100 Le Mans Moments From The DSC Era (81-90)
For 10 days in the build-up to the 2023 running of the Le Mans 24 Hours, DSC is reflecting on some of the best, worst and wacky moments from its time covering the event since the turn of the century.
Today is the ninth day of DSC’s 100 moments feature, the previous parts can be found below:
PART 1 – PART 2 – PART 3 – PART 4 – PART 5 – PART 6 – PART 7 – PART 8
81. Risi almost spoils Ford’s party (2016)
2016 saw the returning Blue Oval of Ford as a big pre-race headline and the radically styled GTs loaded no fewer than four bullets in their Le Mans gun for what proved to be a race o no little incident in a packed GTE Pro class.
Much of the action though came in the form of attrition with both factory Ferraris, and both factory Porsches out before Sunday morning.
The Aston Martins proved to be a little off the pace, the Corvettes somewhat more so and that left the Fords to cruise… Oh, no, hang on, let’s not forget Risi Competizione!
Indeed the #82 Ferrari battled the Ford hard throughout and led for significant periods against Fords that were significantly faster in a straight line in particular – After troubles too for several of the Fords it became a duel between the all-red Ferrari and the eventually race-winning Ford.
The Ferrari’s challenge refused to quit and there was some unpleasantness around malfunctioning position lights that seemed to draw just a little too much attention at Ford, and in Race Control, which could have removed an ultimately fair fight.
82. The ‘Dane Train’ wins (2014)
The 2014 race saw a very emotional GTE Am class win for the #95 ‘Dane Train’ Aston Martin of Kristian Poulsen, David Heinemeier Hansson and Nicki Thiim, the all-Danish trio coming home with a two-lap advantage over the second-placed Proton Porsche in a victory dedicated to Alan Simonsen who had driven for the squad the previous year and lost his life early in the race.
83. Sebastien Loeb flies in (2005)
Le Mans continues to hold interest from a range of talented Pro and AM racers with not a few from other racing disciplines.
One of the biggest stars to turn his attention to the race was Sebastien Loeb, the then dominant force in world rallying finding an offer from Henri Pescarolo to join his then high-flying effort irresistible.
His first appearance in 2005 presented some issues – As a Rookie he had to complete 10 laps at the Test Day, but was competing in Rally Turkey on the same weekend.
He won the rally, flew into the adjacent aerodrome and had enough time for the critical 10 laps – It would be a dnf that year but second place overall in 2007!
84. Tom Kristensen vs Jacques Villeneuve (2008)
In a race that featured a lot of running in the wet and with low temperatures, Audi’s experience came to the fore. Trailing the #7 Peugeot into the late evening, Tom Kristensen put on a masterclass of sustained pace, taking up to 8 seconds per lap out of Jacques Villeneuve and Nic Minassian, the Peugeot team resorting to a switch to their high downforce nose sections to try to restrict the damage.
The Dane would take the lead and pull away before handing his R10TDI to Allan McNish, the feisty Sco would then put a lap on the field to secure yet another Audi win and fend off the Peugeot threat for another year!
85. The first win for the DBR9 (2007)
After two years of fast running, hard battling and bad luck, Aston Martin finally took the GT1 class win in 2007, the fan favourite V12-powered DBR9 bringing the famous British marque its first win at the race in any class since their 1959 overall win.
Since then there have been wins in GT1 again, GTE Pro and GTE Am.
86. Shunts at the start in rain (2001)
After a race start in bright sunshine a sudden and sustained heavy shower on the section into Indianapolis and up to the Porsche Curves caught out the field on just the fourth lap.
The Gulf Audi had a trip through the gravel at Indianapolis, losing its nose section in the process, but within seconds there was a much more serious multi-car incident, that saw Toni Seiler’s Saleen and the Rowan Pilbeam out of the race on the spot, the luckless British LMP squad would never return.
Milka Duno’s LMP675 Reynard would get back to the pits but retire there and David Terrien would put in an hour of effort to get his shattered Viper back to the pits but again would retire – There was damage too for Jan Magnussen’s Panoz, the #58b Larbre Viper and spins for the #18 Pescarolo and the Champion Audi!
87. Panoz leads Klaus Graf LMP07 (2001)
With much of the field opting to change tyres, some of them twice, in the first hour after the heavy and unexpected shower and with damage for several cars too, the pit cycle would see some perhaps unlikely leaders in the first hour of the race, Jan Lammers led in his Dome Judd and so too did Klaus Graf in the Panoz 07 that had started just 21st on the grid!. The end of the hour would see the first spell at the front of Le Mans for a Bentley since the 1920s!
88. Davidson on Manu Collard Porsche Curves 2010
In what was a frenetic race for the Peugeots, and would end with all four suffering failures, the chase for glory saw Ant Davidson in the #1 908 Peugeot encounter Manu Collard’s class-leading #64 Corvette in the Porsche Curves, the prototype going for a pass on the outside, Collard losing control with the prototype positioned where the GT needed to be to make the next corner.
The C6.R would spin back into the barrier, the damage effectively ending its race with no little post-race unpleasantness around the incident, Davidson later reflecting that he could have made a better choice
89. Audi wins with last car standing, Part 1 (2007)
The 2007 race started with Audi’s R10 TDIs as hot favourites against the still very new Peugeots.
Early in the race though an error from Mike Rockenfeller at Tertre Rouge put out one car and deep into hour 17, Dindo Capello in the (comfortably) race-leading #2 Audi lost his left rear wheel at Indianapolis pitching the car off the road at high speed and into the barriers, the car out of the race soon afterwards, this after the car had been seen being dropped off the jacks at the previous stop before the left rear wheel had been fitted.
That left one bullet in the gun, but with the Peugeots struggling to survive the surviving Audi had plenty in hand to finish the race comfortably ahead of the best surviving Peugeot – The competition in future years from the French cars would get much more intense!
90. Almost All American! (2004 & 2005 )
The early part of the 21st Century at Le Mans saw a welcome influx of high-quality North American entrants thanks to the boom in the American Le Mans.
Many of the top teams went on to figure in key battles, on class podiums and indeed as class winners at Le Mans, 2004 saw three of the four classes (Corvette in GTS, White Lightning in GT and Intersport in LMP2) fall to US teams and in in 2005 again there was a near clean sweep with Champion Racing taking the overall win, Corvette winning in GT1 and Alex Job Racing and BAM combining for the GT2 win!
The advantages of a stable racing platform helping teams to develop over a full season were clear, and by then the Le Mans Series was doing likewise for European contenders too!
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