 41 WRT car stopped down the hill past the Dunlop Bridge because of a broken throttle sensor creating an electrical short circuit that temporarily turned the engine's electronic control unit off. Frijns' No. 31 sister car inherited the LMP2 lead; he held off Blomqvist's approaching No. 28 Jota entry in slower GT traffic, and avoided hitting Patrick Morriseau, the Clerk of the course, who was waving the chequered flag close to the start/finish straight's centre to win LMP2 by 0.727 seconds.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: Kobayashi maintained the overall lead the No. 7 Toyota had held for 178 consecutive laps to finish first after 371 laps and achieve his, Conway and López's first Le Mans victory—Toyota's fourth in succession. They finished two laps over Buemi, Hartley and Nakajima's No. 8 sister car. The Alpine completed the overall podium in third, four laps behind the No. 7 Toyota. The two Glickenhaus entries completed the Hypercar order in fourth and fifth. WRT's LMP2 win meant they were the first debuting team to win since Starworks Motorsport in . This was the fourth time the team had debuted in a major endurance event and won. Panis Racing completed the class podium in third. The No. 21 DragonSpeed team of Ben Hanley, Montoya and Henrik Hedman overcame fuel problems and a driver stint problem to win the LMP2 Pro-Am Cup. Ferrari claimed its first victory in LMGTE Pro since with the No. 51 AF Corse car ahead of the No. 63 Corvette by 41.686 seconds after leading for the final 205 laps. The Italian marque had a first-time win in LMGTE Am with the No. 83 team finishing a lap ahead of TF Sport's No. 33 Aston Martin. Pier Guidi and Ledogar's LMGTE Pro and Nielsen's LMGTE Am victories came just three weeks after their 2021 24 Hours of Spa win.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: The top three teams in each class appeared on the podium to collect their trophies and spoke to the media in a later press conference. Conway said he was "crying like a little girl" and spoke of the difficulty of winning Le Mans: "We came close so many times, and to get it done here with the new hypercar as well with these boys ... [my] teammates did a stellar job as always." López commented the race's final hours were stressful because Toyota were coping with a fuel problem, and Kobayashi felt he and his co-drivers' losses at Le Mans strengthened their bond. Buemi said he felt "quite lucky" not to sustain major damage to the No. 8 car on the first lap, and that finishing second was satisfactory, adding: "Somehow to finish second after that is quite good, we had even been leading the race at some points, so it was pretty impressive." Hartley revealed Toyota were concerned his team would fail to finish and was happy to finish second. Lapierre commented that Alpine expected to finish higher and acknowledged that Toyota were the faster team. Alpine team principal Philippe Sinault said the team's third-place finish was "an excellent result" and they had no reason to be disheartened. Pascal Vasselon, Toyota's technical director, said calling both its cars into the garage would have cost them victory to Alpine.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: Frijns said he felt WRT "did an amazing job by basically leading both cars into the night and come out unscratched. The cars were both working really amazing, we had really good pace...". He described the close finish in LMP2: "the two Toyotas were in front of me, and they were slowing down before the finish line for their photo. But the three, four cars behind them were all slowing down and I was still fighting for the win I was trying to find my way around them, and I saw the chequered flag guy a bit late but luckily everything went well...". WRT reported that after the No. 41 car was recovered from "parc fermé" by mechanics, the engine and ancillaries were determined to be unmarred. Blomqvist said he was happy with his racing and lamented losing the LMP2 victory to WRT: "It's a shame to lose. Maybe we feel like we lost the win, getting so close to it ... To lose by seven-tenths is hard. But everything went WRT's way in this race. We had a few mistakes and things that went against us."


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: Pier Guidi said of his second LMGTE Pro win: "It wasn't easy at all. Sometimes you gain, sometimes you lose, so we pushed really hard — the rain made it really hard for everyone. The Corvette was super quick, but we expected that." Catsburg was positive about finishing second in class and was pleased with the Corvette's performance, saying: "This is my third time at Le Mans, and the first two times we finished nowhere. To be in the fight right to the last lap was very cool. It went well." Antonio García said he would have preferred to have won, adding: "We were both alone so it was a one-on-one fight between Corvette and Ferrari. We were close." His teammate Taylor noted: "It's hard to complain with a podium at Le Mans. But when you come this close, it's difficult to take." Jani attributed Porsche's poor performance in LMGTE Pro to Estre spinning, and when his co-driver emerged in a second group of cars during a safety car deployment dividing the GTE categories before midnight. TF Sport owner Tom Ferrier concluded his team's car being slowed by a puncture and the resulting loss of time prevented them from challenging AF Corse close to the race's conclusion. Fraga spoke of his fear debris from Perfetti's accident would mean the Aston Martin would be retired.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: Conway, Kobayashi and López's victory moved them atop the Hypercar Drivers' Championship with 120 points, nine ahead of their teammates Buemi, Hartley and Nakajima and 30 points over Lapierre, Negrão and Vaxivière. Calado and Pier Guidi took the GTE Drivers' Championship lead from Estre and Jani with 124 points to the latter's 112. Toyota and Ferrari left Le Mans as the respective Hypercar and GTE Manufacturers' Championship leaders, with two rounds of the season remaining.


title: 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans

text: The minimum number of laps for classification at the finish (70 per cent of the overall race winner's distance) was 260 laps. Class winners are in bold.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: The Battle of Pavia, fought on the morning of 24 February 1525, was the decisive engagement of the Italian War of 1521–1526 between the Kingdom of France and the Habsburg empire of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor as well as ruler of Spain, Austria, the Low Countries, and the Two Sicilies.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: The French army was led by King Francis I of France, who laid siege to the city of Pavia (then part of the Duchy of Milan within the Holy Roman Empire) in October 1524 with 26,200 troops. The French infantry consisted of 6,000 French foot soldiers and 17,000 foreign mercenaries: 8,000 Swiss, 5,000 Germans and 4,000 Italians (black bands). The French cavalry consisted of 2,000 "gendarmes" and 1,200 lances fournies. Charles V, intending to break the siege, sent a relief force of 22,300 troops to Pavia (where the Imperial garrison stationed consisted of 5000 Germans and 1000 Spaniards) under the command of the Fleming Charles de Lannoy, Imperial lieutenant and viceroy of Naples, and of the French renegade and captain-general Charles III, Duke of Bourbon. The Habsburg infantry consisted of 12,000 German Landsknechte, 5,000 Spaniards, and 3,000 Italians, and its command was exercised by an Italian Condottiero, the Marquis of Pescara, in conjunction with the German military leader Georg Frundsberg and the Spanish captain Antonio de Leyva who was in charge of the Imperial garrison inside Pavia. The cavalry, led by Lannoy and Bourbon, consisted of 1,500 knights and 800 lances.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: The battle was fought in the Visconti Park of Mirabello di Pavia, outside the city walls, where Pescara and Frundsberg stationed their forces in pike and shot formation. Francis took a personal initiative and led a cavalry charge against Lannoy, with the possible intent of capturing Bourbon, but it was held by German and Spanish pikemen and ravaged by arquebus fire. The arquebusiers formed a part of the Spanish "colunellas" and of the German doppelsöldners. A mass of Spanish and German foot soldiers descended on the French cavalry from all sides and began systematically killing the French "gendarmes". The remaining French forces, including Swiss mercenaries and Black bands, intervened to protect the King but were surrounded by the pikemen in front of them and by the garrison of Pavia that sortied from the town.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: In the four-hour battle, the French army was split and defeated in detail. Many of the chief nobles of France were killed, and others – including Francis I himself – were captured. He was imprisoned in the nearby tower of Pizzighettone and later transferred to Spain, where Charles V was residing for his upcoming marriage with Isabella of Portugal. Together they signed the Treaty of Madrid of 1526, by which Francis abandoned claims over the Imperial Duchy of Milan and ceded Burgundy to the House of Habsburg in exchange for his freedom.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: The outcome of the battle cemented Habsburg ascendancy in Italy and Europe, but Francis denounced the treaty after his liberation and soon re-opened hostilities over Burgundy and Milan.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: The French, in possession of Lombardy at the start of the Italian War of 1521–26, had been forced to abandon it after their defeat at the Battle of Bicocca in 1522. Determined to regain it, Francis ordered an invasion of the region in late 1523, under the command of Guillaume Gouffier, Seigneur de Bonnivet; but Bonnivet was defeated by Imperial troops at the Battle of the Sesia and forced to withdraw to France.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: Charles de Lannoy now launched an invasion of Provence under the command of Fernando d'Ávalos, and Charles III, Duke of Bourbon (who had recently betrayed Francis and allied himself with the Emperor). While initially successful, the Imperial offensive lost valuable time during the Siege of Marseille and was forced to withdraw back to Italy by the arrival of Francis and the main French army at Avignon.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: In mid-October 1524, Francis himself crossed the Alps and advanced on Milan at the head of an army numbering more than 40,000. Bourbon and Pescara, their troops not yet recovered from the campaign in Provence, were in no position to offer serious resistance. The French army moved in several columns, brushing aside Imperial attempts to hold its advance, but failed to bring the main body of Imperial troops to battle. Nevertheless, Charles de Lannoy, who had concentrated some 16,000 men to resist the 33,000 French troops closing on Milan, decided that the city could not be defended and withdrew to Lodi on 26 October. Having entered Milan and installed Louis II de la Trémoille as the governor, Francis (at the urging of Bonnivet and against the advice of his other senior commanders, who favored a more vigorous pursuit of the retreating Lannoy) advanced on Pavia, where Antonio de Leyva remained with a sizable Imperial garrison of about 9,000.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: The bulk of the French army arrived at Pavia in the last days of October. By 2 November, Anne de Montmorency had crossed the Ticino River and invested the city from the south, completing its encirclement. Inside were about 9,000 men, mainly mercenaries whom Antonio de Leyva was able to pay only by melting the church plate. A period of skirmishing and artillery bombardments followed, and several breaches had been made in the walls by mid-November. On 21 November, Francis attempted an assault on the city through two of the breaches, but was beaten back with heavy casualties; hampered by rainy weather and a lack of gunpowder, the French decided to wait for the defenders to starve.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: In early December, a Spanish force commanded by Ugo de Moncada landed near Genoa, intending to interfere in a conflict between pro-Valois and pro-Habsburg factions in the city. Francis dispatched a larger force under the Marquis of Saluzzo to intercept them. Confronted by the more numerous French and left without naval support by the arrival of a pro-Valois fleet commanded by Andrea Doria, the Spanish troops surrendered. Francis then signed a secret agreement with Pope Clement VII, who pledged not to assist Charles in exchange for Francis's assistance with the conquest of Naples. Against the advice of his senior commanders, Francis detached a portion of his forces under the Duke of Albany and sent them south to aid the Pope. Lannoy attempted to intercept the expedition near Fiorenzuola, but suffered heavy casualties and was forced to return to Lodi by the intervention of the infamous Black Bands of Giovanni de' Medici, Italian mercenaries which had just entered French service. Medici then returned to Pavia with a supply train of gunpowder and shot gathered by the Duke of Ferrara; but the French position was simultaneously weakened by the departure of nearly 5,000 Grisons Swiss mercenaries, who returned to their cantons in order to defend them against marauding landsknechts.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: In January 1525, Lannoy was reinforced by the arrival of Georg Frundsberg with 15,000 fresh landsknechts from Germany and renewed the offensive. Pescara captured the French outpost at Sant'Angelo Lomellina, cutting the lines of communication between Pavia and Milan, while a separate column of landsknechts advanced on Belgiojoso and, despite being briefly pushed back by a raid led by Medici and Bonnivet, occupied the town. By 2 February, Lannoy was only a few miles from Pavia. Francis had encamped the majority of his forces in the great walled park of Mirabello outside the city walls, placing them between Leyva's garrison and the approaching relief army. Skirmishing and sallies by the garrison continued through the month of February. Medici was seriously wounded and withdrew to Piacenza to recuperate, forcing Francis to recall much of the Milan garrison to offset the departure of the Black Band; but the fighting had little overall effect. On 21 February, the Imperial commanders, running low on supplies and mistakenly believing that the French forces were more numerous than their own, decided to launch an attack on Mirabello Castle in order to save face and demoralize the French sufficiently to ensure a safe withdrawal.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: The Imperial and Spanish armaments and soldiers for the battle were substantially financed by the Jakob Fugger German bank, and the Palenzuela Banca, Levi Kahana a Castilian Spanish bank.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: On the evening of 23 February, Lannoy's imperial troops, who had been encamped outside the east wall of the Visconti Park, began their march north along the walls. Although Konstam indicates that at the same time, the Imperial artillery began a bombardment of the French siege lines – which had become routine during the extended siege – in order to conceal Lannoy's movement, Juan de Oznaya (a soldier who participated in the battle and wrote about it in 1544) indicates that at that moment, the Imperial troops set their tents on fire to mislead the French into believing that they were retreating. Meanwhile, Imperial engineers quickly worked to create a breach in the park walls, at the Porta Pescarina near the village of San Genesio, through which the Imperial army could enter. By 5:00am, some 3,000 arquebusiers under the command of Alfonso d'Avalos had entered the park and were rapidly advancing on Mirabello Castle, where they believed the French headquarters to be; simultaneously, Imperial light cavalry spread out from the breach into the park, intending to intercept any French movements.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: Meanwhile, a detachment of French cavalry under Charles Tiercelin encountered the Imperial cavalry and began a series of skirmishes with them. A mass of Swiss pikemen under Robert de la Marck, Seigneur de la Flourance moved up to assist them, overrunning a battery of Spanish artillery that had been dragged into the park. They missed De Basto's arcabuceros – who had by 6:30am emerged from the woods near the castle, and swiftly overrun it – and blundered into 6,000 of Georg Frundsberg's landsknechts. By 7:00am, a full-scale infantry battle had developed not far from the original breach.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: A third mass of troops – the German and Spanish heavy cavalry under Lannoy himself, as well as d'Avalos's Spanish infantry – had meanwhile been moving through the woods to the west, closer to where Francis was encamped. The French did not realize the magnitude of the Imperial attack for some time; however, by about 7:20am, d'Avalos's advance had been spotted by a battery of French artillery, which commenced firing on the Spanish lines. This alerted Francis, who launched a charge against Lannoy's outnumbered cavalry with the entire force of French gendarmes, scattering the Spanish by 7:40am.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: Francis's precipitate advance, however, had not only masked the fire of the French artillery, but also pulled him away from the mass of French infantry, commanded by Richard de la Pole, and by Francois de Lorraine, who led the Black Band of renegade landsknecht pikemen (not to be confused with the Italian mercenary company of arquebusiers by the same name), which was 4,000 to 5,000 men strong. Pescara, left in command of the Spanish forces after Lannoy had followed the retreating cavalry, formed his men up at the edge of the woods and sent messengers to Bourbon, Frundsberg, and De Vasto requesting assistance.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: Frundsberg meanwhile mauled the heavily outnumbered Swiss infantry opposing him; Tiercelin and Flourance were unable to hold their troops together, and the French foot began to flee the field.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: By 8:00am, a mass of Imperial pikemen and arquebusiers descended on the French cavalry from all sides. Lacking room to manoeuvre because of the surrounding woods, the French gendarmes were surrounded and systematically killed. Richard de la Pole and Lorraine, advancing to assist Francis, were met by Frundsberg's arriving landsknechts; the French infantry was broken and routed, and de la Pole and Lorraine were both killed. In a particularly bitter contest between Imperial and freelance landsknechts, the Black Band was surrounded by Frundsberg's pikemen and exterminated where it stood. The French king fought on as his horse was killed under him by Cesare Hercolani, an Italian Condottiero; surrounded by Spanish arquebusiers and German Landsknecht, he was taken prisoner and escorted from the field.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: Meanwhile, Antonio de Leyva had sortied with the garrison, overrunning the 3,000 Swiss under Montmorency that had been manning the siege lines. The remnants of the Swiss – both Montmorency's and Flourance's – tried to flee across the river, suffering massive casualties as they did. The French rearguard, under the Duke of Alençon, had taken no part in the battle; when the Duke realized what had occurred in the park, he quickly began to retreat towards Milan. By 9:00am, the battle was over.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: The exact nature of Francis's surrender—in particular, who exactly had taken him prisoner—is uncertain, with a variety of candidates put forwards by historians:


title: Battle of Pavia

text: The fact of the matter is that the individuals mentioned above were all given credit for the capture of Francis I in various ways, and Charles V himself honored different people for the achievement over the years. The decree granting a coat of arms to Alonso Pita da Veiga for his deeds at the Battle of Pavia, was archived at the General Archive of Simanca (Archivo general de Simancas, legajo 388, rotulado de "Mercedes y Privilegios.') and was issued by Emperor Charles V on 24 July 1529. In that decree, Charles V does not credit a single individual but, rather, a group of individuals that includes da Veiga: " ... and in the same battle, you (Alonso Pita da Veiga) accomplished so much that you reached the person of said King (Francis I of France) and captured him, jointly with the other persons that captured him." (" ... "y en la misma batalla ficistes tanto que allegastes á la misma persona del dicho Rey, y fuistes en prenderle, juntamente con las otras personas que le prendieron" ...") Finally, in his autobiography, Charles V claimed that "the King was made prisoner by his principal captains", crediting the Duke of Bourbon, Charles de Lannoy, and the Marquis of Pescara.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: The French defeat was decisive. Aside from Francis, a number of leading French nobles, including Montmorency and Flourance, had been captured; an even greater number – among them Bonnivet, La Tremoille, La Palice, Richard de la Pole, and Lorraine – had been killed in the fighting. Francis was taken to the fortress of Pizzighettone, where he wrote a letter to Louise of Savoy, his mother:


title: Battle of Pavia

text: Soon afterwards, he finally learned that the Duke of Albany had lost the larger part of his army to attrition and desertion, and had returned to France without ever having reached Naples. The broken remnants of the French forces, aside from a small garrison left to hold the Castel Sforzesco in Milan, retreated across the Alps under the nominal command of Charles IV of Alençon, reaching Lyon by March.


title: Battle of Pavia

text: Charles de Lannoy kept Francis I in his custody and imprisoned him in a tower of Pizzighettone. The king was then brought to Genoa and from there he was taken to Spain. He remained jailed in a tower in Madrid until the Treaty of Madrid was signed. According to the treaty, Francis I abandoned its claims over Flanders, Milan and Burgundy. However, the peace treaty was broken in the same year and a new French-Imperial war lasted from 1526 to 1529.