Thats right audi wins lemans AGAIN and this time with a diesel.
n the final hours of the 74th running of the 24 Heures du Mans, there were no more surprises - unless one counts the unlikely eventuality of the world’s premier endurance race being won by a diesel-engined sports car. Unlikely as it may seem - and it would have been deemed impossible until recently - diesel is not just economical, not merely practical, beyond unexpectedly torquey, it is now a type of engine with a Le Mans win to its name.
Even before the victory of the No.8 Audi Sport Team Joest R10, in the capable, mature hands of Frank Biela, Emanuele Pirro and Marco Werner, and the third place of its sister No.7 car driven by Dindo Capello, Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish, the car was changing the face of racing. Peugeot announced it will contest the great race next year with its own V12 diesel, with much the same specifications as Audi’s TDI.
But the Audi will always be the first diesel to win Le Mans, and it extends the Ingolstadt manufacturer’s record to six outright victories in the last seven years. It also demonstrates the incredible soundness and adaptability of the Audi R8 racing platform, from which were developed both the R10, and the Bentley Speed 8 which is the only other winner in the 21st Century. From all these perspectives, the 2006 24 Heures du Mans was historic.
History may not have been on the minds of the multitude of fans as they rushed onto the Grandstand Straight and towards the famous podium gantry to celebrate with all the race winners. Rather, the spectators, totalling 235,000 at the circuit this year and millions around the world, were honouring a simply superb race. Every year it is joked that Le Mans is not won in the first hours, but this year it seemed a genuine 24 Hour sprint as drivers could allow themselves no respite from the competition, lapping within seconds of their qualifying times throughout the race.
If history was on anyone’s mind it was perhaps Henri Pescarolo, his team, and their many fans. While he made it onto the podium, this is the second year in which the team has had overall victory within its grasp, only to be defeated by the might of Audi. Throughout the final hours of this race, the No.16 and No.17 Pescarolo Judds appeared to run ‘like clockwork’, coming in for scheduled pit stops, getting back on the track without incident, maintaining a speed which in other years might have secured victory.
Pescarolo Sport must once again be considering ‘what might have been’. As it was, the No.17 car of Eric Helary, Franck Montagny and Sebastien Loeb came second in the race, and the No.16 of Nicolas Minnasian, Emmanuel Collard and Erik Comas was fourth in the LM P1 class. Pescarolo’s quest for Le Mans laurels is legendary, and 2006 may have been his best chance yet. It seems inevitable that Pescarolo will return in 2007, and that he will again be a favourite.
Behind the LM P1 cars were GT1, where a titanic battle raged for the entire race. In the end a Corvette, the ‘works’ No.64 Corvette C6.R driven by Oliver Gavin, Olivier Beretta and Jan Magnussen, won its class again at Le Mans, suggesting that experience and preparation will out.
The circumstances might also suggest that racing is a fickle sport. Three hours from the end it seemed impossible that the No.009 Aston Martin Racing DBR9 would not hold off the No.64 C6.R as it had for so much of the race, superb drivers and technicians in both teams matching one another move for move, lap for lap. But with victory seemingly in sight the No.009 car fell victim to a clutch problem and was forced to settle for fourth in class. Ironically, the winning No.64 Corvette’s sister car, No.63, also suffered a clutch problem early on Sunday morning; at the time, the Aston Martin seemed invulnerable. Some consolation for Aston Martin came from the No.007 Aston Martin Racing DBR9 of Thomas Enge, Andrea Piccini and Darren Turner finishing second in class, ahead of the No.72 Luc Alphand Adventures C5-R of Luc Alphand, Patrice Gouselard and Jerome Policand.
In LM P2, where the attrition was particularly fierce, the No.25 RML Lola AER of Thomas Erdos, Mike Newton and Andy Wallace managed a solid win, having led the class for almost the entire race Behind it were the No.24 Binnie Motorsports Lola Zytek of William Binnie, Allen Timpany and Yojiro Terada, and the No.27 Miracle Motorsports Courage AER of John Macaluso, Andy Lally and Ian James.
GT2 saw three different marques on the podium. The winner was the No.81 Team LNT Panoz Esperante driven by the all-British team of Tom Kimber-Smith, Richard Dean, and Lawrence Tomlinson. Second place was won by the No.83 Seikel Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 RSR driven by Lars Erik Nielsen, Pierre Ehret, and Domink Farnbacher, which suffered such misfortune in the last hour of the race; what seemed certain victory was denied them by a technical problem. In third place, in the model’s Le Mans debut, was the No.87 Scuderia Ecossse Ferrari F430 GT in the hands of Chris Niarchos, Tim Mullen and British GT champion Andrew Kirkaldy.
