Real Le Mans still powered by petrol

AS you all know Audi won Le Mans, again. Another Audi came second and a long way behind was a Toyota.

Corvette Racing’s Le Mans car.

AS you all know Audi won Le Mans, again. Another Audi came second and a long way behind was a Toyota. These cars were all hybrids as were the top Porsches. The Porkers did well, particularly the one Mark Webber was driving, but his car fell apart near the end.

Since 2000 Audi has not won here only twice. In 2009 David Brabham drove a Peugeot to victory and six years earlier a Dane, an Italian and an Englishperson took out honours in a Bentley. In case you’re wondering about other Australians, Geoff Brabham won in 1993 in another Peugeot, 10 years after Vern Schuppan did the same thing in a Rothmans-powered Porsche. Who said smoking didn’t make you go fast?

In the real race, the one for real cars powered by petrol, the privately owned Rebellion Racing’s Toyota showed more reliability than all the factory weirdo cars and came fourth. Of course the Rebellion drivers had a lot of class. Former F1 star Nicky Heidfeld; Alain Prost’s eldest son Nicolas and Swiss sales and marketing star Mathias Beck were the dream team running around the streets of the Sarthe River’s most famous city.

While we’re talking about the city first mentioned by Claude Ptolemy, let me suggest a few places where the tucker isn’t too bad and you’ll get the usual Weekend Australian discount. Le Beaulieu has more chandeliers than you’ve had oil leaks in your Jag but it has a Michelin star and the Limousin beef filet, with mushrooms of the moment, is pretty special. On the other hand the Legend Cafe is one for the metal heads. You can’t miss it as you walk down Port Street because it has a big red-and-white race car hanging over the door looking like it’s about to slide off on to your noggin. For $20 you can’t go wrong with that traditional French dish, the little Italy chicken burger.

Anyway, back to the action.

The two cars that fought against the European and Asian dominance of the 24-hour race were of course the Chevrolet Corvettes. Engineered by Detroit’s Pratt & Miller, Corvette Racing has won its class in seven of the past 13 years at Le Mans.

This year, assisted by radar and a rear parking camera, the two representatives of American hegemony in Europe took second and fourth in their class behind a Ferrari but in front on the bulldog’s pride, the Aston Martin with Ayrton’s nephew Bruno Senna behind the wheel.

In an incident even I couldn’t make up, Alvaro Parente in the Ram Racing Ferrari suffered a small electrical fire in the cockpit. Unfortunately events like this saw the team’s Ferrari drop out after 16 hours. Co-driver Matt Griffin told the media: “It’s really, really disappointing but the car just didn’t seem to want to finish this race. We’ve been chasing a series of problems since the crash in qualifying, and team boss Dan Shufflebottom and the Ram Racing guys have worked their backsides off trying to get us back out each time but it wasn’t to be this year.” No, not saying another word on this one.

Apart from the Webbster, Australia’s only other supposed starter in Le Mans was Gosford-born John Martin. John was meant to be driving a hot Nissan but the car was a late scratching.

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