THE LOST LE MANS WIN CHANCE

Under different circumstances, Martin Tomczyk could have won the 2010 Le Mans 24 Hours. He had been lined up by Joest Racing for 2009 to join Audi’s LMP1 project with the unloved R15, and in February that year he took part in a shootout at Vallelunga in an R10.

“I did a whole day testing – they just wanted to see if I am capable to do whatever they want and what they expect at Le Mans,” recalls Tomczyk.

“I was quite quick because I knew the car – I did already some tests with the car and I could fulfil everything. In the evening I remember they came to me and said, ‘You are the guy we want to work with in Le Mans’. I was super-happy.”

But one week later,

Audi completed a U-turn. Joest was permitted to use Porsche factory drivers Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas, at Tomczyk’s expense:

“And suddenly I was out!”

The following year, Bernhard and Dumas won at Le Mans with Audi DTM regular Mike Rockenfeller, setting a new distance record that still stands.

Tomczyk’s belated

“I’M SURE IF WE DIDN’T RUN INTO A TECHNICAL ISSUE WE WOULD REALLY HAVE A CHANCE TO WIN”

Le Mans bow came in

2018 as part of BMW’S short-lived World Endurance Championship GTE Pro campaign with the bulky M8, a car he believed had good potential.

“It was a good car actually, it was just a little big!” he says. “It was built to perform at Le Mans. The pace at Le Mans in the first year was awesome, and I’m sure if we didn’t run into a technical issue with the suspension we would really have a chance to win.”

The 2018-19 WEC ‘superseason’ included two visits to Le Mans and, with the technical issues ironed out, Tomczyk was optimistic of success.

“But [BMW] said before Le Mans we will retire from WEC and not come back,” he says. “You know how it is – we had no chance at all, Bop-wise. They just drove away on the straight. I said, ‘Guys, we have a massive problem this year’. It could have been much more successful.”