TOM KRISTENSEN
TOM KRISTENSEN HAS WON THE WORLD’S MOST PRESTIGIOUS ENDURANCE RACE A RECORD NINE TIMES, SO WHAT’S NEXT?
MOTORSPORT royalty doesn’t brook too much by way of argument. Motogp has Valentino Rossi, Formula 1 has Michael Schumacher, WRC has Sebastian Loeb. For the most prestigious single event in circuit racing, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, there’s Tom Kristensen. With a total of nine outright victories to his name, the Danish driver has three more wins than his nearest rival, Jacky Ickx, making him comfortably the most dominant driver in the event’s 95 year history.
Le Mans is a race which is renowned as one of the toughest on a driver’s mental ability, but the man who has won more than any other is dismissive when asked about the mental task of preparing for the assault on La Sarthe. Kristensen was called up to race just four days before his debut in 1997 – which he won alongside Michele Alboreto and Stefan Johansson.
“I didn’t really have a chance to prepare,” he says. “When you’re young, and the youngest in the team, it helps. You have different expectations.”
When Kristensen retired from racing at the end of 2014, he did it cold turkey. There were no wildcard entries, or a slow step away. One year he was winning races and competing full-time with the nickname ‘Le Man’, the next, he was done. While Audi had become a defacto family for Kristensen during his years as a factory driver, it was his own family, and an unexpected reminder of his mortality following the death of his countryman Allan Simonsen, that prompted the shock decision to retire. “It was a very difficult decision to make to hang up my helmet,” he explains. “I lost my parents in 2011 and 2013, while 2013 was my last [Le Mans] victory with Audi, and it was also a year that we lost a great talent in Allan.”
It was then that the seed was planted in Kristensen’s mind, but one last attempt at winning a 10th trophy laid ahead.
“We were leading until lunchtime on Sunday when we had to change the turbo, and we dropped to third, but recovered to second,” Kristensen recalls. “I had my very dirty hands on the trophy for a little bit, for some time I had the feeling of winning my 10th Le Mans. But it didn’t materialise, and in the moment I knew I was coming back in ’15 – I was determined.
“But over the break I realised I had tried. It’s not about winning alone, necessarily. That made me realise that perhaps it was my time to hang up the helmet. Also, I’m the oldest member of my family, I have my kids, and I realised in my mature age that it was time.”
Kristensen admits that his racing itch could be scratched by a return to motorsport, not as a racer but as a team principal, much like his Le Mans teammate Allan Mcnish, who heads Audi’s Formula E team. However, for now, he’s enjoying driving Audi’s hottest road cars at customer and media events.
“I have the privilege of doing a little bit of many things, and that, in a way, fits me better,” he says with a smile.
Drifting Audi R8s around some of the best racetracks in the world would be ample recompense for most of us. For Le Mans royalty, it’s merely life’s cool-down lap.
ATECHNOLOGICAL trick developed in Formula 1 allows the induction runners of Ferrari’s latest V12 engine to continuously change length. It’s simple but brilliantly effective.
Each of the 6.5-litre naturally aspirated V12’s cylinders has its own individual inlet trumpet just like pedigree race engines. The key difference, however, is that the cylindrical ports have sliding sections that extend and shorten like a telescope to adjust the length according to engine conditions.
At low rpm, the inlet is at maximum length to increase air turbulence which enhances fuel and air mixing and combustion efficiency. It also optimises a light supercharging effect which creates hotspots of dynamic pressure to force air into the cylinder. The effect requires precise inlet manifold tuning, which is why the tract is continuously variable.
At different engine speeds, including maximum rpm, the tract squats down to minimum length, reducing resistance and maximising cylinder filling. Interestingly, the length is not simply linear to engine speed and the tracts move to specific positions throughout the rev range. Put simply, it’s all about volumetric efficiency. High-revving atmo engines can struggle to match the beefy torque characteristics of turbocharged engines, but Ferrari’s clever system liberates 80 percent of the full 718Nm at just 3500rpm without sacrificing monstrous power at high revs. How does 588kw at 8500rpm sound?
As the name suggests, it should come as no great surprise that the 812 Superfast is the most powerful Ferrari range model to date.