AUDI BIDS FOR LE MANS GLORY WITH McNISH FLYING THE FLAG FOR BRITAIN

Audi competes in the legendary Le Mans 24 Hour sportscar race next weekend (17-18 June) with Britain’s Allan McNish gunning for victory in the annual French classic - arguably the greatest and most difficult motor race in the world.

McNish (30) spearheads a three-car Audi assault with the Berkshire-based Flying Scotsman aiming to earn Audi its maiden Le Mans win at its second attempt in what is only the German car manufacturer’s sixth ever sportscar race.

Dominant during the 1980s in world rallying with its famous permanent four-wheel-drive quattro transmission system, Audi has more recently enjoyed phenomenal success in the touring car category, winning over 200 races worldwide and almost 30 championship titles with cars featuring the quattro system that revolutionised motorsport.

But in 1999, soon after motorsport’s international governing body banned four-wheel-drive in the touring car category, Audi developed its first sports racing car. The Audi Sport Team Joest outfit achieved third and fourth places on its sportscar race debut in the Sebring 12 Hour race (March, 1999) and then creditably repeated this result at Le Mans last June in Audi’s second and final race that year.

McNish teams-up with fellow 1998 Le Mans winners, Frenchmen Stephane Ortelli and Laurent Aiello, the reigning British Touring Car Champion, in one of three identical 200mph "open-top" Audi R8 sportscars for the 68th running of the gruelling French marathon.

"I joined Audi in February and didn’t have to wait very long for success," remarked Allan. "Audi developed a new sportscar for this year, the R8, during the winter and in its first event we finished first and second in the Sebring 12 Hour race.

"I led much of that race but had to be content with second place at the chequered flag although the result immediately proved that I had done the right thing in joining Audi for this year’s Le Mans challenge, a race in which cars will accumulate more mileage in one day’s racing than a Formula One car clocks up in the entire 17-race Grand Prix season."

The Sebring 12 Hour race three months ago was the opening round of the American Le Mans Series, a 12-race championship consisting of three events outside North America but which, despite its name, does not include the actual Le Mans race itself.

Allan continued: "We’ve had two races since Sebring but used last year’s R8R in both. The race at Charlotte was close to the Le Mans test day while last month’s Silverstone event would have again disrupted preparations of the new Audi R8 for the Le Mans race week - Le Mans is the big one, the highlight of year and we did not want to have the possibility of anything jeopardising our plans."

McNish topped the time sheets (3min 36.628secs) around the 8.45-mile Le Mans circuit in the unofficial test (30 Apr) with the identical R8 of Frank Biela (D) / Emanuele Pirro (It) (3:37.219) second fastest just ahead of the third Audi Sport Team Joest R8 of Christian Abt (D) / Michele Alboreto (It) / Rinaldo Capello (It) earning the Four Rings marque an encouraging 1-2-3 clean sweep. Tom Kristensen (Den) joins the Biela/Pirro Audi for Le Mans.

"It was a good performance but basically only confirmed to us that the car was quick around Le Mans," continued McNish. "Without stating the obvious, the Le Mans race is a very long one and one which nowadays sees us racing flat-out for the entire 24 hours - it’s a day-long sprint from green light to chequered flag and there really is no chance for a driver to take it easy behind the wheel."

Audi’s R8 will reach speeds in access of 200mph along the infamous Mulsanne Straight - despite the inclusion in recent years of two chicanes to slow cars down - while the near 100mph right hand bend, Tertre Rouge, imposes 2.2 lateral g-force on its driver. The Audi R8 drivers will make almost 50 gear changes in a single "flying lap" which equates to around 18,000 for a predicted race distance. The Audi R8 features a six-speed sequential gearbox with gear selection made by small "paddles" positioned behind the small, horse-shoe shaped steering wheel.

Powered by a 3.6-litre, twin-turbocharged V8 engine developing over 600bhp, much of the rear-wheel-drive Audi R8 is built from weight-saving but ultra-strong carbon fibre and weighs just 900kg with McNish himself weighing in at a waif-like 58kg.

"Two days after last year’s race, Audi began designing this year’s model," confirmed Dumfries-born McNish. "Audi spent a lot of time in the wind tunnel to further reduce the drag coefficient while at the same time increase downforce. The centre of gravity has also been lowered compared to the 1999 R8R while the weight was also reduced."

An Audi "army" of almost 250 personnel, an amalgamation of people from Audi Sport in Ingolstadt (near Munich) and Joest Racing in Wald-Michelbach (near Frankfurt) including designers, engineers, technicians, catering staff and a press team - who produce a daily eight-page, full colour newspaper for those at the track - converge on Le Mans today (12 Jun).

Scrutineering, a technical inspection of the three Audi R8s, is tomorrow (13 Jun) prior to two, four-hour qualifying sessions on Wednesday and Thursday evenings for grid positions. The race begins at 3pm (1500hrs) BST on Saturday afternoon.

The Audis will stop for fuel every hour with each driver doing two, or even a three-hour "stint" at any one time during the 24 hours. McNish and his fellow drivers will also have three team doctors on-call who, during the race, will routinely give the drivers massages, prepare high energy drinks and monitor their food intake.

"I’ll invariably have a massage after each driving stint just as a preventative medicine really and I’ll tend to eat hot food, like soup and pasta," added McNish. "I don’t bother with a drinks bottle in the car itself while I’m driving but I’ll take in a lot of liquid when I’m out of the car. As for sleep, all of the drivers have their own ‘cabins’ in the paddock but you can’t really say you get to sleep during the race - it’s more a case of closing my eyes."