Allan McNish warns Peugeot there will be no let-up from Audi whatsoever in the 2008 edition of the iconic Le Mans 24 Hours this weekend, as the Scottish ex-F1 ace bids to add to his 1998 laurels in the French round-the-clock classic.
by Russell Atkins
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Allan McNish has warned pre-race favourites Peugeot that Audi has 'a bit of a job to finish' in this weekend's Le Mans 24 Hours, after he and team-mates Tom Kristensen and Dindo Capello were cruelly robbed of victory in last year's event.
The trio were well on-course for success in the French round-the-clock classic in 2007, having consummately seen off the dual Peugeot challenge to establish a comfortable advantage by the early morning. And then disaster struck…
"At seven o'clock in the morning last year, when we had a three-and-a-half lap lead, I think there were a lot of people writing headlines already at that point saying things like 'Audi win', 'McNish wins again'," the Scot said, speaking exclusively to Crash.net Radio ahead of the 2008 edition of the race dubbed 'the hardest in the world. "It didn't come around, which was just a very good demonstration of how hard Le Mans is.
"I didn't appreciate what Le Mans was all about until I went there, and the first time I went there I stood at the end of the pit-lane and watched all the cars going out for Wednesday night practice. I was really taken aback by the old grandstands in front, the power of all the cars going past, the history of it and, funnily enough, the Le Mans film which came flooding back a little bit. Then I understood a bit.
"When I won a year later and stood on the top step of the podium, that's when I realised what it meant in motorsport, and now I think it's also one of the most competitive times for it. It's coming back into its heyday.
"It's been ten years [since McNish won at La Sarthe], and every year since then when I've raced there - because I was in Formula 1 for a few years, so I missed a couple - I've always been with a car that's been at the front and I've always led. Every time we've gone out of the race it's been obviously very frustrating and annoying, especially last year, because last year we did everything perfectly.
"We drove what I think was a fantastic race, the strategy from the team was very good, the pit-stops were excellent and then when the wheel nut came off when we were three-and-a-half laps in the lead - on sheer pace, I have to say, because the car that was second didn't have any technical troubles - it was a very, very real reminder of how hard it is to win Le Mans.
"When you win it at your second attempt - or your first attempt as some have done, like Alex Wurz, for example - then you think it's reasonably easy because it has gone reasonably easily for you that time, but then over the course of years afterwards it reminds you that 'bloody hell, this is some race', and it is a hard one. More often things go wrong than go right, but you've got to pick yourself up, dust yourself down and keep on fighting, and to some extent that's Le Mans. Whether it be through the race itself or before or whatever, things will happen and you've just got to keep your head down and keep on fighting away."
Keeping his head down and fighting away is something that McNish can always be counted upon to do, and in company with Tom Kristensen - nicknamed 'Mr Le Mans' for his seven successes at La Sarthe since 1997 - and five-time winner Emanuele Pirro, he is assuredly entering the 2008 edition in fine form.
Though Audi have not triumphed in either the Sebring 12 Hours or any of the first three Le Mans Series outings of the current campaign, the principal objective for the celebrated Ingolstadt marque has always been the fabled '24 Heures'. Indeed, the man from Dumfries even goes so far as to claim that it is arch-rivals Peugeot who are feeling the heat far more than Audi, suggesting that Marc Gené's spectacular accident on the pre-event test day - from which the Spaniard was extremely luck to emerge heavily shaken but largely unscathed - was in part symptomatic of the French manufacturer being pushed absolutely to the ragged edge.
"I would say that the thing that gives us confidence is that we are making moves forwards," the 38-year-old underlined. "We're making the car faster; we've reacted to the fact that Peugeot were quite a bit quicker at the beginning of the year. Also we've got under control I would have said the reliability problems that afflicted us - we had a brake disc failure at Sebring, which was unheard of.
"A lot of people were saying 'oh, this is going to be a problem for Audi, they're now under real pressure and they're cracking and failing and so on', but as we've seen in the LMS races, we've got those things sorted out, we're producing consistent, very, very fast performances and improving the car at the same time. Our pit-stops are excellent, and I think our strategy is very, very good, so all-in-all we are in I would say quite a secure position. If anything, the cracks are starting to appear at Peugeot. I'm not really sure why, but that seems to be the case right now.
"We knew what they were capable of last year at Le Mans - remember they were on pole, and their fastest lap at Le Mans last year was just three or four tenths slower than mine; it wasn't that much. Where they were down last year was that in race trim they were very inconsistent and couldn't keep the pace, whereas we could do it wet, dry, intermediates, day, night - didn't matter. They've learned from that and they've come back stronger.
"I don't think there's anything we saw at Sebring that was a surprise, though, except - and they did it again at Le Mans on the test day - I have to say I was surprised at how quickly they could put in a lap time. They did it within ten laps I think at Sebring, and then at Le Mans their first lap time was a 3m22.7s and their second was a 3m22.2s. That was pretty impressive, and you can't get away from it. I tip my hat a little bit to that - I didn't like it when I saw the times, but I tip my hat to it! That was really the thing that surprised us - not their ultimate pace and not some of the problems they had either, because they were some of the problems they'd had in 2007.
"They know very clearly that we don't give up; they know very clearly that we want to win; they know very clearly that if they have anything apart from a perfect race we'll be there. That's one of the best things I think about this year's Le Mans, that you've got two different circumstances, two - to some extent - slightly different strategies and also two big, mighty manufacturers with some excellent driving line-ups going head-to-head in one of the biggest races in the world. As I go into it now I'm starting to get shivers - I think this is great!"
Though he admitted the test day had been something of a non-entity due to the rain, McNish argued that the lack of running in early June could actually play in Audi's favour as 'we've got much more information on Le Mans and how to go about it all - especially in changeable and tricky conditions as we've seen this time - than probably anybody else on the grid'.
As to how he was feeling ahead of the race, he stated that it was a blend of 'nervous anticipation', underlined by a quiet confidence that whilst he may not be in the fastest car out there, he is in the one that's most likely to take the chequered flag first.
"Le Mans is such a unique race and such a big event on the world stage that you're always a little bit excited about going there," the former Toyota F1 ace summarised, "but I think with the pre-test being washed out nobody really knows who is capable of what. You got some sort of glimpse and a little bit of a sniff maybe of somebody's performance, but the reality is we don't know what the full picture is, and that creates a certain nervousness as well.
"In a way it actually heightens the senses just before you go into the race weekend, and I think there's a lot to be played out in the first couple of qualifying sessions; not for qualifying itself, but to see whether people can get a handle on how to set up the cars very quickly, because there's such limited time now on-track really before the race.
"We've got a very good driving line-up, we know each other very well, we know how to win big races - we've won big sportscar championships together and also on our own, and we've won Le Mans together and on our own - so from that point-of-view, the capability is there and the knowledge is there, but it's not an easy one to win. I know the desire is very, very clear, because after last year I think in our group - and I include our engineers and mechanics - we've all got a little bit of a job to finish."
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