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| The most famous motor race ended on June 13th with BMW in front of Toyota. It was more a case of the hare and tortoise though! The strong Japanese team were painfully quicker than everybody else and they also boasted about reliability. Toyota were confident of a win and I bet they even foresaw a 1-2-3 for the GT-Ones. It was not to be though. Suspension failure prevented Brundle's car from finishing. Thierry Boutsen crashed his, and Katayama could not catch the BMW in the final laps. |
Photograph provided by BMW
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BMW had hired Gerhard Berger to oversee the operation. He, and his team looked on in trepidation as Katayama's Toyota GT-One reeled in Martini's leading BMW at a rate of 2 to 3 seconds a lap! This was looking to be the closest finish at Le Mans ever. Unfortunately for Katayama, he suffered a puncture as he tried to overtake a backmarker and had to pit in. He was lucky not to spin. However, it was too late to catch first place then and Toyota had to content themselves with a close second. No doubt they will be back next year!
Controversy raged throughout the weekend as the Mercedes team suffered serious setbacks - a car that wanted to fly for instance... That may sound funny but the drivers that experienced this problem were not laughing. The problem became apparent in qualifying as Mark Webber's CLR went airborne. He repeated the stunt in Saturday warm-up. Mercedes considered pulling out. In retrospect, they should have. Instead, the engineers added mini-aerofoils to the front of the car. These did not help however. A horrific crash finally persuaded Mercedes to pull out as, at 170mph during the race Peter Dumbreck's car took off, spun in the air three times and crash-landed in the trees near the track. It looked more like an airplane crash than a car. Luckily, Dumbreck was not seriously hurt. Motorsport head, Norbert Haug had no choice but to call their challenge off. |
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Audi ran well throughout the race with the new R8R. It proved to be super-reliable, if not lightning quick. This did, however, enable the Germans to finish third and fourth - very respectable positions at Le Mans. The remainder of the top ten included the usual tried and tested Courage sportscars. Nissan's effort amounted to nothing! The Nissan C52 finished eighth, behind the big, loud Panoz driven by Brabham. In tenth place was the Chrysler Viper GTS-R - the only GTS car amongst the leaders, and a fantastic result for the team. |
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BMW will no doubt be back next year to defend the trophy. Audi will want a win also, and I don't think that Toyota will just give up! Nissan should make it again, but one has to question whether Mercedes-Benz will be willing to go through more bad publicity. We will see.. |
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| 1 | Winkelhock-Martini-Dalmas | BMW V12 LMR |
| 2 | Katayama-Tsuchiya-Suzuki | Toyota GT-One |
| 3 | Pirro-Biela-Theys | Audi R8R |
| 4 | Alboreto-Capello-Aiello | Audi R8R |
| 5 | Soper-Auberlen-Bscher | BMW V12 LM98 |
| 6 | Montermini-Schiattarella-Caffi | Courage C52 |
| 7 | Brabham-Bernard-Leitzinger | Panoz LMP Spyder |
| 8 | Cottaz-Goossens-Ekblom | Nissan C52 |
| 9 | Pescarolo-Gay-Ferte | Courage C50 |
| 10 | Beretta-Wendlinger-Dupuy | Chrysler Viper GTS-R |
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S.O' Check out our feature article on the Bentley Hunaudieres, Bentley's latest concept car named after the famous high-speed straight at Le Mans. |
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