24 Hours of Le Mans

Allan McNish about Le Mans 2005 Audi victory

Dumfries-born Allan McNish claimed third place in the 73rd Le Mans 24 Hours while Audi team-mates JJ Lehto, Marco Werner and Tom Kristensen earned the German manufacturer a fifth victory in the gruelling French “marathon”.

© Planetlemans.com

Kristensen’s Audi R8 took the chequered flag two-laps ahead of the pole-starting Pescarolo of Frenchmen Emmanuel Collard/Erik Comas/Jean-Christophe Boullion. Denmark’s Kristensen re-writes the history books with his seventh Le Mans victory having scored the Audi R8’s first (2000) and last Le Mans triumph as the sports-prototype triumphantly bows out of Le Mans.

McNish, who qualified his Audi R8 third on the 49-car grid, crashed out of second place approaching two-thirds distance when a tyre suddenly delaminated at high-speed.

The 35-year-old, sharing his Audi UK-supported R8 sportscar with Emanuele Pirro (It) and Frank Biela (D), had spectacularly clawed back to within one minute of the “sister? Champion Audi of Kristensen who went on to re-write the history books by claiming a seventh Le Mans triumph alongside co-drivers JJ Lehto and Marco Werner.

“I “locked-up? under braking for an earlier corner, the tyres were getting old and I’d been pushing very hard,” commented a crestfallen Allan who won Le Mans in 1998. “The tread came off at Indianapolis and I was helpless - it’s even more upsetting because I was actually making a scheduled pit-stop at the end of that lap.

“It took four minutes to get dragged out of the gravel trap and back to the pits and a further 18 minutes to repair the front suspension which dropped us to third, six laps behind the lead Audi.”

The McNish Audi had taken the lead after 2ó hours when both front-row starting Pescarolo cars encountered problems but lost three minutes with a pit-stop an hour later.

Allan, who completed three stints lasting a total of 8hr 38mins, continued: ?Emanuele slid off at slow speed in to the barriers at Arnage following a Safety Car period which necessitated repairs. We dropped off the lead lap after seven laps but hard driving had gradually got us back in to contention during the night and early hours.

“A regulation change meant all three Audi R8s carried 50 kilograms of ballast while the power was further restricted by 30bhp handing the latest generation of sportscars, like the Pescarolo, a clear and definite advantage. We were almost 15mph slower down the Mulsanne Straight than last year.

“That makes Audi’s success this year even more praiseworthy and remarkable and this was essentially down to its already proven reliability and fuel-saving FSI engine technology.”

The “French? Audi of Jean-Marc Gounon/Franck Montagny/Stéphane Ortelli claimed fourth position to net Audi a remarkable 1-3-4 result in the Audi R8’s final Le Mans appearance.

The twice round-the-clock race, which saw just 27 cars take the chequered flag, was run in intense heat with daytime temperatures in excess of 32 degrees Celsius and in front of a record equalling 230,000 crowd including an estimated 75,000 Britons.

© 2005 Planetlemans.com.