100 Le Mans Moments From The DSC Era (61

Nov 14, 2023

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5 June 2023, 1:29 PM

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 seventh 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

61. TK's post-race dedication to Allan Simonsen (2013)

The 2013 race was scarred by the death of Allan Simonsen and, despite his historic ninth overall win, Tom Kristensen was not in a celebratory mood post-race.

Visibly emotional in the post-race press conference TK paid tribute to his team, but was remembering two others, Simonsen, and his beloved father who he had lost just weeks beforehand:

"I’m very proud to drive for the best team in the world. We realised a dream today, but this weekend we lost somebody who shared the same dreams, somebody who was a nice, humble guy.

"This weekend I was driving with my father's determination. He was the most low-key person in the world and he died in March, so I said I’d win Le Mans with my boys this year. I’m proud to be teammates with these two and hope one day we can win another so I can dedicate it to my dad, because this one's for Allan Simonsen."

62. Pompidou's near miss (2005)

2005 saw a VERY near miss for Xavier Pompidou after his #91 T2M Competition Porsche suffered a wheel bearing failure at Indianapolis, pitching the car into a spin down the escape road at c.120mph!

Some way down the escape road the Porsche hit a tree! The car suffered catastrophic damage, Pompidou was beyond fortunate that the impact was on the passenger side of the car.

Suffice it to say that the tree was felled in time for the 2006 race!

63. Ordonez and Mardenbrough (2011 & 2013)

The COVID pandemic saw a burst of interest in sim racing, but Le Mans had been at the forefront of the boom in the popularity of Esports a decade earlier.

The Nissan GT Academy, marketed in conjunction with PlayStation saw a groundbreaking initiative to find gaming talent and offer an unbeatable opportunity to become a real-life pro driver.

The programme's star burned bright for the better part of a decade and true talents were found, and a number. of them made it all the way to Le Mans. The first global winner, Lucas Ordonez from Spain twice made it to the LMP2 class podium, second on his debut in 2011 and third two years later.

Arguably the biggest talent is still with us, Jann Mardenborough shared that 2013 3rd place with Ordonez and wowed the paddock with his speed in a Zytek LMP2 car. He went on to be a Nissan factory driver in Japan for more than half a decade and his story will be at the core of a Hollywood Movie released this summer: Gran Turismo.

64. RML's double win (2005 & 2006)

LMP2 in the immediate post-LMP675 era was, at times, a tough watch. Cars were unreliable, the pace was underwhelming, and interest was pretty low.

But there were a shining few that broke the mould and paved the way for the levels of excellence we take for granted now in the ‘junior’ prototype class.

One of the first was the RML/AD Group effort, funded by Mike Newton and facilitated by RML.

They showed repeatedly that the standard of preparation was the key and their efforts, with a succession of Lola-based machinery, would set the standard that others had to meet or better for half a decade, race wins, Championship wins and back-to-back Le Mans class victories in 2005 and 2006 were entirely justified when Mike Newton was the LMP2 Gentleman driver benchmark!

65. Corvette finishes fourth overall (2006)

The level at which the two big factory teams involved – Corvette Racing and Prodrive/ Aston Martin Racing – were operating in GTS and GT1 in the ‘noughties’ was pretty mind-blowing.

The cars made today's GT3 beasts look like mild-mannered superminis and the racing was fast and fierce.

More than anything though it was the fact that the best of the cars were scoring very significant overall placings at Le Mans, despite a top LMP1 class that numbered well into double figures.

2005 saw Corvette take the class win and fifth overall, a feat matched in 2007 by Aston Martin.

In 2006 though the #64 Corvette C6.R in the hands of Jan Magnussen, Olivier Beretta and (checks notes!) Oliver Gavin scored 4th overall! This with a best qualifying time 23 seconds off the overall pole time. What a car, and what a team!

66. The new LMP2s go FAST! (2017)

The new-for-2017 Gibson V8-powered LMP2s proved to be fast, very, very fast!

How fast? On their Le Mans debut pole position in the class went to the G-Drive Racing car of Alex Lynn, 3:25.352 his best time, faster than the pole position time overall at Le Mans in 2011 which went to a factory Audi!

By comparison with previous LMP2s, the 2016 pole time in class with the older cars went to the KCMG Oreca 05 with a 3:36.605 – over 10 seconds slower whilst the much vaunted Porsche RS Spyders, albeit without a Le mans-lo drag kit, never qualified faster than 3:32.362 almost 7 seconds slower!

In 2018 meanwhile, Paul-Loup Chatin took the LMP2 pole in 3:24.842 for IDEC Sport. Say what you like about ‘Formula Oreca’ but never imagine for a single moment that the 07 is anything other than a rocket ship!

67. Ayari blows it for Pescarolo (2005)

In 2005 it seemed that finally, the cards had fallen (or were stacked) in Pescarolo Sport's favour. The dominant Audis had been dealt aero and power adjustments that left them c.3 seconds off the pace in qualifying to the French teams’ pair of Courage C60H LMP1s.

The #17 got the better run in the early part of the race and looked set to dominate – that was until a pair of errors in traffic for Soheil Ayari saw the car damaged and into the pits, dropping back in the order, both incidents blamed by Henri Pescarolo on his own driver.

Somewhat ironically the first came in a clash with Patrick Bourdais in a GT2 Panoz, the father of Sebastien who until 2005 had been a Pescarolo driver at Le Mans for four years!

A second clash effectively saw the #17 out of contention and it would later retire. the sister #16 would come home in second after its own troubles – Pescarolo would never get as close again and Ayari was crossed off the Pescarolo family Christmas card list for evermore!

68. Capillaire confuses Toyota in pit lane (2017)

Amongst the most bizarre ‘happening’ in Le Mans history was the tale from 2017, a year that saw an astounding amount of LMP1 attrition. And the way in which the #7 Toyota retired takes some beating!

Algarve Pro Racing driver Vincent Capillaire takes at least some of the blame for the retirement of the then race-leading #7 Toyota TS050 in the tenth hour of the race.

Kamui Kobayashi in the #7 had pitted during a safety car period and stopped at the end of the pit lane, being held by the red light.

The TV pictures then show Capillaire – wearing his bright orange Algarve Pro overalls – running into view and showing a thumbs up, which prompted Kobayashi to start the car.

The process of starting the car coming out of its pit box, stopping at the end of the pit lane, starting the car again in response to Capillaire, stopping because of the red light and team on the radio telling him to stop and then starting again to finally leave, damaged the clutch terminally. The car then went on to retire after being unable to return to full racing speed after the safety car period. Kobayashi was unable to crawl back to the pit lane without the car in gear.

"Saturday night, during the race, I was waiting to get in, with my helmet on at my pit box," Capillaire wrote in the statement. "I wanted to show my encouragement to the leading car, stopped a few feet in front of my box."

"It was a spontaneous mark of encouragement, as it happens between drivers," he continued. "I got a fine from the stewards for this gesture and I admit it was inappropriate.

"I’m sorry."

Not as sorry as Toyota were Vincent!

69. Toyota retires from the lead (2014)

Kazuki Nakajima's dramas when leading Le Mans go further back than 2016 – two years earlier the Japanese star was leading comfortably in the #7 TS040, the car had taken the lead in Hour 4 and was still there 9 hours later.

But then drama, the car losing drive out of Arnage and stopping. Out of the race!

Later examination would find that an FIA-mandated fuel flow meter had failed and had subsequently led to a small fire in the wiring loom!

70. 23 starts in a row for Collard (2017)

Emmanuel Collard is a driver who has seen it all at Le Mans. The charismatic 52-year-old Frenchman began racing at La Sarthe in the mid-90s and went on an unbroken streak between 1995 and 2017, racking up 23 starts, two class wins and a further five podiums (three of which were in LMP1).

During his streak, he competed in a glittering array of cars across seven classes: LMP1, LMGTP, LMP900, LMP2, GT, GT1, GT2 and GTE Am. Perhaps even more impressively, during that stint, he competed with four major factory teams: Porsche, Toyota, Cadillac, and Corvette Racing, in addition to his five-year term at the forefront of Pescarolo Sport's heroic efforts.

There were so many highlights along the way, including his first class win in 2003 with Alex Job Racing in GT, his near miss, finishing second overall with Pescarolo in 2005, steering the Porsche RS Spyder to LMP2 victory in 2009 and finishing second in 2016 with AF Corse en route to an FIA WEC GTE AM title.

Unfortunately, that streak came to an end in 2018, but he has been back since, finishing third in GTE Am in 2020 with AF Corse, and fifth in LMP2 with Penske last year.

Collard isn't on the entry list year, which is a crying shame. But, he is still someone that deserves to be celebrated on the 100th anniversary of the race.

Tagged with: Graham Goodwin, Stephen Kilbey

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