Allan McNish steered his diesel engined Audi home in to third place after a spirited recovery in the Le Mans 24 Hour race which ended today (13 June) as the German manufacturer scored a dominant 1-2-3 result.
German Timo Bernhard and Mike Rockenfeller plus Romain Dumas, of France, claimed Audi’s ninth Le Mans race win since its début in 1999 – their Audi R15 TDI setting a new distance record of 3,361-miles in the 78th running of the historic event in France.
“It’s an unbelievable result because we didn’t have the outright pace of Peugeot,” commented McNish. “But Audi had the efficiency and reliability plus the team, structure, drivers and engineers that knew from experience, how to win here.”
Audi’s fourth 1-2-3 victory at Le Mans after 2000, 2002 and 2004, completed at an average speed of 139.95mph, was a supreme combination of TDI turbo diesel efficiency and reliability but less than five hours in to the twice-around-the-clock marathon, the race had turned against former two-time race winner McNish.
The 40-year-old Scotsman, driving a latest specification Audi R15 TDI with Tom Kristensen and Dindo Capello – Audi’s previous Le Mans winners from two years ago – ultimately recovered to claim a “podium” position after losing three laps and dropping from being the highest-placed Audi in fourth to eighth.
McNish had started sixth on the 55-car grid and was up to fourth when after almost 4½hrs, co-driver Kristensen came across a slow-moving car which moved across in front of him.
Allan added: “Tom had to take avoiding action of a slow, wounded car that drifted across on him. TK ended up in the gravel having also lightly touched the guard rail. He was towed out of the trap and got the car back to the pits for repairs. In all we lost around three laps – the distance we finished behind our winning team-mates . . .”
The Bernhard (29/Germany)/Dumas (32/France)/Rockenfeller Audi finished one-lap ahead of the “sister” R15 TDI of Marcel Fässler (34/Switzerland)/André Lotterer (29/Germany)/Benoît Treluyer (23/France) with the McNish/Kristensen/Capello Audi third, a further two laps adrift.
“I’ve not been involved in a Le Mans like this one in my 10 previous starts here! It turned on its head two or three times. The result of our car was obviously dictated by Tom’s incident which was frustrating. But our fight back was intense and we can all be very proud – but that doesn’t mean to say that we can forget about the performance of our ‘French friends’ as we now must focus on the Intercontinental Cup which begins at Silverstone in September.”
Meanwhile Le Mans débutant Oliver Jarvis, from Cambridge, who shared his “customer” Audi R10 TDI with Christian Bakkerud (Den) and Christijan Albers (NED), started from the seventh row and lay a commendable seventh with three hours to run but a mechanical problem when seventh caused the car’s retirement in the closing stages.
