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TEAM QUAIL AT
The History -
2005-2009
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2005
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The 2005 Aston Martin DBR9 |
Aston
Martin returned to
In
qualifying the Pescarolos took the front row 2 seconds ahead of the leading
Audi, and Aston Martin qualified in 17th overall (best in class) some 4 seconds
faster than the Corvettes.
In
both P1 and GT1 classes the race turned out to be a tortoise and hare contest.
They were both very close until the last hours, but the pace of the leading
cars was undone by the grater reliability of the chasers, who spent less time
in the pits. In the case of Aston Martin this was not helped by two stop-go
penalties on Daran Turner for crossing the white line trackside.
From the start the No. 16 Pescarolo
Judd driven by Emmanuel Collard, Jean-Christophe Boullion and Erik Comas, and
the No. 17 Pescarolo Judd team of Sebastien Loeb, Eric Helary and Soheil Ayari
were able to run a race pace that was five seconds or more quicker than anyone
else, stretching out a lead of over a minute in the first hour. They were
chased hard by the trio of Audi R8 cars - No. 2 Champion Audi of Tom
Kristensen, JJ Lehto, and Marco Werner, the sister No. 3 Champion Audi, driven
by Emanuele Pirro, Allan McNish and Frank Biela, and the No. 4 Audi Playstation
Team Oreca Audi crew of Frank Montagny, Jean-Marc Gounon and Stephane Ortelli.
But after that, it started to go wrong. One car got hit by a slower runner,
which turned in to a corner without realised the prototype was going down the
inside; the other hit gearbox problems. Even then, their extra pace would have
been enough to get them back on top, given a clear run to the flag. After a few
other problems the race ended for the No.17 when Ayari went hard into the wall
at the Playstation Chicane late on Sunday morning. The No.16 car made it to the
finish, two laps down in second place, but it was plagued by overheating
problems and was simply unable to sustain its earlier breathtaking pace.
So the No.3 Audi, took the chequered
flag at 4pm on Sunday afternoon – and, in doing so, Tom Kristensen became the
most successful driver in
The final place on the podium went
to the No. 2 Champion Audi, six laps behind the winner. The weather undoubtably
played into the hands of the Audi crews; the race took place in unremittingly
hot conditions, with daily high temperatures around 35 Celsius, which almost
certainly contributed to the overheating problems encountered by the Pescarolo
car.
In
the LMP2, of the thirteen cars which started, only five made it to the finish,
and every single one had significant problems. The class win was finally
claimed by the No. 25 RML Lola MG squad of Thomas Erdos, Mike Newton and Warren
Hughes; they lost almost half an hour in the very first hour of the race with
gearbox problems, and another 20 minutes in the early hours with an electrical
problem, but they still managed to make it to the finish five laps clear of
Claude Yves Gosselin, Karim Ojjeh and Adam James Sharpe in the No. 36 Belmondo
Courage Ford. The sister No. 37 Belmondo Courage Ford, driven by Paul Belmondo,
Didier Andre and Rick Sutherland limped home in third, a further six laps down.
The
LM GT1 clas was dominated by four cars; the two Aston Martin DBR9 cars – No.58,
driven by Thomas Enge, Peter Kox and Pedro Lamy, and the No.59 squad of David
Brabham, Darren Turner and Stephane Sarrazin, and the two Chevy Corvette C6.R
cars, the No.63 crew of Ron Fellows, Johnny O’Connell and Max Papis, and the
sister No.64 squad of Oliver Gavin, Olivier Beretta and Jan Magnussen.
Again
the tortoise and hare simile is appropriate, with the Aston seemingly capable
of leaving the Corvette by several seconds a lap. In addition the Aston Martin
teams were able to run their tyres for two stints, where the Corvette needed a
tyre change at every stop. But again, the huge endurance experience of the
Corvette team, especially in running in such hot conditions, paid dividends.
They were able to get close enough to the Aston pace to keep them honest –
helped by a number of punctures and stop-and-go penalties suffered by the Aston
Martin pair.
In
the final hours of the race, it all went wrong for the Prodrive-run Aston
Martin team. The No.58 car came to a halt out in the Porsche Curves, apparently
left stranded by a fuel feed problem; at almost exactly the same time the No.59
car was wheeled into the pit garage to have the main radiator changed. The
double-whammy handed the class one-two to the Corvette pair, with Magnussen
bringing the No.64 home two laps ahead of O’Connell in the No.63. Stephane
Sarrazin had the consolation prize of taking third for Aston Martin, sixteen
laps down on the leading Corvette.
In
LM GT2 Porsche again dominated. Fourteen cars started the race, eight cars
finished; eight Porsche took the start, and seven finished. In a fight that
went right down to the wire, the No. 71 Alex Job Porsche 911 GT3 RSR claimed
the win at their second attempt; driving duties went to Lea Hindery, Mike
Rockenfeller and Marc Lieb. They came home only a lap ahead of Jorg
Bergmeister, Patrick Long and Timo Bernhard in the No. 90 White Lightning
Racing Porsche 911 GT3 RSR; the No. 80 Flying Lizard Porsche 911 GT3 RSR crew
of Johannes van Overbeek, Lonnie Pechnik and Seth Nieman couldn’t live with the
pace of the leading two crews, coming in ten laps off the class winner.
The
British No. 95 Racesport Peninsula TVR Tuscan 400 R squad of John Hartshorne,
Richard Stanton and Piers Johnson, also finished just over 80 laps behind the
Alex Job car. Still, they had outlasted the better-fancied Ferrari, Spyker and
Panoz entries.
2006
The
headlines comming into the race was all about Audi's new revolutionary
turbo-diesel prototype the R10 TDI and its attempt to win with the first
purpose-designed turbo diesel engine. Yet at the practice weekend the
Pescarolos were a second a lap quicker. However in qualifying the Audis took
the front row, with Rinaldo Capello achieving 3min 30.466 sec. This could be
the last chance fpr the Pescarolos, with Peuegot due to intoduce a new diesel
next year, and their need to build a new car to meet new regulations and still
without a sponser. The race started an hour later than traditional due to the
FIFA World Cup. The circiut hd also changed with the addition of a new chicane
near the entrance to the Dunlop curves, and by the pit exit.
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The Audi's blaze away from the start, but soon the No.7 McNish/Capello/Kristensen car had fuel feed problems which cost them 20 minutes or about 6 laps on the 2nd placed Pescarolo. During the night they clawed this back to 3 laps when at about 8am they had to change the turbo-charger after an accident with an Aston Martin, losing another 20 minutes. These, and a further stop to inspect the bodywork ended Tom kristensen’s attempt at a seventh successive win. By 8.30am the No.8 Audi of Biela/Pirro/Werner was cruising 3 laps ahead of the leading Pescarolo and 13 of the second Audi, despite having a gear box change in the 11th hour. They were never headed again. |
The
Audi thus became the first diesel to win
In the GT1 class 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
In LMP2, 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, the first non-Porsche winner of the class. 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 misfortune in
the last hour of the race and what seemed certain victory was denied them by a
technical problem. In third place, in the model's
2007
This
year Le Mans welcomed back Peugeot in the 908HDI turbo-diesel to challenge the
might of the Audi R10 diesel, and one of them started on pole: albeit because they
set a time in a rare dry window in an early qualifying session, and then the
latter sessions were run in the rain. The team was headed by ex Formula 1 world
champion Jacques Villeneuve. Before the weekend even got under way the Arena
Zytek was withdrawn due to damage sustained in a crash on the test weekend. The
good news was that Tom Kristensen had recovered from serious whiplash injuries
sustained earlier in the year to claim a drive for Audi.
At
the start the Peugeot of Sebastien Bourdais lost the lead to Audi by spinning
at the second corner as the rain started along with the race and caught out the
field on slick tyres. The safety car was deployed three times early on as the
rain and sun alternated, making tyre choice a difficult process. An early
casualty was Mike Rockenfeller in the #3 Audi who crashed into the barriers at
the start of the Mulsanne straight causing significant damage to both the car
and the armco.
As
the race developed into the evening and night the weather stayed dry and the
two remaining Audis stretched their lead by up to 10 seconds a lap. Allan
McNish in the leading #3 Audi set a lap-time of three minutes 27.204 seconds.
Then, after 16½ hours unbelievably a wheel fell off #3 Audi whilst Rinaldo
Capello was driving at
With
2 hours to go the rain returned, and ½ hour later a Peugeot retired. Several
cars appear to have “parked” their cars in the garages to protect their
position, to reappear at the finish, With 50 minutes to go the safety car came
out again and the race finished in the pouring rain.
Thus
the #1 Audi of Biela, Pirro and Werner cruised to a win over the Peugeot of
Minassian, Gene and Villeneuve with Pescarolos third and fourth. In the LMP2
class the Binnie Lola-Zytec finished ahead of the Barazi Epsilon Zytec, the
only two finishers. In GT1 Aston martin took first and third with Corvette in
second. In the GT2 class Porsche won ahead of Ferrari.
2008
In 2006
the question was could a diesel engine win
Having won
the three Le Mans Series races in 2008 and setting the fastest times on the
practice weekend, it was expected that Peugeot
would run Audi very close or possibly win. The Peugeot certainly seemed to be
the quicker, but could the team keep the car out of the pits for long enough?
The race turned out to be a classic with close
racing in every class. The Peugeots set a blistering pace which the Audis could
not match. However reliability problems hit the Peugeots including over-heating
overnight. Then just before dawn the rain came and the Audis, which were
quicker in the wet caught up. The rest of the race was run in showers, making
tyre choice critical. A fantastic cat and mouse race developed.
Eventually Audi won their 8th victory in 9 attempts,
this time thanks to the trio Kristensen-McNish-Capello. Tom Kristensen also
achieved his 8th personal victory establishing a new record. The winning margin
was 4.5 minutes. Peugeot completed the podium o second and third place. In the petrol engine ‘class’, the
Pescarolo Sport was the quickest, just as they were in 2007. But in 2008 they
did not appear on the podium because all six diesel cars that started the race
occupied the top 6 places. LM P2 was won by the Porsche Spyders who came first
and second on their first visit to the
2008 saw the first use of
bio-diesel. Franky
Cheng Cong became the first Chinese driver and Bob Berridge and Amanda Stretton the first husband and
wife team.
2009
2009 was again billed as a showdown between Audi and Peugeot. Audi had a
brand new R15 car which although a winner at Sebring seemed under raced. This
was seen by some as Peugeot’s last chance to win. The preparations were fierce
with Peugeot objecting to Audi’s aerodynamics package and even the position
they took as the passed the green flag, after Stephane Sarrazin’s Peugeot took
pole from Allan McNish’s Audi.
This time, the Peugeot 908s did not fail; maintaining a very high pace
putting two of their three works cars in the top two places. The Marc Gene,
David Braham & Alexander Wurz crew won the 2009 24 Hours of Le Mans in the
#9 Peugeot 908, one lap ahead of the #8 Peugeot 908 driven by Sébastien
Bourdais, Franck Montagny & Stéphane Sarrazin. The race was very intense
throughout, with the Safety Car coming out for 2 hours and 42 minutes
altogether. Despite #7 Peugeot colliding with a Pescarolo in an early pit stop, Audi quickly lost two of
their three works cars to an accident and mechanical problems. The Pescarolo entry had a spectacular
crash overnight which resulted in a 45 minute safety car stint.
The #1 car was one lap behind most of the
time, with Allan McNish, Rinaldo Capello and Tom Kristensen having to put up
with many mechanical problems which prevented last year's winners from taking
the lead and beating the Peugeots. The #1 Audi R15 TDI finished third overall,
six laps down, just ahead of the #007 Lola Aston Martin of the AMR Eastern
Europe which won the unofficial ‘petrol’ class.
The Fastest Lap was set by Nicolas
Minassian on lap 259 in a time of 3:24.352.
LMP2
was won by the #31 Porsche RS spyder of Casper Elgaard, Emmanuel Collard and
Kristian Paulsen. 2nd was the #33 Speedy Racing Sebah Lola Judd Coupé
(Kane/Leuenberger/Pompidou) and the #24 Oak Racing Pescarolo Mazda
(Nicolet/Hein/Yvon) completed the podium in 3rd.
LM GT1 was won by the #63 Corvette C6.R of Johnny O'Connell, Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia. Second was #73 Luc Alphand Aventures private Corvette (Jousse/Maassen/Clairay) and in 3rd place finished the #66 Jetalliance Racing Aston Martin DBR9 driven by Lichtner-Hoyer, Muller and Gruber, but half of the depleted LM GT1 field retired
LM
GT2 was won by the #82 Risi Competizione Ferrari F430 GT of Jaime Salo, Pierre
Kaffer and Mika Salo for the second year in a row. #97 BMS Scuderia Ferrari and
#83 another Risi Competizione Ferrari, finished 2nd and 3rd. For the first time
in 10 attempts at Le Mans the Spyker Squadron from Holland recorded a finish in
6th place in LM GT2.
Porsche
saved their weekend with the Danish victory of the #31 Team Essex Porsche RS
Spyder in LM P2 driven by Elgaard/Collard/Poulsen, 2nd was the #33 Speedy
Racing Sebah Lola Judd Coupé (Kane/Leuenberger/Pompidou) and the #24 Oak Racing
Pescarolo Mazda (Nicolet/Hein/Yvon) completed the podium in 3rd. Porsche who
did not have a finisher in the first 6 places.
There
were 32 classified finishers.
Notable
entrants were Leo Mansell (son of Nigel ex F1 world champion) and Paul
Rudd Drayson, Baron Drayson
PC, Ph.D who took leave from the British
Government to compete at Le Mans. He was Minister for Defence Equipment and
Support. He was also jointly a Minister at the Department for Business,
Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR.) as Minister of State (Science and Innovation).
He drove in his #87 Drayson Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT2. Patrick Dempsey the American actor
from Grey's Anatomy finshed 30th
in a Ferrari 430 GT.
At 17 Nigel Moore became the youngest Briton to race at Le Mans.
David Braham’s win completed a notable treble as both his father and
brother have also won at Le Mans.
The 13 year gap between Alex Wurz’s two Le Mans wins is the largest gap.
Legend
Tom Kristensen announced that this would be his last race.
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