EXCLUSIVE: TOM KRISTENSEN
The iconic Mr Le Mans tackles the MN readers’ questions
Picture an Audi at Le Mans, and the driver most likely to feature in that image is Dane Tom Kristensen. The record-holder in terms of outright victories in the French classic has a place in motorsport’s most famous race’s history books that can never be taken away.
As Kristensen himself points out, his success at Le Mans probably typecast him as a sportscar man, but it hadn’t always been that way. A promising junior single-seater career helped him to claim F3 titles and he progressed to the cusp of Formula 1 and took part in several grand prix test programmes.
But the top table never beckoned, and his adventures in sportscar racing, and most notably with Audi and Le Mans, cemented his place in the record books forever. Winning the twice-aroundthe-clock race at Le Mans once is hard enough. Doing it nine times is remarkable.
There was not only success in sportscar racing, but he was a winner in tin-tops all over the globe including a stint in the DTM and the British Touring
Car Championship.
Kristensen has recently had time to look back as he has co-authored a book detailing his racing career and his achievements. We caught him in reflective mood.
Question: How did the motorsport passion get fired in you? Where did it come from?
John Charles
Via email
Tom Kristensen: “I watched my dad, Carl-Erik, race when I grew up. They were working on his touring cars and later his rallycross cars at the workshop and I was taken to the circuits when
I was wearing nappies. My mum was floating around with me in the buggy.
“I was extremely proud of my dad, he was a very aggressive driver and he was very fast, so that powered my adrenalin in that direction. He didn’t have good material, they were working on it themselves and he didn’t have a lot of budget so he retired many times, but it was this atmosphere of what happened at the workshop, travelling to the tracks and then enjoying these lovely sounds.
“I remember for one race he had a BDA engine, and that sound sort of implanted in me when I was young. During these races I found fascination for karting. A few of the asphalt races we went to there was karting and that’s where I realised I found my foundation from when I was eight or nine years old.”
Question: Describe the emotions you feel when you’re behind the wheel and racing. What attracts you to racing – is it something you couldn’t live without? Lou Davis
Via Instagram
TK: “Now I’m retired, but when I was
racing that was the best feeling. That already started from when you have these expectations when you enter the paddock, giving fist pumps with your team who have been there since hours before, then when you get in the car, that’s the ultimate.
“All the preparation and you are there to put it on the spot, you are there to nail it and looking for the zone, all your reflexes everything is about trying to extract the most from late braking, brake transition, the whole thing when you’re trying to maintaining the apex with the highest possible speed and trying to release the brake as you’re coming onto the power trying to make the transition the best possible without more slide than you need to get around the corner. I think that’s a unique feeling. There’s even the smell, the g-forces, the temperature. In racing you always have to look a little further forward than you do sitting still in an office. There is no better feeling.”
Question: What are your thoughts on the future of the top-flight of sportscar racing with Le Mans
Hypercar and the LMDh regulations? Joe Bramble
Via Twitter
TK: “I’m very excited. There has always been times around sportscar racing where there has [been] a little bit of a [new] dawn. After we heard that Audi retired and Porsche retired from top-flight, it’s great to see that all the manufacturers are all coming back again, and what a united feeling of having the IMSA and the FIA WEC to make sure that with the LMDh both in America and of course at Le Mans.
“This is a very nice carrot for the worldwide manufacturers as well as that they are gearing up to 2023 where Le Mans has its 100 years anniversary. I’m really excited, on behalf of the boardroom of many car manufacturers who have seen this is the right way. I’m happy that the organisations that have been able to get together for the good of the sport and I’m incredibly excited for all the drivers of this generation for the opportunities that they will get.”
Question: Which of your Le Mans wins do you remember the best, and why?
John Richards
Via email
TK: “That’s a very difficult question.
I did 18 starts at Le Mans, I had 16 or 17 team-mates, because Marc Gene came in for the very last race substituting for Loic Duval who had this big impact in a crash just before my last race in 2014.
“The first race, exactly the word ‘impact’is the right one. [It had an impact on] me as a person, as a driver, joining Michele Alboreto and Stefan Johansson at the very first race with Team Joest, signed days before the event. Particularly [important was] the way Michele embraced me, gave me a lot of confidence, never asked me to do anything but always just answered my questions and meant I was immediately feeling level-headed with these two superstars.
“So, in that way, the first one was very important, and to have learned the circuit by doing it, not by looking at any data or anything, I’ve seen a few videos but not really onboards, walking the track and then getting just 17 timed laps before the race started, I wasn’t necessarily flying in the opening stints but later and the second time I was in the car it was in the middle of the night, and when the dusk arrived, I was putting lap times in that were good enough for fastest lap at that time. I even put a few lap records in which were still standing after the race. That’s something I would recall as the most important [over] the rest.
“But for sure, the 19 hours in the rain in 2001 [was memorable]. We had lost Michele shortly before the race, that’s very strong. In 2008, everyone in the team did a superb job, took all the risks they could in terms of strategy, tyre pressures, engine settings, fuel mileage, how we drove and with the rain that arrived a few times in the race, but the way we managed to conquer the Peugeot which was miles ahead of us on lap times, this was a race for the best team spirit I have ever experienced.
“The last victory was in 2013 and that was mentally the toughest one. I had lost my father a few months earlier, around the Sebring race, we didn’t win that and I made sure I really wanted to win at Le Mans and Loic and Allan McNish were with me on that. Then we lost Allan Simonsen shortly into the race, everyone got that information and me being a
Dane in a way that gave me a lot of responsibility and it was a nice way we could give this victory to him.
“It was a very hard one, a very sad one but nevertheless it became a very important one that we had to nail that one and that put a lot of strain on everyone that was there to experience the race.”
Question: If you could choose, would you go for a closed-cockpit or opencockpit LMP car and why?
David Wilby
Via email
TK: “Open cockpit. I like that you can feel, which there is a lot of in sportscar racing, a lot of buffeting, turbulent air as you’re constantly in a fight with other cars and you always have to overtake the slower cars and that gives you a little bit more respect of that the car is sometimes twitchy when you get into this turmoil of air. Plus it’s fresher outside.
“I am quite at ease with my career when I reflect” Tom Kristensen
“This is a selfish point of view as a driver, but if you speak with engineers you pretty quickly go for a closed cockpit because it’s aerodynamically better and it is what you need at Le Mans. In a closed cockpit you have the windscreen quite far away from yourself and it’s very round, so when it gets dirty the reflection on it is very challenging, the temperature inside a closed cockpit is extremely high, and if there’s a problem and you need to get into the electronics of the car it’s not very accessible compared to an open. Those are some of the pros and cons, but from the selfish driver point of view, open cockpit.”
Question: You are often described as one of the best drivers never to make it to Formula 1. How do you feel when you hear that?
James Hilton
Via email
TK: “I would say it’s quite an accolade. I definitely took notice and it made me happy when I saw it. It was one of the magazines initially that called me that, then I also think Formula 1 did [a list] last year.
“I think in a way I’m very happy for this accolade but on the other hand I can say that it didn’t happen. But, if it had happened then my Le Mans and sportscar career suddenly wouldn’t have been as good so I’m quite at ease with it in that sense but, of course, I’m flattered and I enjoyed my time trying to break through to Formula 1, but it never materialised.
“The timing was never right and of course I had never had any backing from Denmark in those days, which nowadays it seems possible. People are now more educated in our little country about motorsport than they were when I was trying to break through. Now and it’s very good to see the young drivers going forward and coming up that they will have good opportunities.”
Question: Several of your former DTM team-mates later switched to rallycross. As you own a kart circuit next to a rallycross track in Denmark, have you ever been tempted to try the discipline? James Grey
Via Twitter
TK: “Yes. I’ve done some Race of Champions which is sometimes rally cars, rallycross cars, circuit cars, so I like this versatility. Mattias Ekstrom asked me once to try, but I couldn’t go and unfortunately it didn’t happen again. I’ve been interested but it never materialised. But I love rallycross as I was seeing my dad doing it many, many years ago.”
Question: If you could pick two drivers to share a car with you at Le Mans, who would you choose?
Damien Doherty
Via email
TK: “The team-mates I had were brilliant, and the mixture of that has been incredibly good for my career. A few victories got away, but I would say any of these drivers would be in.
“If I had to think out of the box I would have like to have added a few. I tried to be a Bentley Boy in 2003 so maybe it would be Woolf Barnato from the original
Bentley band of boys in the 1920s. He was an incredible character and driver, and I had actually the chance to sit beside his daughter – she unfortunately passed away in 2008 – in 2003 at the Savoy hotel. Woolf’s daughter who was a pilot in the British army, the first woman to fly through the sound barrier so the blood was still running fast in the family.
“I would put him and if we can make a four then we put Derek Bell and Jacky Ickx as well because these were people I listened to, looked up to and were fascinated about with the way they went about their sportscar career as well.”
Question: What was the one Audi you would most liked to have competed in but didn’t?
Richard Davies
Via email
TK: “I would have been a good fit to drive the IMSA GTO in the US. I drove that car, due to my Audi exploits, a few times and I think that would have been something going around in the States which was done by Walter Rohrl, and Hans-Joachim Stuck and Hurley Haywood driving the IMSA GTO, so I would maybe pick that one in the first instance.”
Question: What do you think of Audi’s Dakar project? Would you be interested in competing on that event?
Jason French
Via email
TK: “Initially when I first heard about it, it was just a few days before it was announced and I was surprised it was a very different turn, but as we have seen there have been other things that have changed around Audi Sport. It makes sense in many ways, but definitely surprised.
“My dad did Paris-Dakar, driving originally the very first time for the
British Toleman team where he drove the truck and he always spoke to me about it as a great event, a great challenge and adventure. It was a mixture of these things, that was something he said maybe we should do that someday. Unfortunately that didn’t materialise but yes, I would be happy to support Audi in this way going forward absolutely.”
Question: What do you remember of your season in the British Touring Car Championship in 2000, and how did it compare to the other tin-top championships you have contested? Emma Facey
Via email
TK: “I would say you tightened the wrench a little bit more, the air was a bit thinner. The circuits, as I just did one season, most of them were new to me. I knew some of them but not Donington Park, Knockhill, Oulton Park, Croft, Brands Hatch Indy but I knew the GP circuit, I knew the GP circuit at Silverstone but not the short circuit, so in many ways it was new to me.
“The championship was really cool. I definitely had to take notice, I mean at the very first race I happened to be close to Matt Neal and Jason Plato and you learn you race harder there than in the tin-tops I had done in Japan and in Germany.
It seems like you were able to get a little bit more away with that and, maybe on that side, I was a bit of a slow learner. But for sure I recall the best was the challenge of the very versatile and different circuits.
“I would say I was able to go quite well, and winning in Oulton Park was an amazing breakthrough but unfortunately that happened around halfway through the season. I was on pole at Brands Hatch but I got to turn three and Plato said ‘alright I turn left here at Surtees’and he shovelled me right. The last two races were the night races at Silverstone and I won the last two races of this era, and that was an amazing era of Super Touring.
“Ford was there putting and enormous budget in and all of the weapons in with three fantastic drivers in Alain Menu, Rickard Rydell and Anthony Reid, Vauxhall was Yvan Muller and Plato, Gabriele Tarquini, myself and James Thompson with Honda, Neal with
Nissan, it was a very tough championship I have to say.
“I’m proud at finishing on a high and winning the last two was really nice but
that was unfortunately the finish of Super Touring. If that had gone on until 2001 definitely we would have been there and I would have started the year better than in my debut and only season in BTCC. Great memories, also to have English breakfast on the Sundays before the race meeting, that’s a bit unusual but I even learned to chew the sausage in the end, so pretty good.”
Question: Which is your favourite United Kingdom circuit and why?
Derek Russell
Via Twitter
TK: “Oulton Park. Initially when
I drove it I thought ‘I’m going to get kicked here’, but in the end of working with my engineer, working on the lines, looking a bit at how [team-mate] James [Thompson] took some of the corners, I think we put it on pole and we won the race. That was something I truly enjoyed.
“Brands Hatch Indy circuit is fantastic, for touring cars these are very good. But I also like at Knockhill, the mental strain of constantly having to put the car exactly right and my dice with Rydell at Knockhill was something fantastic because he is a driver I go back a long time with in Japan. We go hard but fair and that was really something. If you go the other side, one I didn’t click with was Thruxton, I was not able to be on the podium there, that just didn’t click for me.”
Question: You can take one car home from the Goodwood Revival to keep. Which one and why?
David Harbey
Via Twitter
TK: “Any of the ones I drove. They are all in their own right fantastic machines, optimised and polished and let’s say more or less original. It has been a great experience to be able to participate at Goodwood and that’s something certainly
I thank the Duke of Richmond and his family. The way of competition there and the camaraderie because when we are there it’s about the cars and the heritage of the sport and that’s something I truly enjoy. It could be an American car, an Italian car, a British car. Any of those will do.”
Question: Who are the best other drivers encountered at Goodwood?
Paul Lockfoot
Via email
TK: “There is a lot of very good drivers but the ones you respect more are when you can go drive competitively but with a little smile on your face at the same time, and there’s a lot of those there.
“Anyone invited to Goodwood as a professional driver has definitely achieved a big goal and every year the competition of competing there becomes more.
“To be invited I think is something that is already a great remark. One thing I would say, the second time I was there, you get to realise that you should not underestimate anything. I believe I was in the Lotus Cortina and I knew the car was pretty quick. I went out to do the qualifying and I’m on it, then I start to go well. I think I’m going well and then I see this car coming closer and it’s another Cortina. I look in the mirror and I see it’s a closed-face helmet, but I see the eyes and it’s obviously full of determination and wrinkles. I kept going and pushed myself to get even better.
“When we came into the collecting area I got out and I looked and I saw Richard Attwood take his helmet off and I had to say ‘Jesus Christ, you were on it, young man’. That’s what it’s about and that’s something which younger driver will experience when they come to Goodwood when they think somebody who should have been falling off the edge maybe a
long time ago in terms of performance, these guys don’t forget how it was when they got going and they got started.
Question: From your point of view, what is the best corner at Le Mans? Stella Wilde
Via Instagram
TK: “If you asked me 10 years ago I would probably say a different corner. The track has improved safety in some aspect, but that has created some sporting issues. But, in short, I would say one corner that’s the Esses, actually the combination of the Esses, that always needs the muscle memory to freeze when you go through there to make sure you don’t run out at either side and make sure in the compression you need to stick the car and when you can do that you can go incredibly fast though the Esses.”
Question: You’ve recently recalled your career in depth for your book, how much did you enjoy detailing your career? Mike Aston
Via email
TK: “The pictures were what I enjoyed most with the book, and the difficulties came most when all the pictures I had to take away, and then the fight a little bit with the author in saying he would like pictures to go with the story, whereas I like pictures which are either amazing or good or whatever. That was in a way nice detailing but also potential conflict a few times.”
Question: Have you ever been tempted to become a team manager at Le Mans? If not, why not?
Harry O’Dell
Via Twitter
TK: “The right opportunity has not been there. There has been interest, some dialogue, but I have been very happy after my [racing] career to have been with Audi in the roles I have been doing there, certainly when we were the big team and hopefully we will be a larger team again.
“Right now it’s pretty slim when you just look at Formula E. I also do a lot of things with the FIA as President of the Drivers’ Commission and it’s a great company of drivers who we are giving our advice into the FIA which I think over the years has been able to establish a better role in our sport, which we all know is a challenge in changeable times, due to sustainability, due to where the World car manufacturers politically are going. I still work also with some of the companies which I have been blessed with as being part of my career path, such as Rolex, Michelin, Shell at times. In general, there has not been time just to add onto some of the other things which could mean giving something up. Maybe the commenting of F1 and Le Mans, definitely would have to be given up for other roles.”
Question: How badly did your DTM crash at Hockenheim in 2007 affect you? Vincent Banks
Via email
TK: “That’s too well described in my new book, it was maybe a little painful just describing that. It hurt and it hurt a long time after in the aftermath of that crash. Maybe I regret staying flat [on the throttle, and going] around in a curve and maybe I should have nerfed Timo [Scheider] into the crash instead, but on instinct I tried to get out of it as I was squeezed by my team-mate.
“I regret that, but I don’t regret coming back because that was a focal point in me that my career should not finish with a crash, even though many people were giving me the shortcut out. It didn’t happen and I’m very happy for that. In hindsight I came back a little too early, but would I have done it again, yes. Le Mans was too good to leave out that year. That was when I made my comeback, but
I was a bit more dizzy and had a lot more headaches for the rest of the year. What was important though was at the next race at Hockenheim at the finale I was on pole, at that point it was good, I would not have been pole if I hadn’t come back doing other races. Then winning the season starter in 2008 at Hockenheim sort of put a little bit the nail in the coffin from the outside. That was nice.”
“I learned to race hard in the BTCC” Tom Kristensen