Supported by

1st Tickets are a booking service for popular motor racing events. Their specialisation is the Le Mans 24 hour endurance race. They aim to offer tickets at competitive prices to race enthusiasts and novices alike.

 

 

 

Le Mans 2008 - The Tourists' Story - Page 9

The Race to the End

(The Best Race for Years?)

 

We were due to meet with the returning Ian at 7.30 down on the inside of Dunlop, so I took my last shots in the stand just before 7 am and then we left to head off for the rendezvous point.  Ian soon appeared, bang on time as usual, and after a cup of coffee (strangely difficult to source for 7.30 on a Le Mans Sunday), we were soon heading back to the car and Le Grand Lucé.  There was plenty of time for a wash, change and to pack our bags before we had breakfast. 

Chief Tourist Ian discusses the morning's game plan with John (left) and Martyn (right). Alan is just leaving the hotel in the background     Jeremy's dilemma is becoming known to all. Clive, Peter and Allon look on....     Jeremy's 'team-mate' Brian discusses the problem with Will     Sadly another wet and rather dreary Sunday morning at Le Grand Luce - come on weather - we're due a hot and sunny one, you know!!

It was when we were piling our bags into the cars that we learned of Jeremy’s dilemma in the Aston.  It seemed that on his way back from Mulsanne Corner the previous night he had hit something in the road.  It was obvious this morning that a front tyre was punctured and the DB9 carried no spare.  All attempts to inflate it failed and several phone calls later it became obvious that nothing was going to get the tyre sorted out that day.  So Jeremy was faced with spending an extra night at Le Cheval Blanc and then trying to get back to Cherbourg in time for the crossing the following evening.  But there is more to this story, as I will recount later….

Due to Jeremy’s difficulties, we left Le Grand Lucé much later than usual, heading back to the garage rouge.  This was something of a departure for the Tourists as Indianapolis and Arnage had been our first port of call on Sunday morning for a number of years.  The party seemed keen to visit Tertre Rouge, particularly now that the rain had eased considerably. 

We got there about midday and the close race between the #2 Audi and the #7 Peugeot was continuing, albeit that there was a lap (or the best part of it) between the two cars.  The Peugeots continued to be hampered by poor visibility and this coupled with the 100% reliability of the lead Audi had given a clear advantage to McNish, Capello and Kristensen, all of whom were racing massive quadruple stints.  It was still an interesting race though, bearing in mind that the other two Audi’s were unable to match the pace – and perhaps the determination – of the lead car. 

First up at Tertre Rouge is the #72 Luc Alphand Aventures Corvette     The #96 Virgo Motorsport Ferrari was still chasing the #82 Risi Ferrari, with heartbreak waiting in the wings....     No position lights for Luhr, Rockenfeller and Premat in the #3 Audi...     ...and the same goes for the #007 Aston, running 4th in GT1     There was no chance of Rollcentre repeating their fine 4th place from last year - too many diesels in the way....

The delays to the #64 car had dropped it three laps behind the lead battle in GT1     The #40 Quifel ASM Lola made it to the end in 20th place and 4th in LMP2, 29 laps behind the class-winning Porsche     Although the Lola Aston Martin hadn't been able to take the fight to the diesels, it had showed that it was on the petrol LMP1 pace. It finished in 9th place, 8 laps behind the LMP1-bis 'winning' Pescarolo     The #59 Aston Martin continues, albeit well down the field

After a miserable season thus far, the #82 Risi Competizione team finally came good with a win in GT2 for Melo, Salo and Bruni, in 19th place overall, 8 laps ahead of their nearest rival     The #14 Creation was still running, but was another one of the many petrol LMP1s that failed to make any appreciable impact in LMP1     After the demise of the #16 sister car, it was left to the #127 Pescarolo to do battle for petrol honours for Henri     Soheil Ayari presses on in the #5 Oreca-Courage. The car would finish in a highly creditable 8th place, with just one Pescarolo (and 6 diesels, of course!) finishing ahead of it....     For me, the #50 Saleen had been a disappointment. After all the promise of qualifying, the car's performance in the race was uninspiring, finishing 28th overall and 7th in GT1, the best of the rest after the Astons and Corvettes

The #4 LMP1 Pescarolo had been the first reserve for the race and really ought to have stayed that way. The car did finish the race, to be fair, but in 26th place and 12th in LMP1. Only the struggling Dome was classified lower....     The #26 Radical made it to the end, a feat which at times had looked unlikely. It finished 31st and 6th in LMP2     But if ever a car flattered to deceive it was the #55 Lamborghini. We all wanted to see it do well, but it spent soooooo long in the garage! Eventually it made it to the end, sadly unclassified on 266 laps - to give you some measure of the performance, that's 78 laps behind the class-winning Aston Martin...     The #73 Alphand Corvette continues the vain chase of the works cars

Magnussen, Fellows and O'Connell put up a strong fight to the end in the battle against the Astons, but eventually had to give best, finishing 14th overall and 2nd in GT1, on the same lap as the winning #009 Aston     Marco Werner presses on in the #1 Audi     What turned out to be my final shot of the winning car, the #2 Audi of Kristensen, McNish and Capello. Having wrested the lead from the Peugeots in the early hours of Sunday morning, the elements conspired against a grandstand finish between the two works diesel teams     And a finish off the podium for the #3 Audi in 4th place, 7 laps down on the winner     After the misfire for the Essex Porsche which cost it many laps, the #34 Van Merksteijn Porsche was home free.....

If ever a team deserved an award just for perseverance to the finish, it was the #80 Flying Lizards of Bergmeister, Neiman and van Overbeek. With nothing really to play for after their major accident in the opening hours, they showed true Le Mans spirit by making it to the end despite probably feeling like packing up and going home. 32nd place was no real reward.....     Another team deserving of plenty of praise just for finishing was the #32 Barazi Epsilon Zytek of Barazi, Vergers and Moseley. They finished 29th and 5th in class, and caused the biggest scare of the race when Barazi had a coming together with the winning Audi of Kristensen - plenty of hearts in mouths at that point!     The #90 Farnbacher car was never really on the same pace as the leading GT2s, but nevertheless finished in 3rd place on the GT2 podium, 23rd overall for Nielsen, Ehret and Kaffer     Once it had it's long stop in the third hour with a gear selection problem, the #8 Peugeot was effectively an also-ran. It clawed it's way back up to 8th by the finish, despite being subject to further delays on the way. Lamy, Wurz and Sarrazin finishing 13 laps down, but with the consolation of the fastest race lap to Sarrazin in 3m19.394 - astonishingly, the best part of EIGHT seconds quicker than McNish's fastest lap just a year before.....

No repeat of the 06 and 07 wins for Biela, Pirro and Werner. They finished last of the diesels in 6th place, losing several laps to a clutch failure, coming in 14 laps adrift     Once again, Luc Alphand's team provided good back-up to the works Corvettes, the #73 car of Goueslard, Blanchemain and Pasquali finishing 21st and 6th in class     Martin Short's reward for a Le Mans out of the driving seat was 11th place, 4th in LMP1-bis, the first British team home and (probably) the first real privateer too.      No victory for the 'Bond' car as the #007 came home 16th and 4th in class, 5 laps down on the GT1-winning sister car     Once again, Henri Pescarolo proved that his team had everything it takes to win at Le Mans - except a diesel engine! The #17 car of Tinseau (here), Primat and Treluyer finished 7th, winning LMP1-bis, but the statistics show that the French car was a full 19 laps behind after 24 hours

30th place was the reward for Team Modena with their #59 Aston    A stunning LMP2 win for the Van Merksteijn Porsche RS Spyder, finshing 10th overall and at last breathing some credibility into a class which has generally self-destructed over the years....    A last shot of Marc Goossens in the #14 Creation which struggled on to the finish in 24th place and 11th in LMP1    The lights on the car here were still there at the finish as the #64 Corvette made the last place on the GT1 podium

A last shot of the #17 Pescarolo     I guess my last shot of a Peugeot at Le Mans really ought to have been the #7 car, but you can't always get these things right...... ;-)

We spent about three quarters of an hour at Tertre Rouge up the inside of the circuit to the area which used to be such a great vantage point for the drop down from the Dunlop Bridge to the Esses.  I guess I’ll never quite get used to losing that classic Le Mans view.  We spent another 20 minutes or so there until the other Tourists decided to move on and I was really surprised to discover that it was now possible to walk all the way back up to the Dunlop Bridge on the inside – something you never used to be able to do without taking a massive detour through the Bugatti circuit.

We made camp again at the eaterie on the inside of the Dunlop Curve and amazingly I took my last photograph of the 2008 24 Heures du Mans just after 1.30 pm.  This isn’t particularly unusual for me, although we normally end the race at Arnage, where photography by the amateur is nigh-on impossible because of the fencing, but tiredness is the main reason.  I was simply too tired to wander off to try and find a decent point to photograph from and so decided to settle down to enjoy what was fast becoming the most exciting finish to a Le Mans race for years, which was fitting for Ian’s 40th Le Mans anniversary. 

I'm pretty sure I never intended my last shot of a car at Le Mans 2008 to be the unclassified Terramos Courage of Terada, Katoh and Takahashi, but I suppose it's a fitting tribute to Yojiro on his 29th Le Mans - 34 years after his first appearance in a Mazda-engined Sygma! (Shame I got Katoh in the car though!) So who will Terada drive for next year for his 30th start??

So against this backdrop it was a bit surprising when one or two of the Tourists started asking where Ian and Martyn had gone (they had separated from us much earlier), seemingly with a view to perhaps moving on and leaving the circuit early.  With a 3 pm race finish, we could take our time on our journey to Cancale, so there was absolutely no need to rush away.  Nevertheless I was pressed to contact Ian and Martyn and when I finally made contact by phone at around 2.15 pm, I well remember Martyn’s response , ‘Well, it is a rather exciting finish you know!’.  I made it clear that I agreed and relayed the news to the less excited Tourists that Ian and Martyn had no intention of leaving and that they seemed to be in the minority in wanting to press on.  I have to say that to me it was a bit like wanting to leave a cup final when the scores were tied with 5 minutes to go - why on earth would you want to leave?!

The drivers of the #7 Peugeot certainly tried everything they could in the last half hour but at last it became clear that it just wasn’t to be.  Minassian had even driven on slicks in what was becoming heavy rain again, but it was just too little, too late.  A wonderful Le Mans ended with a well-deserved win Audi #2, the drivers of which had driven the car faultlessly.  That, together with the perfect race strategy gave Audi yet another win at Le Mans, perhaps the first that they had really had to seriously work for.   Peugeot’s disastrous visibility in the wet and the night cost them a race which they really should have won.