Shownotes
It’s me, Mark Stone, and in this episode of the Backseat Driver Podcast, I sit down with John Brooks, author of Le Mans: The Official History 2000 to 2009, to explore one of the most influential decades in endurance racing.
John and I discuss the dominance of Audi during this era and the extraordinary achievements of Tom Kristensen, who secured a record-breaking seven victories at Le Mans. We also examine the introduction of diesel technology by Audi and the profound effect it had on the sport, setting new benchmarks for innovation and performance.
I delve into the unique atmosphere of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, from the intricate teamwork behind the scenes to the sense of tradition and spectacle that makes the race unlike any other. Together, we reflect on the challenges, triumphs, and lasting legacy of this iconic event, and why it continues to hold such a special place in motorsport history.
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Transcripts
Foreign.
Speaker B:Yes, it's me, Mike Stone, and this is the Backseat Driver podcast.
Speaker B:It's the fastest, it's the friendliest, and it's for all the family.
Speaker B:The Gas Shocks, 116 Trophy and 120 Coupe cup are the fastest growing race series in the UK, taking in six one hour races and eight sprints at all the top circuits.
Speaker B:Visit 116trog Trophy.com to find out more.
Speaker B:And get yourself behind the wheel.
Speaker B:I'd like to introduce to the backseat driver a man who is described by Tom Christiansen as a man, and I paraphrase here, with a passion and deep understanding of the sport that shines through in the pages of the book.
Speaker B:I have no doubt you will enjoy this book as much as I have enjoyed reliving these unforgettable years.
Speaker B: Le Mans the official history: Speaker B:John, welcome to the Backseat Driver.
Speaker A:Well, thank you.
Speaker A:That was rather an introduction.
Speaker A:I shall be.
Speaker A:And quaking in my boots.
Speaker B:Now, your latest vast and weighty tomb on the mall.
Speaker B: to: Speaker B:Each decade has been covered studiously by a variety of people.
Speaker B: How did you end up doing: Speaker B:Was it something you wanted to do or was it something somebody said?
Speaker B:Er, have a do at that?
Speaker A:Well, a bit of both really.
Speaker A:I mean, Quentin Sparing came up with the original concept and he did the first seven volumes.
Speaker A:Quentin was the editor of Autosport during one of its heydays for about 20 years.
Speaker A:And then he set up race car engineering.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:Regrettably roundabout.
Speaker A:The middle of the last decade, his wife was diagnosed with a nasty condition, shall we say.
Speaker A:Quentin, being the absolute gentleman that he is, decided that actually seven volumes was enough.
Speaker A:Two magazines.
Speaker A:And he then dedicated himself to looking after his poor wife.
Speaker A:And she had been a major factor in the development of race car engineering.
Speaker A:He then passed on the book to one of his proteges, who shall remain unnamed.
Speaker A:And five years later, he hadn't turned anything in.
Speaker A:And the publishing director at evro, the saintly Mark Hughes, finally decided that he would look elsewhere.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:In parallel, I had been doing writing for various websites in America, paid for stuff, writing old magazine articles, helping.
Speaker B:With just buffing in.
Speaker B:That's getting a rarity these days for somebody to actually put their hand in their pocket for you.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, that is very true.
Speaker A:Sometimes you needed to encourage them somewhat, but that's Another story for, you know, so I.
Speaker A:There was a book published by Evro or.
Speaker A:No, it wasn't Evro, it was another company but Mark was the chief editor and it was about 25 years of GT racing.
Speaker A:So it was Stefan Retell's story and I helped picture edit that and sub edit it in places.
Speaker A:But I was also encouraged because I'd been more or less from the start of Stefan's adventures and this may be 93 and 94, I was encouraged to do a couple of pages of my thoughts on GT Racing.
Speaker A:Mark Rather liked it and said he took a big chance and asked me to do it.
Speaker A:How can I say he was due 18 months to 2 years?
Speaker A:It took 4.
Speaker A:He asked for 90,000 words max, he got 172 which I then had to pare down 30 odd thousand words.
Speaker A:But he seems quite pleased with it and you know, if I get anywhere near as I get close to the achievements of Quentin, then I'll feel I've done a, you know, I've done my, my duty as such and yeah, I really enjoyed doing it.
Speaker B:Now, you've had a passion for Le Mans for decades.
Speaker B:I mean your era, little a fraction before mine, was the great Porsche 917S and you followed it for decades.
Speaker B:I mean, how did you develop your passion for it into a job?
Speaker A:Here's a question.
Speaker A:Well, it all started with the likes of Andrew Marriott, Michael Cotton and Dennis Jenkinson writing for a sort of spotty schoolboy back in the late 60s.
Speaker A:And then we had this amazing thing, as you said, the 917s and the 512s.
Speaker A:Indeed.
Speaker A:I actually saw 917's race at Brands Hatch in 71, but it wasn't a day that they would want to remember as both Golf cars were.
Speaker A:Well, one ran out of petrol, rather the fuel filter got clogged and the other one had a wheel that wouldn't come off.
Speaker A:So Alfa Romero ended up winning the race, but I followed that and then I went to Le Mans for the first time in 78 on a Paige and Moyes special.
Speaker B:I remember those adverts vividly.
Speaker A:The oldest train, the oldest ship, boat, ferry, Elvis bus.
Speaker A:It was not exactly traveling in style, but anyway, I met up with a couple of fellow enthusiasts and we did what many, many, many British fans did, which was get fairly well refreshed at the many bars that were there.
Speaker A:Following year I went back with a camera because the guy I was going to go with was getting married fairly soon and I don't think his bride to be entirely Approved.
Speaker A:I can't imagine why, but I'd like to tell you that I took great pictures from the start, but actually nothing came out because I didn't know how to load the film properly.
Speaker A:I know.
Speaker A:Pathetic.
Speaker A: old some of the pictures from: Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And at that point I started to get interested in photography per se, and I eventually figured a way of getting passes.
Speaker A:I think it was an Irish newspaper published over here because there were some Irish drivers in Formula 3.
Speaker A:So I followed Formula 3 seriously for 81, 82, 83, the latter being the sinner year.
Speaker A:I lived in a place called Charlton Village, down between Sunbury and Staines and next to a load of reservoirs.
Speaker A:And about the only other famous thing in the Charlton Village, or notorious thing, was a thing called West Surrey racing.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:And they ran Jonathan Palmer, Kiki Mansilla, Senna and many others afterwards.
Speaker A:But by then I'd kind of moved on.
Speaker A:And Dickie Bennett, who's still running West Surrey racing, God bless him, and winning in British touring cars, he lived five doors down from me and I had one of his mechanics living in my house.
Speaker A:One stage, I had Jonathan Palmer's press manager staying with me.
Speaker A:We all drank in a pub in Shefton called the King's Head, which is sadly no longer there.
Speaker A:And people from Formula One went in.
Speaker A:The Herbie Blash lived 50 yards up the road, so when he wasn't running around with Bernie, he would be in there quite a lot of others.
Speaker A:So there was a racing atmosphere.
Speaker A:And the next thing I went to in 82, I started going to the group C races which kicked off then and was there when Jackie IPS won the world title of Brands Hatch by five or six seconds.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Quite an amazing afternoon.
Speaker A:So I was kind of hooked on sports car racing.
Speaker A: and then went there up until: Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Now, from the sounds of it, I mean, your, shall we say, thoughts and train on motorsport are very similar to.
Speaker B:To mine.
Speaker B:Though I've watched F1, I'm afraid of late, I've rather fallen out of love with F1.
Speaker B:I mean, whilst the Belgium Grand Prix was running, I was watching the Tour de France that I considered to be a far better race and a far greater spectacle.
Speaker B:I think the thing about GT racing and sports car racing is the car is more of a star than its crew.
Speaker B:But the drivers seem to be of a different mindset because they have to work as a team.
Speaker B:There's more than one driver in each car and it's the sheer endurance factor, the fact that back then they, in many ways unlike today's modern Le Mans, they had at times to nurse a car for the duration.
Speaker A:Indeed they did.
Speaker A:And that still occurs from time to time.
Speaker A:The cars are far more reliable than they used to be.
Speaker A:Even up to the 90s, people had problems and then the likes of Peugeot and Audi came in at different times in the 90s.
Speaker A:And they brought with them, as did Toyota, they brought with them the mindset of rallying, which is you've got to fix it and you've got to work around it or hundreds of miles away and you have to build in such a way that you can fix it quickly.
Speaker A:So Audi had the gearbox.
Speaker A:You know, they figured that there was transmission issues before they ever went near to La Sarf.
Speaker A:And they put together a system whereby they could change the rear end in a couple of minutes.
Speaker A:I think they got it down to three minutes by the time that the French gan did.
Speaker A:And it was amazing.
Speaker A:You'd see an entire rear end, gearbox and suspension, etcetera, on a pulley above the car and then you see the back going off, this coming down.
Speaker A:And about two minutes later, Christensen or McNeish or whoever would be accelerating down the pit lane back into the race and back into the lead.
Speaker A:But I mean, Formula one went in a different direction and I stopped going in the 80s.
Speaker A:I keep an eye on it because it's the pinnacle of the sport, certainly tell us.
Speaker A:But I went to Le Mans and I kind of fell in love with the.
Speaker B:There is something about Le Mans.
Speaker B:I mean, I've said to people.
Speaker B:Some friends of mine went for the first time this year.
Speaker B:I said, you will not believe the place when you get there.
Speaker B:I said, it is his own little world.
Speaker B:I said, nothing outside Le Mans exists whilst that race is on.
Speaker B:I said, the atmosphere.
Speaker B:I said, everything.
Speaker B:I said, you won't credit the number of people there.
Speaker B:I said, and it's just so atmospheric.
Speaker B:I said, especially on the build up to the start of the race.
Speaker B:I said, it is just unique.
Speaker B:Everything about Le Mans is unique.
Speaker A:Quite.
Speaker A:I mean, the only place I could imagine that might have a similar sort of buildup is the word you used.
Speaker A:And I think it's right, would be perhaps the Indy 500, because the Americans tend to be very good at rah rah ing and all the rest of it.
Speaker A:And they've got something that they are rightly proud about there for going back to Le Mans.
Speaker A:There is having now worked on both sides.
Speaker A:You know, I worked for a team for five or six years as pr.
Speaker A:You can feel the tension within the pit box.
Speaker A:You know, first thing, everyone arrives seven o' clock on race morning.
Speaker A:Those who haven't been there, working through the night, and the next thing you know, oh, my God, we've got warm up.
Speaker A:Oh, let's hope nothing goes wrong there.
Speaker A:So you do the warm up and everyone relaxes a bit and has the coffee and the breakfast and the croissant and then it kind of grips you and you think, oh, we're going to be starting soon.
Speaker A:There's only four hours before the beginning of the race.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:And the buildup is there.
Speaker A:How the drivers remain calm is quite amazing.
Speaker A:But you can see it amongst the guys.
Speaker A:And it really is a team sport.
Speaker A:The drivers are the stars, if you like, but everybody.
Speaker A:The only way to win at Le Mans is everybody pulls in the same direction and everybody is motivated and believes in it.
Speaker A:I've been lucky enough to be there and be with a team when it's won its class.
Speaker A:I've also been there when they've had cars go out and fortunately, we never had any major incidents in terms of drivers being endangered in any way.
Speaker A:And that's one of the.
Speaker A:One of the big changes at Le Mans and everywhere else that the.
Speaker A:Since the mid-90s, the levels of safety have really raised up and racing hasn't got any less dangerous.
Speaker A:But the consequences of something going wrong are not as potentially fatal as they used to be.
Speaker C:No.
Speaker B:I think the other thing with Le Mans, I think it's something the drivers, they have to practice, of course, is.
Speaker B:And when I've been there, like when I'm at classic Le Mans, you talk to the drivers, it's racing in the dark.
Speaker B:It's a whole different ball game is racing in the dark.
Speaker A:Indeed.
Speaker A:And some drivers thrive on it.
Speaker A:I mean, the worse the conditions, the better they go.
Speaker A: I mean, if we go back to: Speaker A:To everybody else.
Speaker A:It was, you know, you had very skilled drivers out there, you know, the Mark Blundells, James Weaver, all those sort of guys racing similar cars, and yet JJ was just so much quicker than anybody in the dark, the wet, the oil, he reveled in it.
Speaker A:And that's how McLaren ended up winning Le Mans for the first time.
Speaker B: ing at the book, I mean, it's: Speaker B:It was the decade when Tom Christiansen, who won seven times and Audi won nearly all of them.
Speaker B:And when it wasn't an Audi Bear, when it wasn't a car bearing the Audi badge, it was a Bentley, which ultimately was an Audi.
Speaker A:I would vehemently disagree with you about that.
Speaker A:The Bentley was built in the uk, the Audi was built in Italy.
Speaker A:I remember doing, helping edit a book on the Speed 8.
Speaker A: ngineer on the winning car in: Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:And what he said was, the Audi, the Bentley Speed 8, the Audi R8 had little in common with the Speed 8, but the Audi R10, after the Audi guys had worked on the Speed 8, had a lot more in common.
Speaker A: used the injection system in: Speaker A:But you're right, I mean, it is the decade of Audi, it's the decade of Tom Christensen, it's the decade of Corvette racing.
Speaker A:You know, we all talk about the top class, but actually GTS, GT1, whatever they called it that week, used to provide probably arguably the best racing of all, between pro drive and Corvette.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:The other thing with the Audi, of course, was it was the advent of the racing diesel, was it not?
Speaker A:Indeed.
Speaker A:Ulrich Beretzky was Audi's top engine man.
Speaker A: thinking about the diesel in: Speaker A:I mean, it was uncharted territory.
Speaker A:One diesel had run previously at le Mans in 51, 52, and that was a couple of brothers who found a jeep in their field, abandoned by the US army after the war and thought, oh, we can do something with this.
Speaker A:And they finished the race amazingly.
Speaker A:But getting back to the diesel, they started putting together the formula for it.
Speaker A:And that instantly made Peugeot think, oh, we need to get back in.
Speaker A:I mean, you've got to remember that Le Mans nearly became extinct in the early 90s.
Speaker A: cars started in: Speaker A:They were in danger of getting bankrupt.
Speaker A:So the management under Cosson and Plassard, who were the heads during this period.
Speaker A:They really pulled things together and they got the American Le Mans series going, European Le Mans, which became Le Mans endurance series.
Speaker A:They got manufacturers interested at all levels.
Speaker A:You know, I think it did a really, really good job and they built the foundations for what is an amazing race today.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:So basically then, the advent of the diesel allowed Le Mans as such to survive and the manufacturers all to have a rig.
Speaker B:Think, because I can, I can remember when it was announced that Audi will be racing diesels and it was shock horror.
Speaker B:Good God.
Speaker B:Diesels.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:And what that.
Speaker A:I mean, if anything, the figure that I always think about with Audi is when they arrived in 99, they were selling 670,000 cars.
Speaker A:Something like that.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:By the time they left, it was 1.5 million, 1.7 million, something like that.
Speaker A:Now, it's not all down to racing, but having a dieselwind Le Mans send a clear signal that these were not just engines for trucks, but they were engines for luxury motor cars or upmarket motor cars.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:So that was one area.
Speaker B:I mean, just putting it.
Speaker B:I can remember the advent of the 2.1 Perkins engined.
Speaker B:I think it was a Perkins for Granada and it was a taxi driver's favourite along with the diesel Mercedes Benz.
Speaker B:And in many ways that's all the diesel was looked upon something for a trucker van and a taxi.
Speaker A:Indeed.
Speaker A:So that was one area that they certainly changed the face of motorsport through that.
Speaker A:Okay, we've come back from diesels now and you know, the fashionable thing is hybrids and electrics, et cetera.
Speaker A:Who knows where it's going to go from here?
Speaker A: e having this conversation in: Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I can remember saying to a friend of mine, I said, and bloody diesels won them all.
Speaker B:I said, I give up at this.
Speaker A:Quite.
Speaker A: tween Peugeot and Audi during: Speaker A: You know, Persia arrived in: Speaker A:And Audi adopted a strategy where they knew they couldn't match them on the track.
Speaker A:So every day between, I think the pre qualifying was the weekend before the.
Speaker A:Or the weekend two weeks before the race and every morning all the Audi people were in at 7 o' clock practicing pit stops, practicing changes, practicing changing that they figured they could make time up in the pits and who knows what happens.
Speaker A:And of course, the rain came and the Audi coped with the rain better than the Peugeot's.
Speaker A:You could say that Christensen, Capello and McNish were probably the ideal team to have up front because they were the only ones who could take the Peugeot on on speed terms.
Speaker A:As I say to people, there's a reason Tom Christensen has won Le Mans nine times and it's not by luck, but, you know, those struggles were at the front.
Speaker A:Most of us who go along, either as fans or working there, also pay strict attention to the GT1, GT2 battles.
Speaker A:They were amazing.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think that's one of the problems at Le Mans.
Speaker B:When you watch it and the coverage on tv, et cetera, It's a lot of the time it's the top cars as they are now hypercars, or as they used to be back then, LMP1 Le Mans prototype ones, they were ones, twos and threes.
Speaker B:But they tend to concentrate on.
Speaker B:On the top cars, in my opinion, a lot of the time, unless you're there.
Speaker B:The lesser categories tend to be overlooked a little bit.
Speaker B:Where many years ago, such as Alpine and cars like that, they knew they wouldn't win, but they went for the order of index, the economy, the furthest traveled on the least fuel.
Speaker B:I mean, the lesser categories play a very, very important role because a lot of the cars are one's better term mod rogue cars.
Speaker A:Well, indeed.
Speaker A:I mean, okay, the GT1s GTS were a long way changed from the car that they were based on.
Speaker A:You know, the 550 Maranellos that Prodrive built had very little in common with the cars that came off the production line at Maranello.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:But nevertheless.
Speaker A:And it's similar for Corvette, but when you went to GT2, sure.
Speaker A:Things like roll cages and all the other bits and pieces are in there.
Speaker A:But a 996 GT3 race car wasn't that much different from a 996 GT3 road car.
Speaker A:And people could relate to that.
Speaker A:And I think you're entirely right.
Speaker A:When you're there, you see the system of lights showing which the top three cars in each class have lights down the side.
Speaker A: was introduced in the middle: Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And they're different colored, so you can tell which of the four classes the car's from and you know which of the top three are there.
Speaker A:So you know, 1, 2, 3 on the lights.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:They have a similar system in the spa of 24 where there is a Light at the front or a display on the front window showing the class and the position.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:So it does enable those who are there to actually engage far, far more deeply than those watching it on television.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I think the thing is, when you're there and you're, shall we say, it's Sunday morning and the race is well developed, you can then start plotting in your mind who's where, who's doing what, who stands a chance, is he going to finish?
Speaker B:Is the guy running in GT3 who's leading at the moment?
Speaker B:But you look and you think, well, he's doing very well, but the guy in is more than likely to catch him and overtake him due to pit stops, et cetera, and you can mentally try and work out the shuffling of it all.
Speaker A:Well, that's true, but also, I mean, aside from the television's natural tendency to follow the big lead cars, you've got this thing pioneered by Ravio Le Mans.
Speaker A:And now there are others out there and the commentators, such as lovely John Hindoff or Paul Trusswell or whatever, they keep an eye on all of the classes.
Speaker A:And if you're listening to it, you will be kept up to date.
Speaker A:You can listen to it now online.
Speaker A:The recent Le Mans during the Sunday morning, I had it on while working.
Speaker A:The joys of self employment mean you work all the time you can while you're making a bit of money.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I also run a photo library, both my archive and also the archive of a couple of other photographers.
Speaker A:And with the recent changes in modern historic racing, there's quite a market in these cars and therefore people want pictures of them.
Speaker A:I mean, that's one of the things that I'm actually probably as proud of.
Speaker A:Finishing the book was almost a miracle, but actually all the photography is mine in there.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:It won't be for the next volume, because I had other responsibilities, but I determined why I didn't get every incident.
Speaker A:And nobody gets every incident.
Speaker A:In fact, a lot of incidents and things that happened are never seen anyway, because the track is so huge and you can't access parts of it, no matter who you are.
Speaker A:Because it's public road.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, where else do people race on public road these days?
Speaker A:The Isle of Man is the only other one I can think of.
Speaker A:And possibly the old days at Spa, when it was, you know, the old Spa, the frightening place.
Speaker B:I mean, I mean, the French gave us motor racing, but I mean, it was Brooklyn's that gave us a circuit.
Speaker B:But until then all racing was public road.
Speaker A:Indeed.
Speaker A: , the first grand prix was in: Speaker C:Yep.
Speaker A:Now, okay, it was to the east of the city rather than to the south.
Speaker A:And if you go along there, there's a Novotel and there's an underpass, and the underpass was used during the race itself.
Speaker A:And in fact, at the centenary, there was a big celebration of it all.
Speaker A:And they got, I think, 30 or 40 pre war cars back.
Speaker C:Yeah, but you're right.
Speaker A: up until of the ACO, up until: Speaker A:And he said, le Mans is a race organized by the French for the English.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's the only holiday, it's the only national English holiday that takes place in France.
Speaker A:Indeed.
Speaker A:That's a very succinct way of putting it.
Speaker A:I mean, people do go over.
Speaker A:The only other place I've been to that had a similar sort of atmosphere was Sebring.
Speaker A:Now, SEBRING started in 52.
Speaker A:I think it was first ever round of the Sportscar World Championship.
Speaker A:And people started going along there and camping, and they made friends with the people who were camping next to them, and whole generations go along because their dad did it, because their granddad did it.
Speaker A:And there's a similar sort of vibe at Le Mans.
Speaker A:Not quite so much, because Le Mans is so much more expansive than Sebring, which is quite a tight little circuit based around a Bond, you know, a B17 bomber training base for World War II.
Speaker A:But, you know, the few times I was lucky enough to go to Sebring, maybe five, 10 times, and you got to meet the same people, and they didn't care really much about the track action.
Speaker A:They loved it.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:But the important thing was going along and meeting in mates and once a year.
Speaker A:And I think that spirit is still at Le Mans itself.
Speaker B:Now, the one thing is, after he gave you the glowing introduction that I paraphrased at the beginning, Tom Christensen.
Speaker B:I mean, how did Tom get so damn good at this?
Speaker A:Because Formula one messed up and didn't take him on.
Speaker A:You know how he started at Le Mans?
Speaker B:No, I'll be quite honest.
Speaker B:No, I know.
Speaker B:I'll be perfectly honest.
Speaker B:And to my shame, I know little about him.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A: iving in Japan, doing Formula: Speaker A:But he was also doing touring car stuff over here.
Speaker A: And in: Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:So he rocked up there, and as he said, I'm playing tennis one week and the next week I've won Le Man.
Speaker A:Now he had Stefan Johansson and Michele Alboreta as teammates.
Speaker A:Yeah, he had a car that had won the previous year, much to the chagrin of Porsche, who'd they had gambled on their 911 GT1s winning in 96.
Speaker A:And Jost had persuaded Horst Marchand, who was head of motorsport at Porsche, at the Christmas Dew in 95.
Speaker A:You got these redundant cars that you built up for Daytona in the beginning of 95, and then they got screwed out.
Speaker A:Why don't we act as backup to you at Blument, you know, so if anything happens.
Speaker A:Well, the problem was that Joost won the race in 96 and Porsche was second and third.
Speaker A:This did not please Herr Singer.
Speaker B:I'm gonna say, this ain't gonna go down too well, is it?
Speaker A:No, it isn't.
Speaker A:But one of the rewards that Reinhold Joost got was if he won the race, you could keep the car.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:So he did.
Speaker A:And Porsche then put in a load of development from 97.
Speaker A:While it didn't do too well in the FIE GT Championship, it was pretty much the class of the field in Le Mans.
Speaker A:And then disaster struck Bob Wallach.
Speaker A:Well, it depends who you believe.
Speaker A:Some people say the wheel fell off, some people say he crashed the car.
Speaker A:It sounds very unlikely, although, because Bob was an amazing driver.
Speaker A:But I won't use the expression that he walked into the press room, but he declared himself not very good.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Norbert Singer's always said, actually, Bob, you're blaming yourself.
Speaker A:Wrong.
Speaker A:The car failed and then they were cruising to victory.
Speaker A:Two hours to go or three hours to go, and Ralph Kellen is going down the main straight and the next thing he notices there's fire coming.
Speaker A:And the next thing you know, Reinhold Yost's trio are back on the top step of the podium.
Speaker A:Yeah, and that's how Tom got going.
Speaker A:And then BMW recruited him very sensibly when Audi came in and they'd seen how in 99, Christensen, Lehto and Muller should have won the race and didn't because a suspension part broke with about five hours to go, pitching JJ into The barriers at Porsche curve.
Speaker A:So they recruited Tom.
Speaker A: in: Speaker A:I can't remember what they call it.
Speaker A:Straight into the tyre barriers, unfortunately.
Speaker A:Guess who was standing there looking at it?
Speaker A:Gord looked at Dr. Ulrich.
Speaker A:Oh, very good.
Speaker A:Audi motorsport.
Speaker A:And I've got a picture of Ulrich got into the Audi R8 when they towed it back out and then they put it on a truck and there's him sitting, not looking very happy in the cockpit of the car.
Speaker A:But, you know, then Tom went on to win five in six in a row.
Speaker A:Okay, one was a Bentley, but five of them were Audis.
Speaker A: nd then he should have won in: Speaker A:They were three laps up in the morning and a wheel came off the car when Bindo was behind the wheel.
Speaker A: They won in: Speaker A:They should never have.
Speaker A:She'd never have been anywhere near Peugeot.
Speaker A:He's, he's quite modest, he's very intelligent and speaking personally, the combination of gynda Capello, Alan McNish and Tom Christensen for me was the ultimate.
Speaker A:Because there was no egos, or if they were, they parked them at the entrance to the paddock.
Speaker A:They worked for each other, they worked with a team, that's why they won.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:So in many ways you might say it's Christiansen's mental attitude to it all that has given him his success.
Speaker A:Yes, I think so.
Speaker A:He's very much down to earth, you know, to be a friend of his by any means.
Speaker A:But we've shared coffees and a couple of interviews and things like that.
Speaker A:And he's just a very well rounded guy who took his opportunities when they arose.
Speaker A:And you can see other people who have had opportunities and something has cruelly snatched it away.
Speaker A: n Nakajima, I think it was in: Speaker A:How can you cope with that?
Speaker B:Yeah, it's like the Toyota that packed up, was it the last lap of the second or the next to last lap suddenly stopped?
Speaker A:That's what I was rearing to.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:I mean, it must be absolutely heartbreaking for that to happen.
Speaker B:A, for the team, but B, more so for the poor damn driver.
Speaker A:Well, I will say one thing, and this was something that Audi brought in during that decade and Corvette racing and Prodrive had a similar sort of thing going.
Speaker A:There was a Huge level of respect between the teams.
Speaker A: When Peugeot lost in: Speaker A:And when they walked in, all the Audi guys got up and applauded them.
Speaker A:And that was repeated the following year by Peugeot.
Speaker A: And again, Fast forward into: Speaker A:Porsche was celebrating.
Speaker A:And an hour into it all the senior management of Toyota appeared to congratulate Porsche in person.
Speaker A:And it's that spirit you get in Le Mans in particular.
Speaker A:You faced the real endurance.
Speaker A:It's not a 24 hour race, it's summed up a 96 hour race for the guys working there.
Speaker A:Even the spectators have to work quite hard to keep opening the cans and the bottles and such.
Speaker A:Of water, of course.
Speaker A:Sparkling water.
Speaker A:Yes, of course.
Speaker B:Oh, yes, definitely.
Speaker A:Yes, yes, definitely.
Speaker A:But because of the endurance element of it, people who actually achieve something that.
Speaker A:I mean, I work for teams one in particular and we won our class one year, but most years we finished and finishing felt like victory.
Speaker A:Didn't matter where you finished.
Speaker A:Just crossing the line.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:And you know, if a lowy Kiar guy feels that, can you imagine the mechanics who've worked for a whole year and this is their pinnacle.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Unbelievable.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B: he next volume, which will be: Speaker B: Will it be: Speaker A: No,: Speaker A:Hopefully I won't have to deal with the COVID year.
Speaker B:How's it going?
Speaker B:Or do you sit back and think, here we go again.
Speaker A: because I was very lucky with: Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because they take quite a long time to do.
Speaker A:And I figured that if you've researched all the tables and produced them, then you would be in a better position to write the narrative.
Speaker A:Because if you do hour by hour following the timesheets, which takes a couple of days a year per race to achieve, then there's a small chance you might know what you're talking.
Speaker A:So I started writing a bit and then I thought, no, this was two to three months ago and I've now finished.
Speaker A:Today I will finish the 10th year of tables.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Then there are the tables at the back of the book, all the drivers, et cetera, and I decided to do those next.
Speaker A:So all of the, if you like, the heavy lifting is out of the way.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:I've started making notes.
Speaker A:When I did my first book, and it was the first commission book that I've ever written, I've helped.
Speaker A:I've written a couple of private books for drivers and people like that or about cars.
Speaker A:But I've never been commissioned by a publisher before.
Speaker A:And you learn techniques, for instance.
Speaker A:I now have a book that I write.
Speaker A:Any question that I have in.
Speaker A:I don't spend four hours looking up one obscure point which could account for why there's delay.
Speaker A:For instance, all the accents and the things like umlauts that are in people's names.
Speaker A:I've now written a list of those.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Because otherwise what happens is you think, oh, you know, Dirk Muller.
Speaker A:Oh, is that.
Speaker A:You got an umlaut or not now, Okay, I know that one off.
Speaker A:But there's quite obscure ones in particularly things from either Spain or South America.
Speaker A:So, you know, I'm able to go straight to a.
Speaker A:A document and pull that out.
Speaker A:I make notes along the way.
Speaker A:I did a huge amount of research.
Speaker A:I got lucky pre Covid somebody, I think he had a medical condition and put an ad in one of the forums.
Speaker A:So I got 20 years of Autosport for anybody who wants it.
Speaker A:And I scuttled around there more than once because 20 years of Autosport's quite a lot of boxes.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker B:Given the fact there's what, 52 of them per year?
Speaker A:Yeah, something like that.
Speaker A:And the odd Le Mans supplement and other things.
Speaker A: So I went through from: Speaker A:So I've got all that in documents that I have on file, which I can search.
Speaker A: you could have access back to: Speaker A:All the issues digitized.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So I guess you downloaded all of those.
Speaker C:You did.
Speaker A:And then there were the websites, in particular, Daily Sports Car, if I can blow me in trumpet for a second, I was there at the beginning of that.
Speaker A:I actually came up with a name for Malcolm Crapnell and I was a shareholder.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:I moved away and did other things, but Malcolm had this most amazing couple of guys in Le Mans.
Speaker A:One in particular, a schoolteacher called David Ludonier.
Speaker A:And they would visit Le Mans and Poissonneau and Pedri and all the other guys there.
Speaker A:Once, twice, three times a week, they would get all the inside stories, which meant I didn't have to rely on Autosport or motorsport or any of those.
Speaker A:And I've put all of those together.
Speaker A:So they form, if you like, the core of the research.
Speaker A:And then you go off and chase Other themes.
Speaker A:And that's why it takes so long, because you want to be right.
Speaker A:I'm sure there are mistakes in my book and there are things I had no idea about, and I can't get anybody to answer either.
Speaker A:I'll give you an example.
Speaker A: In: Speaker A:And the rules are pretty clear on that.
Speaker A:If you don't qualify, you don't race.
Speaker A:And yet they both finished on the podium.
Speaker A:One won the class and the other was third with Tracy Crone and Nick Johnsson.
Speaker A:And no one can explain to me.
Speaker A:I've spoke to Beaky Sims, who was running Risi at the time.
Speaker A:Risi competizione.
Speaker A:He can't remember.
Speaker A:And nobody seemed to know, which is a bit odd.
Speaker A:Oddly enough, getting replies from France is not as easy as you might think it could be in this day with the Internet.
Speaker A:And the only theory I've ever had on it was that they wanted van der Poel to be in the car because one of the other drivers had a tendency to either crash or finish on the podium, and they didn't want him driving for 12 hours.
Speaker A:But no one will officially admit to any of this stuff.
Speaker A:And that's, in a way, one of the charms of Le Mans.
Speaker A:You know, there's always the other, other rule, the one that we didn't tell you about, but actually covers everything else off.
Speaker A:And it does.
Speaker A:And, you know, it's like everything else, you go over there and you're immersed in the culture of that part of France, you know, La France Profond, as they used to call it.
Speaker A:And while Le Mans has been an industrial city for decades, it's also in a fairly rural area as well.
Speaker A:And it's all of these kind of mixes, you know, nice wine, nice food.
Speaker A:It's a very civilized thing to do at times less so when you're arguing with them, trying to get in or something, that are stuck in a traffic jam or been stupid enough to go speeding.
Speaker A:And then a motorbike comes along and nicks you.
Speaker A:Fortunately, I haven't had that happen to me.
Speaker A:But I do remember being passed by two idiots.
Speaker A:I borrowed a Porsche from Porsche GB and was sticking religiously to the speed limit because I was terrified of being pulled over.
Speaker A:And two guys went past me, all maybe 130, 140 miles an hour.
Speaker A:And sure enough, 10 minutes down the road, you see the blue lights and they're being led off to the cash machine.
Speaker B:Yes, yes.
Speaker A:So, you know, you have to respect the rules over there.
Speaker A:They're pretty, pretty liberal up to a point.
Speaker A:But if you step over the, you know, over the white line, then you will get clobbered.
Speaker A:But getting back to the race, there's nothing like it.
Speaker C:Nope.
Speaker B:Truly unique.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:John Brooks, it's been a pleasure chatting to you.
Speaker A:Well, and you.
Speaker B:And I'll give you another good plug.
Speaker B: Le Mans The Official History: Speaker B:It is a magnificent book.
Speaker B:As I always say, it's not one you want to drop on your foot.
Speaker B:It's big, fantastic photographs, and it relives and reminds me of that era because that was one of the eras I paid particular attention to, Le Mans.
Speaker B:So, John Brooks, it's been a pleasure chatting to you and thanks very much for joining me on the backseat driver.
Speaker A:Okay, well, thank you for your time and your trouble and with any luck, we.
Speaker B:We'll speak in a few years time when the next one's out.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:There's.
Speaker A:There's a promise.
Speaker B:Once again, John Bu.
Speaker B:Thanks very much indeed.
