2008 LE MANS 24 HOURS

Dindo Capello summed up his triumph together with Tom Kristensen and Allan Mcnish at Le Mans in 2008 with the words “when the men beat the machines”. Audi’s

R10 TDI was no match for the Peugeot 908

HDI around the Circuit de la Sarthe, yet three ultra-determined drivers pulled off an against-the-odds victory that stands in the minds of many as the greatest ever in the long history of the French enduro.

Stephane Sarrazin whirled the pole-winning 908 around the 8.47-mile track more than five seconds faster than the best of the German cars. But Audi knew that its ageing R10, outgunned on the straights as it was, still had a chance. But that chance would only come if it rained: the R10 had been more than a match for its French rivals when the track was wet at the Le Mans Test Day two weeks previously.

Rain was forecast, which gave Kristensen, Mcnish and Capello both hope and a simple task: to stay in the hunt until the weather deteriorated. That’s exactly what they did courtesy of a herculean effort on the part of everyone involved.

“We were on the limit in every way to try to hang onto the Peugeots,” recalls Mcnish. “We drove every lap like a qualifying lap. We were going to the safety car map from the end of the Porsche Curves to try to stretch the fuel and make sure we went a lap longer than we should have done. I remember coming down the pitlane at the end of my first stint right on the limit of the fuel. It was the only way if we were going to hang on in there.

“We had to keep them under pressure, or rather somehow stay in the game – that’s the more appropriate term. We knew our car was competitive in the wet and theirs wasn’t.”

The rain came as predicted shortly after half-distance. The Audi was nearly a lap back at this point, yet an hour and a half later Kristensen was in the lead. On 18 hours, Capello put the car one lap up on the Peugeot shared by Jacques Villeneuve, Nicolas Minassian and Marc Gene. The Audi now had the edge as the cars changed back and forth from wet-weather tyres to intermediates as conditions changed.

Audi’s cause was aided by a cooling problem for Peugeot. Its radiators were being clogged by a mixture of soggy track debris that the team likened to paté. There looked no way back for the chasing 908.

Only the race wasn’t quite over. Kristensen was tagged into a spin by an LMP2 car at the Dunlop Chicane with two hours to go and then the rain returned in the final hour. Peugeot gambled, as it had to do, on leaving Minassian on slicks whereas Kristensen was given intermediates.

Kristensen brought the Audi home to the good by the better part of a full lap.

One of the biggest heists in sportscar racing history was complete.

“We smacked it,” says Kristensen.

“No one left anything on the table, the drivers, the team, the mechanics. We took risks all the time, because it was the only way we were going to beat Peugeot. On paper we should never have won it.”

“We smacked it. No one left anything on the table, the drivers, the team, the mechanics”