Relive the full broadcast of the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2009 — a true battle of endurance, technology, and determination. Peugeot and Audi faced off in an intense 24-hour duel on the legendary Circuit de la Sarthe, pushing their prototypes and drivers to the absolute limit. Every lap brought drama, precision, and pure racing emotion as strategy and reliability shaped the outcome. Experience the triumph, the heartbreak, and the passion that defined one of the most iconic editions in Le Mans history.
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SportsTranscript
00:00We saw him about an hour, an hour after the quarter, so about one o'clock in the morning, and he was just looking daggers at everything, and he was not a happy, funny, and hey, he's only qualifying, and the team had said all along here, no, we're not worried about qualifying, but as you, no matter what you were saying, it certainly mattered to Alan McNich.
00:18Absolutely, and then Peugeot said when they went to Sebring, they weren't interested in winning Sebring, weren't they, this was a test for Le Mans, but if you talk to Nick Minassian, you know full well, they're racing drivers, if they get told to slow down, they will slow down, because that's what they're being paid to do, but until you tell them to slow down, they will drive as fast as they can, and they want to win.
00:35I think the point that Gerry made about how hard they've been working is, we look at the overall classification, you see that lap lead that the Peugeot's got.
00:43Well, that's not quite, it's not a full lap lead they have, but as they came across, at the time this came across, it was a lap ahead, it's actually not a full lap lead, but it's just a bit over two minutes between first and second, but the two Peugeot's first and second, car number eight and car number nine, then the two Audis, car numbers one and two, and I think they're the only four cars
01:05on the lead lap, and then the two Lola Aston Martins, the 007 and the 008, are in fifth and sixth overall, so certainly an excellent performance by the ProDrive team there.
01:16Yeah, we always knew that probably they were going to be the petrol pace, as it were, I know it's probably quite confusing, if I haven't been following sports car racing regularly, we keep talking about the petrol and the diesel class, it's just such a massive difference.
01:28Now, Johnny, you've obviously raced the petrol prototypes an awful lot in America and in Europe as well, been doing some work, I know, with the Janetta Zytec recently, some test and development work, what do you think is the real thing, is it just simple, straightforward, all-round better packaging, or is there more to it than that with the diesel cars?
01:44I think a lot of it is that you've got the two best teams, probably, or the two certainly best-funded sports car teams in the world at the moment developing the diesel, and that has a large part of it.
01:53If they were developing the petrol and everyone else was on the diesel, they'd probably still be winning, but having said that, the torque and the general horsepower effects of that diesel and the regulations that were in place that made them and obviously encouraged them into that, obviously some of it's marketing as well, but the competitive rules that allow them to come in and make a diesel be that competitive and have that much extra power and torque than everyone else is why, basically, those cars are winning.
02:17And don't forget that Audi and Peugeot, basically, at the end of the day, when they had that blank piece of paper and they wanted to design and build a race car, they wanted to build it to win this particular race that we're commentating on right now.
02:28And there's a great shot of front march in you, going around the outside of that Krone, Rissi Competizioni Ferrari, through the Porsche curves, and it's very difficult to get offline there, Johnny.
02:37It's so dirty offline through the Porsche curves, and that last left-hand corner there, if you get a little bit offline, like no more than a foot, it just sucks you out and there's a concrete wall just waiting for you.
02:47But Frank Montani, he is in the zone, isn't he?
02:50Absolutely, yes.
02:51But he is absolutely flying.
02:52Last time around, at 3 minutes 27, he goes across and passing one of the Luc Alfon, Alvanchor Corvette Corvettes, even passing all that traffic, a 3.29.1 for Frank Montani.
03:02Marc Genet in second place, his last lap, at 3.33.
03:07Alan Magnich in third place, at 3 minutes 31.
03:10The gap from first to second now is out to two and a half minutes.
03:15Yeah, well, it's interesting, actually, just as you were saying that, Jeremy, I was watching that brilliant shot that we had of Montani going through, and Johnny will understand this as a racing driver, you can see the attitude of the car, it's so planted, it's getting on the power, making the aero work, making the tyres work, and that element of being in the zone, he's dealing with the traffic in a really systematic way, but it also seems to be in a point where he hasn't got anything in his mind that's going to clutter his objective.
03:38This is going to get interesting, Stéphane Sarazan, the fastest man at Le Mans for the last three years, is going to take over that car, now how fast will it go?
03:46See, this is where I actually think that Jeremy still might be slightly wrong, and that I think, I may be wrong in saying this, but I think Stéphane Sarazan will be standing watching that screen, he'll have seen that 25.1, and he'll be thinking, I'm going to go in, and I'm going to do a 24-something.
04:01Whereas I can guarantee you that Dindo is waiting to get in the car that Alan's about to come in, we saw our shot on camera there, he won't give a monkey's about that 29.1 that Alan's done, he will get in there, do the best job he can with what he's got underneath him, and that is why I think Audi still have an advantage over Peugeot at a 24-hour race like this.
04:19It's also interesting with Peugeot, just to finish that point, that it looks to me like they've got the three fastest drivers in one car, which hasn't always been the case with them in the past.
04:28That could be very, very significant in terms of, if they are all knowing that they are the three fastest drivers, is it even more competitive, or do they have a little bit more of, okay, guys, collectively, we can have Le Croix de France if we do our job right.
04:41Well, it's interesting you say that, because both the No. 7 and No. 8 Peugeots, their best laps have been a 3 minutes 25-something, the No. 9 car, Marc Genet, a 3 minutes 26-something.
04:52All three of the factory Audi R10, our 15 TDIs, have done a 3 minutes 29.106 for McNish, 29.136 for the car No. 2, and 29.760 for car No. 3.
05:06They're all very close to match, each of those two factory teams, and there is that four-second margin, which seems to be on a regular, consistent basis.
05:15Absolutely, this is what I said right back at the beginning when I came on air with you guys, is that I really am worried about that,
05:20because it seems to me that Peugeot have enough in their pocket, as we see the...
05:23I think that must be our leader coming in, I think that's the 8 car.
05:27That's Montan, you're pitting.
05:28No, it's a 9 car, my mistake, yeah, 9 car, so that's the second-place car, Marc Genet, we're going to see a driver change now, let's have a look.
05:35Yes, he is, he's broken the drive-brake on his drinks bottle, he's taken the radio out, pots himself out of the car, slides away.
05:44Watch with interest, who's going to be taking that car over, it's David Brabham.
05:47As you see, Alan McNish also pitting there, literally, we saw Dindo waiting a little bit earlier,
05:53and obviously, Alan, you can see him there loosening his belts as he's coming in, he can't obviously loosen them too much,
05:58he certainly can't undo them until he's stationary, but he can certainly get things organised, as Simon was saying earlier,
06:03get your drinks bottle sorted, get your radio plug out, and on top of your helmet, a little bit of Velcro they placed there to put your radio plug.
06:09Now, let's watch this, we talked about the choreography of the pit stop, and I wonder if there's been a little bit of gamesmanship,
06:17where each of the top teams have been watching what the others are doing, and coming up with some ideas.
06:22Oh, you can bet your bottom door on that side of the old leads, these teams watch each other like Hawks,
06:26they'll have spotters up in the grandstand, or maybe even closer than that, to see exactly what the other teams are doing.
06:32Now, this is our race leader, and this is significant, let's watch to see if this stop goes smoothly,
06:37if everything goes to plan, there's every reason to suggest this car's going to come back out,
06:41and just do exactly what the outgoing driver from Montaigne has been doing, Sarrazan on board,
06:47as we said, he has been Mr. Le Mans for the last three years, he's been on pole position,
06:51and he's been able to pull times out of nowhere.
06:53Remember, in the race last year, he was lapping within a second of his pole time.
06:57To follow that point that you made, Johnny, therefore, we could quite possibly see him doing low 24s, high 23s.
07:04If he needs to, and at this stage, he doesn't need to, because he's way out in front,
07:08and once again, both of these two cars have done 13 laps since their last pit stop.
07:13You see, if I was a team manager on the pit bull, and he even got close to a 23,
07:17I would be shouting at him so loud that he wouldn't know where to hit him.
07:21You're exactly right, Johnny, he just doesn't need to go that fast.
07:24There is Dindo Capello rejoining after taking over the number one car from Alan McNeish.
07:30So that's the first driver change to that car in this race, and Ditto...
07:33Almost a lap, almost a lap.
07:36Incredible stuff.
07:37This is the interesting thing, I suppose, you could always think that because of modern sports car racing
07:42being the flat-out sprint that it is compared to where it used to be, having to look after the car, etc.,
07:48could there be an element where they're saying,
07:50it is all or nothing, guys, we want you to go flat-out, we want you to push that hard.
07:53Is that a strategy you think they might risk, Johnny?
07:55At this level, at the front, they do push as hard as they can.
07:58I think Peugeot perhaps got a little bit left as we keep saying.
08:01Audi, I can guarantee you, are flat-out all the time.
08:04So welcome to everybody that's just joined us across the Eurosport channels to an enthralling Le Mans.
08:16We've just seen a very significant couple of pit stops.
08:18We've seen the number eight, the leading car that you can see there,
08:21just taken over by Stéphane Sarrazin, our pole position man.
08:24And it's going to be interesting to see what lap times he can produce compared to the outgoing driver, Frank Montani, Jeremy Shaw.
08:32And that classification or so is slightly misleading because, in fact, the top three cars are still on the lead lap.
08:38It's just that when that graphic came up, Sarrazin had completed lap 51 and David Braddon,
08:45who's just taken over the wheel of car number nine, had not completed that lap.
08:48So, in fact, there's a gap of about two and a half minutes between car number eight,
08:53with which we are on board right now, coming into the first chicane on the Mont-Saint Strait,
08:57and the second-place car of David Braddon, car number nine.
09:02And Dindu Capello is the only other car on the lead lap in third place in car number one, the first of the Audis.
09:08Johnny, another point.
09:10We were talking about how the relative development of the two cars,
09:13obviously the 908 very evolved over the last three years.
09:16Absolutely, yes, yeah.
09:16And you talked about the way the drivers can push that hard.
09:19Do you think it's because they know the car so well, and also the car is so well-developed,
09:22they've managed to iron out any of the nastiness of the car,
09:25whereas the Audi may still have a few little habits that the drivers still haven't quite understood,
09:29so they have to give themselves a bit of room.
09:31Absolutely, absolutely.
09:32And the Peugeot has evolved.
09:33It's not so much the drivers, you know, getting more up to grips with the car.
09:36The car has been developed for this track, really sorted, and it really feels hooked up for them.
09:40The R15, on the other hand, similar to the R10 in its early stages,
09:44don't forget, still the diesel, still got the catalytic converter out the back,
09:47a little bit tail-heavy.
09:48They're still unlocking that car's full potential.
09:51Peugeot have the advantage, there's no doubt.
09:53Yeah, that is a very new car from Audi, isn't it?
09:55The engine is different, the chassis concept is different,
09:59they've gone from a V12 engine to a V10, just everything is different.
10:02And it's a huge learning curve, isn't it?
10:04We've come up with a brand new car.
10:05Absolutely, and the aero is obviously different, as we know, from the saga that's going on now.
10:09It'll be interesting for David Bradman, first time in this car, in the Le Mans 24 hours.
10:13He'll be quite excited right now about driving.
10:16He's had a few challenging moments this weekend.
10:19Johnny, have you spoken to David about his experience so far?
10:21I haven't actually seen, I saw him at Salt Lake City after he'd had his first run at the Spa Le Mans Series race.
10:26I haven't actually seen him much here other than just to wave at him as we went past,
10:30passing ships in the night, so to speak.
10:31But I know he's been very looking forward to a real chance to fight for an overall victory,
10:35which he's not had since his Bentley days.
10:37Yeah, I saw him just before the start of the race, and he was loving every minute of this experience,
10:41and just couldn't wait to get to the wheel of that car.
10:43We've got, here we are, the second of the Audis.
10:46It came in in second place as a result of making his pit stop after the car number nine and car number one.
10:53And you can see there are a slightly different time strategy there,
10:55because obviously Werner stayed in then, they didn't change tyres, fuel only,
10:58but obviously previously Alan came in and Dinda Capello got in,
11:01and obviously driver change, obviously change tyres.
11:03That's normally the strategy when you're doing a driver change, is to change the tyres as well.
11:07So you can see that those two cars, the number two and the number one Audi,
11:10are actually on slightly different strategies in terms of their tyre management right now,
11:14and also their driver changes.
11:16The Pescarrolo Sport Peugeot, or Seymour Pagina, just made a pit stop,
11:21and interesting to me, he managed only 12 laps on that stint,
11:24as in fact he has done on just about every stint so far in car number 17,
11:29whereas the factory car makes 13 laps on a pit stop.
11:34Yeah, maybe that's relating to the drag factor with a different aero package between the two cars.
11:38Exactly right, Johnny Marlowe, I think that's a very good point,
11:40because the car that the Pesco Eurosport team is running is a year-old car,
11:45it does not have all the latest updates, but the factory cars do have.
11:50It's interesting watching the way that Sarrazan is dealing with the traffic,
11:54it doesn't seem to have any sort of hesitation,
11:57so certainly that logic that we had of pushing hard seems to be very much the case.
12:02To live on Eurosport 2, we continue to watch the enthralling battle throughout the class,
12:12it's one of the GT2 cars, the Modena Motorsport car,
12:15another famous name in there, Leo Mansell, the oldest son of, of course, Nigel Mansell,
12:20so we have the name Senna Prost and Mansell racing at Le Mans,
12:23which is a great thing for us anoraks, isn't it, Jeremy?
12:26It is very cool, isn't it, Nigel, I saw Nigel, but he didn't seem to talk to it, unfortunately,
12:30but Nigel Mansell is here this weekend watching the race,
12:33and it's our great brother, Greg Mansell, younger brother of Leo,
12:37is around to the World Series race this weekend.
12:39That's our Nage, I believe, is our Nage, we're trying to see which car that is,
12:42it's like one of the LMP2 cars, you see the number at the moment, unfortunately,
12:49it's a Zaytac, I think it's an N, is that the 40 car?
12:51Yes, it is.
12:52Is that Guy Smith on board at the moment? I think it may, may well be, let's have a look.
12:58Didn't look like his helmet, he has a very bright fluorescent yellow helmet, guys,
13:02so, no, that's Amaral.
13:03Amaral, yes, so, yeah, he just outbraked himself, I think, going to that corner.
13:09I should recognise the side of the Zaytac by now, shouldn't I?
13:11He did well there, actually, to, he should, did well, actually,
13:14to decide not to keep on turning, otherwise he'd have hit that barrier.
13:17I actually was speaking to Nigel Mansell and Leo yesterday, actually,
13:20Leo obviously very, very excited to get his first laps in,
13:22albeit the first laps he ever did were in the dark, in the wet.
13:25Nigel really, really excited about potentially racing here at some point in the future,
13:29so watch that space, I think.
13:31He seems to be doing quite a lot of jumping in various different cars at the moment,
13:35he's done some stuff recently, and it's good to see the guy back out there.
13:39We talked about Senna, here is Bruno Senna,
13:41who's had a difficult start to his sports car career with a big shunt at Spa a little while ago,
13:46but he seems to be in a nice groove at the moment.
13:51He says he's really tired off just into the car.
13:59It's been pretty tiring after two and a half hours in the car.
14:02We're trying hard to get a really big lead.
14:13I managed to make up one minute whilst I was in the car.
14:22So the strategy was it to do long stints?
14:24And he said, I'm not too sure whether our strategy is that way or not.
14:32Of course, we'll have to adapt the strategy as the race progresses.
14:40We've also got to take care of the car as well as think about your pace strategy.
14:44Thanks, Fran.
14:46Well, you know, if that's taking it steady,
14:48I don't know what going flat out is, Johnny Mullen.
14:50What do you think?
14:50No, I think he's saying all the right things, isn't he?
14:53There's no doubt about it.
14:54And Frank Montagna is very, very talented, very, very quick driver.
14:57And don't forget, he's done a fair amount of sports car racing now.
15:00And I think he, when he first came in,
15:02he was hitting a few things he shouldn't have hit,
15:04but he's definitely out of that zone now.
15:06And he fully understands, I think,
15:07what it takes to go out and try and do well at this race.
15:10Yeah, the race impressed me most was the race he did with James Rossiter last year in the States.
15:14And very impressed with jumping and get on with it in a very good car, let's be fair.
15:18But, of course, any top-line driver needs that underneath him.
15:21Now, at the moment, we're watching with interest to see how the leader deals with the traffic.
15:25We are going to be taking a very short break here on Eurosport.
15:28We'll see you very soon.
15:29Welcome back to Le Mans and Eurosport.
15:35And we are looking at the 008 car, the Jos Verstappen car,
15:38which has just moved into fifth position as we look at a pit stop now for the 12 car,
15:44which is the Signature Plus car,
15:46being run by the guys that have been involved.
15:51Saulnier's operation, of course, have been involved in other things.
15:54The Signature, of course, very famous for their single-seater exploits.
15:57Pierre Rags was in there, finished third last year in his class.
16:01So, he's got a lot of experience of it.
16:03And Frank Mayer, interesting young French driver.
16:04A lot of French talent out there.
16:06It's almost like going back to the 80s and the 70s
16:09with all these great French guys around
16:10as we see a problem for the Team China entry.
16:12That's the second time that car has had a problem.
16:17It was a puncture last time.
16:19The way that car seems to be wobbling,
16:20it might have another puncture on possibly on the right rear, Johnny.
16:22Yeah, it doesn't look as if it's...
16:25It doesn't look as if it's...
16:27Something's not happening in the suspension.
16:29Yeah, absolutely.
16:30I don't know.
16:31If it is, it's right rear or right front.
16:34But I think it might be the right rear.
16:35Certainly, like you say, it doesn't look particularly healthy, does it?
16:38And that's the Bulgarian.
16:38I believe that's actually the Bulgarian tourism minister, isn't it?
16:41Or something.
16:41I believe he's involved in something to do with the government.
16:45Well, there we were talking about our politicians
16:47having some interesting use of funds.
16:49It's obviously something potentially going on.
16:52If you take that as a logic...
16:53I'm going to have lots of nasty Bulgarian men after me now.
16:56I've said that.
16:56Hopefully not.
16:57Only a joke, chaps.
16:59I've had a bit of a trying time this weekend, these guys.
17:02Haven't really managed to get on top of Le Mans this weekend.
17:05And we see, is this the Amaral car that we saw have the problem earlier?
17:09Yeah, that's come back.
17:10Maybe back to the pit lane has Miguel Amaral.
17:13Probably flat spotted his tyres, I would say.
17:16That's something as you see them changing all four tyres there.
17:19Here's a replay of what happened a little while ago.
17:22Just locking up the brakes, as Johnny Mollum said.
17:24Go down into Arnard's turn and wisely decide just to go straight on to the barrier.
17:28Just nose very, very lightly into that tyre.
17:31Well, there shouldn't be any significant damage there.
17:32There will be no damage, it's just literally some 50 pence tyres on it and then they have
17:37to change that and he'll be on his way.
17:38You're talking how tricky Arnard is in terms of getting the line of the braking, etc.
17:44Is there anything to do with the fact you've been at such high speed for so long, maybe
17:46the brakes were a bit cold going in there?
17:48I don't think it's that so much because you've had quite a heavy braking area with your fast
17:51right Indianapolis and you've got a very tight left immediately after and you're hard
17:55on the brakes there.
17:56I think what it is, is it's a combination of surface change there, also the cars stop
18:00for the junction road cars on this public road there and there's a lot of oil and various
18:03things that build up over time.
18:05And I think the other thing, really, is that it's actually such a slow corner that you always
18:10think you're braking a bit too early for it and then as soon as you try and brake a
18:13little bit later, you suddenly find that you actually weren't braking too early after
18:16all.
18:16We've got the third place LMP2 car on pit lane, just leaving pit lane at the moment.
18:21Mike Newton has actually dropped to fourth now.
18:24Mike Newton at the wheel of the RML Lola, you just see a flash of him there at the side
18:30of the screen as Caspar Elgar, the class leader in the Team Essex Porsche RX Spyder, there
18:36he goes through the, underneath the Dunlop bridge one more time.
18:40This is the lap 52 for the class leader and Seiji Ara in the Team Go Porsche RX Spyder is
18:48only about six or seven seconds behind him on the road.
18:51If we hold that camera angle for a moment or two, we could probably see him, but not quite
18:55the case.
18:56But certainly, it's still a very close battle in LMP2 as Caspar Elgar goes on to the
19:03model sign straight one more time.
19:04How significant could this be, Johnny, do you think, when we see driver changes for these
19:08two cars?
19:09Because we know Ara is extremely quick.
19:10We know Sascha Masson is extremely quick.
19:12Caspar Elgar, but Christian Paulsen and Kunimoto, we don't really know as much about in this
19:18situation.
19:19Well, Kunimoto, sorry to interrupt, Johnny, but Kunimoto is a talent.
19:21I mean, he's a young man who's just 20 years of age, but he won Macau last year.
19:25If you can win the Macau Grand Prix in Formula 3, Johnny Mullen, you're pretty good.
19:29Oh, absolutely.
19:30But one thing that I've learned, and sometimes the hard way is when you're coming out of single
19:33seaters into something like sports cars, is it isn't about pace.
19:36You obviously have to be fast, you have to have the ability to lap quickly, but you have
19:41to have so much more else going for you in your armoury in order to be able to deliver
19:44on every level in terms of keeping the car as strong and healthy.
19:48So there's no point going out there and smoking the car, doing incredible quick laps, coming
19:52in and having your co-driver get into a car that's falling apart on you.
19:55Yeah.
19:56But Sascha Masson, who's sharing that car with the team co-drivers, two Japanese drivers.
20:01Absolutely.
20:02Sascha was up here a couple of nights ago, and he was telling us how impressed he was with
20:06Keisuke Kunimoto.
20:07I mean, the kid is not only fast and bright, he's a very sensible young man as well.
20:13The Japanese mentality, in my experience, is very much they're very much willing to learn
20:17and listen, and Sascha Masson, very experienced, especially in that car, and he will be a perfect
20:22person to show them how to unlock the potential of a car in order to win Le Mans.
20:28There is Seiji Aro, a former winner here, overall for Team Go back in 2004 in one of the Audi
20:35R10 TDIs, oh, R8, wasn't it, thank your pardon, it was the R8, of course, before the diesel-powered
20:41cars came along.
20:42But Seiji, a massive amount of experience, as you said, a race winner here, and now a
20:47trying to chase down that leader in LNP2.
20:50He's running in second place at the moment, with two Porsche RX Spiders, clearly the class
20:54of the field.
20:55Last time around, their lap times, Seiji Aro was a couple of seconds quicker than Kasper
21:01Elgar.
21:02Of course, Elgar did have quite a lot of traffic on that lap.
21:04We saw the beginning of that, you were saying you could almost see them in the shot.
21:07That was very, very significant.
21:09Of course, we were in this exact same position this time last year.
21:12These two cars, last year it was the Vermeerstein Porsche as opposed to the Team Go car, but
21:17it was the same car, slightly different organisation.
21:19And the Essex team.
21:20Interestingly, of course, Sacha Masson has gone from one team to the other.
21:24So, let's hope he's got his guessing right and got the right one at the right year.
21:27Absolutely.
21:28Actually, my first ever Le Mans that I did here was back in 2000.
21:31I actually drove, my teammates were David Murray and Sacha Masson.
21:34It was Sacha Masson, obviously his first Le Mans as well.
21:37So, ever since then we've been good friends and, again, a really, really good guy and
21:42very sensible and totally understands how this race works.
21:47We see one of the CompuWeb Corvettes, a 64 car coming in.
21:51That's the second place car in GT1.
21:53Again, those two cars were split up by the pace car earlier on, so they've been running
21:58about a minute and a half or more apart and they've pretty much stayed that way ever since,
22:03Simon.
22:04Again, referring back to last year, we had that wonderful scrap between Corvette and
22:07Aston Martin.
22:08In between two Corvettes, two Aston Martins swapping around, obviously, no factory Aston
22:12Martins in this category this year, but doubtlessly, these two guys, a lot of the guys that are
22:17involved in this Corvette program have been involved in that program for a long time and
22:21we've said before, this is the last time we're going to see this particular configuration
22:25of team, driver, et cetera, and you know a lot of the guys there, Johnny.
22:29I do, actually.
22:30I was down there with Dan Binks, who's in charge of the 64 car, and I just said to him,
22:35you know, a bit emotional, really.
22:36This is the last time GT1.
22:37Are you a bit emotional, buddy?
22:38He just said, nope.
22:39That was it.
22:40You know, at the end of the day, they're there to win.
22:42Obviously, they've got their GT2 program, which will kick off back in the American Le Mans
22:46series, but right now, all they're thinking about is going out on top with a win.
22:49And you have to say that they are complete and utter favorites for this, as you rightly say,
22:54with no pro-drive Aston Martins up against them.
22:56And here, coming into a Malsan corner are the leaders there in GT2.
23:01The Flying Lizard Porsche car number 80, now with Jörg Bergmeister still at the wheel,
23:06and right behind him and about to make a pass is, there he goes, he's pulling out to the
23:10right-hand side as they race away toward Indianapolis is the class-leading car number 63.
23:17Johnny O'Connell is still up in that car.
23:20And again, that scrap, we talked about it earlier.
23:22The GT2 is only five seconds between Bergmeister in the number 80 car, the Flying Lizards car,
23:27and the 76 Imza Matmut car, with currently with Patrick Pillay on board.
23:32We saw those cars pit a lap apart in that last sequence.
23:35We'll see whether that is significant, but that gap, certainly, you can see the gap there
23:38from first to second behind the Corvette immediately was Jörg Bergmeister, and only just a few seconds
23:44back up the road is the second-place car in GT2, Patrick Pillay.
23:49Former teammates last year, you can see them there, the Corvette, then the first Porsche
23:53to the Flying Lizard car, the silver and red car of Jörg Bergmeister, and just about
23:58on the top of the picture there, the white and red Porsche in third, second place in GT2.
24:03Now, Johnny, you're looking at the timing screen and looking with interest at the times that Dindo Capello
24:08is doing in the number one car.
24:09Yeah, I just noticed that Dindo is only about six, seven tenths off of Alan McNish's best time
24:13so far in the 29, 29.8.
24:15Werner, on the other hand, and of course, like you rightly said before, you never know with
24:19traffic, this can ebb and flow a lot with the traffic, but 31.4, so Dindo pulling Werner
24:24back in.
24:25He's got the gap down to less than eight seconds.
24:27Yeah, I've been watching that, and it's been some nip and tuck between those two, and interestingly,
24:32Stefan Saratyn taken over from Frank Montagne in car number eight, the race leader.
24:37He's settling into a rhythm there around about three minutes 29, three minutes 30, so he's
24:42not, as you feared, rising to the challenge.
24:45No, they finally may be getting it right.
24:47They may be sussed it.
24:48The team's a wonderful thing.
24:49Is it looking at the other of the cars?
24:51Interestingly, on our timing screens, the number three car, which is the one that had problems
24:55early on with Alex Prema on board, is just being shown on our screen as Audi R15 TDI.
25:00It's not showing a driver.
25:01Obviously, we know it's out there somewhere, but we're not, it's not showing it, so obviously
25:05there's been some interesting things with regards to various different timing issues.
25:09There's a 63, Corvette comes in, significant stop.
25:17Welcome back live to Le Mans on Eurosport 2.
25:19You're looking at, well, one of the Zytecs, Ginetta Zytecs, diving between our GT2 lead battle.
25:26Those two Porsches with a Ferrari between them now, Jörg Bergmeister for Flying Lizards,
25:31Patrick Long for the IMSA Matmut Performance team, and that is first and second in GT2,
25:37and Long leaving trademark dark black stripes.
25:41Patrick Long leaving long dark stripes there as he reels in the car in front.
25:45The GT2 class lead was 1.9 seconds at the beginning of the lap, and it is comfortably less than that.
25:52That's got to be a second closer.
25:54Patrick Long coming in very quickly.
25:56Bergmeister's last lap, 4 minute 10.1, 4 minute 7.0.
26:02In fact, it's showing Patrick Pillay going quicker again.
26:06He's within a second of the car's fastest lap time.
26:08I do think we're going to have to count out the Team China entry as the Jet Alliance car backs it off into the gravel trap.
26:15But that GT lead, the battle, Jeremy Shaw is going to be joined any second, and at the moment the car came up from behind the IMSA Matmut Porsche has the head of steam.
26:25I'll tell you Michael.
26:27He certainly does, doesn't he? Because they're fastest laps overall, those two cars within two tenths of a second.
26:33As you said last time around, Patrick Pillay was a good bit quicker than your Bergmeister.
26:37And that is a shot again of Thomas Gruber losing control under braking in the Jet Alliance Aston Martin and depositing it in the gravel track.
26:47Yeah, we picked up that just as the talent was leaving the cockpit for a moment there, didn't we?
26:50I think it had just gone for a holiday, that talent, didn't it?
26:52But anyway, it could have well been quite often in these cars.
26:55If you're coming into the corner, as you bang down through the gears, very, very easy to just lock the rears on a downshift quite easily.
27:02Also, sometimes as the stints go on, you find the drivers will be adjusting the brake bias,
27:06maybe winding a little bit more to the front or to the rear, and that could be significant.
27:10And here is the garage waiting for their man to come in.
27:12It's always a problem for the mechanics, they've probably only just taken their sweaty gear off,
27:16and they're getting it back on in there under their chandelier, of course.
27:19Well, they've already had a couple of long stops, too.
27:21They lost 14 laps very early in a race, they've lost another 20 since then.
27:25So they've had a disappointing race that showed all the way down in 54th place.
27:31They've completed not very many laps, only 23 laps, so they've had a tough time already.
27:37Meantime, let's get back to the quote-unquote battle at the front of the field.
27:41It's still Stefan Sarrazan who leads, he's lapping very consistently now,
27:45in around about 3 minutes 29 or so.
27:48The gap from number 8 Sarrazan to number 9 Brabham, 2 minutes 30.8,
27:54that's almost exactly as if a couple of seconds more than it was about 15 minutes ago.
27:59The gap then back to Marco Werner in third place has extended just a little bit as well.
28:06And the gap back to Dindo Capello in fourth place is down also about 2 seconds more than it was 15 minutes ago.
28:15So 3 minutes and 9 seconds now Capello is behind Stefan Sarrazan,
28:20so kind of within certainly half a minute of going a lap down.
28:25Well that shows the pace of the Peugeot still if we're, what we've got still 20 and a half hours left
28:31and they're just about to put a lap on the second best placed Audi,
28:34which means he will a lap to everybody except podium sitting cars.
28:39And that's a terrifying prospect for Audi,
28:42that the Peugeot has got that much pace and they don't at the moment
28:45and in the Audi camp seem to have an answer.
28:47Particularly as the Audi and the Peugeot seem to be going about the same amount on the tank of fuel.
28:53That is a surprise, a change from one year ago.
28:56I mean this brand new R15 TDI, as we see the Dresden,
29:00Dresden car come into the main of GT2 car,
29:04Johnny Cocker and Lord Dresden and Marino Frank Kitty share in that car.
29:08And that is, I think, a routine piss-up.
29:10They're running very respectively, it has to be said.
29:13Seventh place in GT2 Martin Haven.
29:15Driver change, looks like that's Marino in.
29:17Brother Dario is here this weekend as well.
29:19We'd get him up to talk, but he can't talk.
29:21He couldn't talk much when he arrived and he's on a stag party with a lot of jocks.
29:26So you can imagine him talking even less now.
29:29Julien Jus, Formula 2 racer, has just stepped out of the car.
29:33Hello to everybody at Bedford Aerodrome who are wishing him well.
29:36Let's find out how his first ever stint at Le Mans has been going.
29:41Julien Jus, everything going well with the car in your first trip around Le Mans?
29:46No, it's dreadful.
29:47Yeah, no, everything's fine.
29:48Very happy with the car.
29:49We're in third position at the moment.
29:51We're in third position at the moment.
29:52And so we're the lead of the half-hourventure cars.
29:53We're lapping pretty consistently.
29:54And Sammy Pompidou has now gone out in the car.
29:56At the moment in third place.
29:57It's about as much as we can expect.
29:59It's impossible to fight with the factory cars.
30:01And we'll be very happy.
30:02If we can stay where we are, of course, we'll be in third place on the podium.
30:07Ginetta Zajtek has just bounced off the wall.
30:08This is Miguel Amaral.
30:09He's only just come back out of the pits having bounced off the top of the car.
30:10And then the car is in third position.
30:11And Sammy Pompidou has now gone out in the car.
30:13It's impossible to fight with the corvettes of the car.
30:14It's impossible to fight with the corvettes of the car.
30:16They are regularly faster than 4 or 5 seconds.
30:19At the moment, in third place.
30:20It's about as much as we can expect.
30:22It's impossible to fight with the factory cars.
30:24So I hope that it will continue.
30:54And you're suspecting, I would think, perhaps, that he's just got an intermittent brake pedal.
30:59Easy for me to say.
31:01Well, that's still an intermittent brake problem.
31:07What I heard once referred to as an organic problem.
31:11Squashy bit between the pedals and the seat.
31:14Again, that's that perennial problem.
31:17The nut loose behind the wheel.
31:18Looking here at the AT2 Ferrari.
31:20Third in the GT2 class for Pierre Kaffer.
31:23And the gap, well, about 50 seconds behind the lead battle.
31:26Which, again, is just about a second apart.
31:29On board in Persia, number eight, Stefan Sarrazan.
31:32Again, to use that great TT quote.
31:34Sucking the rabbits out of the hedgerows at 200 miles an hour.
31:38And just making everything else look like, really, it is pedestrian, normal road traffic.
31:43Yeah, you're absolutely right, Martin.
31:45Three minutes, 28.9.
31:46You're absolutely right, Martin.
31:48Three minutes, 28.9.
31:50I've had to have a swig of drink there.
31:53I've got to turn the mic back on again.
31:55You hear the sucky of the rabbits out of the hedges.
31:58Well, I assume it's 28.9.
31:59They're for Stefan Sarrazan.
32:00Just, I think he's just driving freely within himself.
32:03I'm sure he can go faster.
32:05He knows he can go faster.
32:07And I'm sure he's under strict instructions from the pit lane.
32:10Just run a nice whatever for you is a consistent pace.
32:14Well, actually, possibly slightly more whatever for us is a consistent pace.
32:18We're already just about to lap the second best placed Audi.
32:22We've got 20 and a half hours to go.
32:25We do not need to be doing 25s when 30s patently will preserve the lead we've got.
32:30Now, obviously, at Le Mans, there is no lead that is big enough to account for the possibilities.
32:36However, you know, you have to be slightly realistic, Simon, and assume that maybe you're not going to get hit by an airstrike by the US Air Force or, you know, the biggest calamity.
32:48If it's a big enough calamity, no lead is going to protect you.
32:51So let's just keep it on the island, take fewer chances.
32:54Yeah, it was interesting the point that Johnny Molan was making when he joined us earlier about, you know, the way that the Audi guys seem to work well together.
33:01Is there that sense of super competitiveness?
33:03And you wonder now, Montani did that tremendous stint as we see, I think, Sam Rao making his way back.
33:08That tremendous stint at the beginning, maybe that was the plan.
33:11Let's go out there, let's really go for it.
33:13First run, first driver, then let's see.
33:16We've got Stefan Sarrazin to put in if we need to go crazy fast.
33:19But Stefan Sarrazin, he's an experienced, intelligent guy.
33:22He can do the chill out full drive as well as the super quick stuff too.
33:26Let's just switch gears to LMP2.
33:28We've just had both the class leading cars into the pit lane.
33:31There is the number five car of now Keisuke Kunimoto.
33:36They've just made the driver change.
33:37I was watching it take place right in front of me.
33:39And unfortunately for those guys, the number 66 Aston Martin, Thomas Gruber had been off the road into the ground.
33:46But he got it back on the track and he parked it directly in front of the car number five.
33:51The LMP2 second place car.
33:53They had to push the Kunimoto backwards in order to pull around to get out of the way.
33:57That was not very gentle.
33:58Well, we've already seen what his parking skills are like on the Mulsar on the chicane there.
34:03So, yeah, he dragged the car back in.
34:05Now he's there softly lit by the chandelier.
34:07See now, if they were a proper racing team, they'd have a table with a white tablecloth and candelabras on it laid for dinner beneath that chandelier.
34:14But obviously that's for next year.
34:16That's an improvement in the program.
34:17I guess they just had to move it out of the way to get the car in.
34:19Well, there are some things that are more important than motor racing, dear boy.
34:23It takes me back to my child of going to watch F1 in the late 70s and early 80s and watching Ferrari have their lunch with pasta, full chef, labrosco, the whole lot.
34:33Including the driver's license and having a glass of wine.
34:36And perhaps that's taking it stage too far, but it was the whole, we're Italian, we're going to have a proper lunch.
34:41Yeah, I think you've got a heart battle there, because that was not very gentle with those guys.
34:44They literally grew up right in front of the number five Porsche.
34:51Yeah, Porsche RX Spyder.
34:53And to pull that car back, and that could be significant, because there was a pretty good battle going on between those LMP2 cars.
34:59The car number 31, the Team Essex machine, they did not change drivers.
35:03So Casper Elmegaard remained at the wheel.
35:05So already they had an advantage there, because more time, of course, spent changing drivers in car number five.
35:10Because Seiji Auer had been at the wheel of that car for a long, long time.
35:14But that cost them at least another five or six seconds before Kunimojo was able to get out onto the race track.
35:20Again on board with Stefan Sarazan. David Brabham is about three minutes behind him.
35:25Marco Werner lies third for Audi. Dindo Capello fourth for Audi.
35:29We're going to take another quick commercial break, as we continue live from Le Mans on Eurosport to the other side of this word.
35:35Waiting to hoover up Audi number one in the Peugeot.
35:39G'day mate, welcome back to Le Mans with David Brabham on board Peugeot number nine in second flight.
35:47And we'll stop that there.
35:48Stefan Sarazan leads Le Mans, David Brabham in Peugeot number nine in second place.
35:52The two team cars on the same lap and just four cars on the lead lap.
35:58Brabham is about three minutes behind Stefan Sarazan.
36:01And that gap opened up between the two Peugeot really in the first hour and a half, I suppose.
36:08And since then, okay, now it's time to get down to the plan.
36:11We've got our top two positions.
36:13That's Miguel Amaral still going very slowly back to the pits in the number 40 car after going off early.
36:19And I don't imagine that much will change unless a spanner in the spokes occurs at Peugeot.
36:26I don't think that Brabham and his boys will be allowed to try and race the number eight car for the lead unless something delays them.
36:34I wonder also, Martin, if that incident early on, for those of you that may have missed the early part of the race,
36:39is a calamitous incident involving car seven and the privateer 17 Pescarola car involving a collision in the pit lane.
36:46I wonder if that maybe shook the Peugeot team and going, hang on, guys, we could lose this ourselves.
36:52If we don't just stop and think about this and every little thing has to be taken to the nth degree, pit stops, driver changes, everything.
36:59If we just take a step back, we've clearly got the pace. Let's just chill out a little bit and do this right.
37:04It's a salient reminder that we are still in hour one, not hour 24, and we are not sprinting to the flag.
37:11Amaral's car, it's looking pretty wrecked, Jeremy Shaw.
37:14Yeah, talking about not sprinting to the flag, that's a great shame. Those guys have worked really hard and they were...
37:22And actually you don't see that many mistakes from Miguel Amaral. He's normally not that prone to binning it,
37:28so two in two minutes is unfortunately not a great batting record.
37:32It comes back to that point that you made potentially a braking issue or some other issue with the car.
37:36It can happen very, very easy, as we know, so that could well have been it with the driver of Amaral's experience.
37:41You wouldn't expect that kind of thing to happen.
37:43Lots of experience, but nevertheless, very much a gentleman driver.
37:47And he's got two professionals there with him, Olivier Pla and Guy Smith.
37:51And there's a good view there of the Audi. They're pretty loose, these cars.
37:55They don't have, of course, a lot of downforce, particularly on the rear of the cars.
37:58And putting the power don't come out of our Dodge, nice bit of opposite lock.
38:02That one will be the Peugeot, but I take your point. There's been a lot of drivers at Audi.
38:05There's been a lot of drivers saying just how twitchy the tail of that Peugeot looks.
38:10A lot of the other drivers saying when they go by you and they go on the brakes, you can see the tail stepping out.
38:15A little quick look at the Ginetta Zitek there. Hopefully we're going to get Nigel Moore to come up a little later.
38:20Richard Dean. So that will be when Laurence Tomlinson is in the car.
38:23So we'd better keep it quick because the boss doesn't want to do all the donkey work.
38:27But for the fans back home, let's have a little look while we watch Audi and Peugeot.
38:31Let's have a little chat about the top British cars in the field, which are the Lola Aston Martins in 7th and 8th place.
38:38Thomas Enger in 7th position, Jos Verstappen in 8th place.
38:42And I can add to that.
38:43I can add. Yeah, go ahead, Jeremy Shaw.
38:45Jos Verstappen brought the 008 car into the pits last time around.
38:49And now on pit lane right in front of us, sort of cargo off right to the right, is the 007 car, Thomas Enger, that was at the wheel.
38:56I think remains so, doesn't he?
38:58I think he may. In fact, that's 009. That is the delayed third car.
39:03Yes, lots of headlamp flashing. That's very much a feature here.
39:07I'm sure one of the things designers are asked by the drivers is, can you give me brighter headlights?
39:12Like, could you make them melt the car in front? Greg, have you got any ray gums, you know, laser beams, that sort of thing?
39:17Well, I think since anybody that's got Zenon headlights on their road car will know the benefit you've got of that.
39:22There's a great shot there of what Le Mans is all about.
39:24Janetta is a manufacturer providing lots of different forms of motorsport from Janetta Junior to G20s, G50s and now the Zytec programme.
39:32And their staircase of talent has produced this wonderful young driver, Nigel Moore, 17 years old.
39:3717 years old, you're going down the Mulsanne Strait in a prototype and you look in your mirror and there's an Audi coming past you.
39:43And last year you were racing at Mallory Park and the like, and that shows you what this race can do for a young driver's career.
39:50It is still the one blue ribboned event that an amateur driver can do.
39:55You can't race the Monaco Grand Prix, you can't race the Indy 500, you can still race at Le Mans as an amateur.
40:02Not as an impecunious amateur, you do need to have a bit of backing behind you, but you can get in in your first drive at Le Mans
40:08and be in amongst the world's greatest sports car drivers in a race that everybody knows.
40:14And it is the great thrill of Le Mans for many drivers. It is just to be able to come here and race this fantastic event.
40:20And it's interesting, I've been walking around the site today just looking at all the fans that are here.
40:25The amount of Janetta flags, people have really taken them to their heart. The British fans love Le Mans and they love a British underdog.
40:31I'm guessing the factory at Sheffield isn't busy today. Here's João Barbosa.
40:34Everything is going well. Everything is going according to plan so far.
40:39You know, it's still very early in the race, but so far no mistakes and no problems at all, so everything looks good.
40:46With the diesel cars in the front and the Aston Martins and you and the Oricas behind, what do you aim for here in this 24 hours?
40:53You know, it's very difficult to predict, but we definitely aim for a top 10 car.
40:57You know, I think we can still go for the overall and the petrols. The Aston Martins are surprising really fast.
41:04And, you know, but we have a good pace and we have our own rhythm and we're going to worry with a faster pace later tomorrow.
41:12How difficult is it for you that you have now two different cars in your team, that you don't run two similar cars, so you cannot exchange setup details?
41:20Well, actually, you know, the Pascarello Sport has been doing an amazing job with both cars. They've been very reliable and really fast.
41:29So, and it's different crews for each car, so it's not actually a big problem for us. We have different engineers, different mechanics for each car, so it's not a problem.
41:37Okay, thank you very much. Thanks.
41:39And, of course, they managed not to hit any of their Peugeot teammates.
41:43Speaking of which, Peugeot is still first and second. Sarazan ahead of Bradman. Miguel Amaral brings most of his wagon back in and that is going to cost them.
41:50Jeremy, probably the better part of an hour to rebuild that front corner and send him out. So, now it's just a race of survival, isn't it?
41:57Now, the only thing they've got to do is finish.
42:01They've already lost a lot of time with that car. They've been off the road several times, had a couple of delays, and that's really, well, I hesitate to say the end of any hope of a good finish, but pretty much the end of a hope of any good finish.
42:15I wonder whether the team are in a position where they've already built a corner up, so they've got the whole thing assembled.
42:20Well, they have had 20 minutes.
42:22Yes.
42:23What I'm meaning is that sometimes before the race, we also remember that the early days of the R8, the thing that the R8 was so impressed with, they could just drop the whole back end off the car.
42:31You know, gearbox, suspension, a lot, bang, changed a lot in about 10 minutes, and I think it's less than that, in fact.
42:36And this is possibly a case where we were talking earlier about how everybody's really learnt from each other and the different techniques for this new pit stop wall where only two guys are working out there.
42:46They're a very chilled out bunch of mechanics.
42:47Yeah, you see, they've still got all the others, only two of these are going to do any work for the rest of the weekend.
42:51Everybody else is catching a few sets.
42:53And actually, guys, seriously, that's because it's about 30 degrees down there and it's pretty stifling.
42:58There's a lot of moisture in the air.
43:00We are expecting rain tomorrow, but the heat here is not unusual at the moment, but it really saps you.
43:06The heat coming out of that concrete in the pit lane really takes it out of the cruise.
43:11Yeah, and they will say anybody that's ever worn a race suit for any length of time will know that how it just completely incubates the heat into your body and that it really is a very, very difficult thing.
43:20You see, most drivers, as soon as they're in a race suit around your waist, you know, cold water.
43:25We used to see the Group C days, you'd see buckets of ice on the floor, drivers sitting there looking like they're being literally wrung out.
43:31Now, meanwhile, back with the action, you can see on track, of course, is the one car, last year's champions, the guys that won the race last year.
43:40This combination of drivers, Capello, Christensen, and, of course, our own Alan McNish.
43:45Interesting to see the pace of the two drivers have driven so far in the number one car, which is McNish and Capello.
43:51It's been very similar, but I think at the moment it seems like pace generally has dropped off.
43:55We say possibly that Sarrazan was going to be able to go 25 or 24 when he got into the car, but everybody seems to be generally a little bit steadier at the very front at the moment.
44:06Yeah, I think you're right, except there goes, as you say that, David Bradman comes across the line in a 3 minutes 28.3.
44:12That's pretty respect. That's one of the quickest laps we've seen recently.
44:16It just, as we were talking there, the 007 Lola Aston Martin Thomas Enger came in for a very quick bit, so fuel only on that car.
44:28They've been having, he's been having a fabulous battle with his teammates, Jos Verstappen, who was in a couple of laps ago.
44:34I thought, as you said earlier on, Martin Haven, I thought it was the 007 car down in front.
44:39It was the 009, but the 007 has just been in.
44:42And they're on a strategy that is a couple of laps apart in terms of their pit stop.
44:46Here is the second place overall car onto the pit lane.
44:49When did Bradman last stop?
44:51He stopped last on lap 50.
44:53OK, it's now lap 62, so that's another 12 lapper, so yes, no problems at all.
44:58He stays in, drinks bottle obviously not full.
45:00That little addition of having something to drink really makes a difference.
45:06It helps cool the mouth down, and that does really strange things to your head.
45:10It makes you think you're not quite as hot as you are.
45:13It's amazing what a tiny little sip of liquid can do.
45:15A lot of them are under pressure, aren't they, with a little valve inside the helmet.
45:20You just bite the valve with your teeth just to deliver a little mouthful.
45:23And, of course, in years gone by, they used to have motorized ones that occasionally would must function
45:28and just try and drown the driver when they wouldn't go off on the steering wheel button.
45:32So, most of them try and use a little pressurized system that the driver bites to get the drink in.
45:37In comes eight, our race leader.
45:39Yes, that's absolutely on schedule here.
45:42Lap 63, so it was actually maybe slightly earlier than before.
45:47That car had done 13 laps on each of its previous stints.
45:50This time, it's only 12 laps.
45:53But, again, a perfect pit stop by kind of a nine a couple of seconds ago.
45:58Just fuel only.
45:59Looks like they're doing the same again for the race leader side.
46:01Yeah, it does look like they've got everything under control in terms of that.
46:05They were saying earlier that we talked about this incident where the Pescarello, Peugeot and the number seven car collided.
46:11The plan originally was to never to have two cars in at once.
46:15That hadn't happened in that stop earlier on.
46:17And you could see by the perfect timing of the Brabham going out, Sarrazin coming in, that they seem to have got themselves.
46:24Coming back to that point we made earlier, they seem to have learned from that big shake-up they had with the seven car.
46:29Let's not do that with the rest of our cars.
46:31I thought one of the key things that Henri Pescarello talked about was the fact that it was always the plan not ever to have any of the four Peugeot, his included, on the pit road at the same time.
46:41And he said Peugeot changed their mind.
46:44So his car was coming in, there were already two Peugeot in there, which was a mistake.
46:48And then waving the car out in front of his car was obviously an added mistake.
46:52But already that die had partially been cast by somebody in the Peugeot camp deciding,
46:57actually we're not sure we can go that extra lap with one of those cars.
47:02We've got to go in.
47:03GT2 leader is on pit road, Jörg Bergmeister gets out.
47:07Well, see, nobody's actually helping him.
47:09He's about seven foot twelve and really does need a bit of help to get out of a Porsche door
47:14because at waist height, in fact, at driver's rib height, is a bar that goes across to stop other things coming in.
47:20Cars, barriers, that sort of thing.
47:22And you have to get out, basically, if you think of the Dukes of Hazard, you're getting out of a shape,
47:26the size of the window, so it's not exactly easy stuff.
47:29And that looked to me like it was a team owner, Seth Nyman, getting into the number 80 car,
47:34a good bit shorter than Jörg Bergmeister.
47:36So this is going to be, for that team, a very crucial stint
47:39because Seth is very much a gentleman driver.
47:42He owns the team, that's why he's driving the car.
47:45And he's now, there's a lot of pressure on Seth now because he doesn't want to throw that car off the road.
47:50He is leading the class and he has to be pretty careful.
47:53009 back in the garage.
47:55It's the second unscheduled pit stop for the 009 Lola Aston Martin.
47:58Well, if all the bad luck is hovering over that car like an Albatross,
48:02it's going to be tough for Stuart Hall, Peter Cox and Harold Premat,
48:04but it might be better for the others.
48:06We're just about to leave you here on Eurosport 2.
48:09We will continue over on Eurosport International.
48:13Pierre Caffer, second in the GT2 cars.
48:15He's also on pit road as the Lola Aston Martin and Aston Martin Racing Boys
48:20battle to try and sort out what ails that 009 car.
48:25Stephen Sarrazan leads from David Brabham here at Le Mans.
48:28Coverage continues live back on the big dog.
48:31We're on Eurosport after this break.
48:36Turn here from 10.30 for a brief update.
48:39And of course the bulk of the night time racing will be on Eurosport through the night tonight.
48:46Pit stops fast and furious for the lead group.
48:49Dindo Capello's Audi car number one.
48:52You saw on pit road having service, nose being changed.
48:55I wonder whether they're going for a slightly higher downforce configuration
48:59from our elevated viewpoint.
49:01It looks like there are more louvers over the front wheel.
49:04It may just be that there was some problem with the lights or something else
49:08because you must have running lights on the cars.
49:10Also out goes car number 17.
49:12That's Simon Paginot in the Pescarolo Porsche.
49:15Martin Haven, Simon Hill and Jeremy Shaw with you.
49:18Jeremy, you've been keeping tabs on the fuel situation.
49:22Did they manage to squeeze an extra lap out of Capello's car?
49:26Did they manage to squeeze anything extra out of the tank in Paginot's number 17?
49:30Yes.
49:31Ah!
49:3213 laps for both of those two on that stint.
49:35Simon Paginot's car, they did change tyres due to a fresh set of Michelin's
49:40onto the car number 17, the Pescarolo Sport Peugeot.
49:43And at car number one, we saw a change in the nose.
49:46That's the second time they've done that, isn't it?
49:48That's car number one.
49:49I think that's absolutely right, yes.
49:51They do have different configurations, the noses.
49:53The louvers over the front wheels, which are to take air out from the brakes and so on.
49:58They also have an aerodynamic effect.
50:00They can create more or less downforce.
50:01They help to balance the rear wing.
50:03It may be perhaps that the driver was complaining of understeer.
50:07Maybe he was complaining of oversteer where the back of the car is loose because there's too much grip at the front.
50:12So it's a very subtle way of balancing the car aerodynamically, which of course here at over 200 miles an hour on the straights is so important.
50:21Completely right.
50:22And the other key thing with that is that we talked about the fact that the only possible disadvantage of the diesel is we see one of the Peugeot.
50:30I can't see which one that is from here running very, very wide.
50:33There's the level of commitment trying to take a good run, getting a better run obviously in a faster car out of the Royal Saint-Cicaine there.
50:39Clearly adding no other option than to either brake or go on the gravel.
50:43And racing drivers tend not to like to brake at the start of the straight for obvious reasons.
50:48It loses an awful lot of momentum.
50:49Point was, we're talking about the handling characteristics.
50:51Heavy engine at the back, a diesel engine obviously heavier than a petrol engine.
50:54Anyone that drives a diesel road car will know what we mean.
50:56Therefore, sometimes they have to jack the car up a little bit more.
50:59They sit the car a bit higher at the back than they are at the front.
51:02It can affect the handling.
51:03It means they have to balance the car aerodynamically in a slightly different way.
51:07Looking here at the battle, Jeremy, between the two Pescarello team cars as Audi number three is on pit lane.
51:13This car now back up to eighth.
51:15Yes.
51:16And who's at the wheel?
51:17Timo Bernhardt.
51:18Remains at the wheel of that car.
51:19He's not anonymous as it has on the timing.
51:22That's his second pit stop, so it'll be a third stint for Timo Bernhardt.
51:26They did, however, put fresh Michelin tyres on this time around.
51:30Well, do you know what?
51:31For the extra 20 seconds it takes, they probably need the speed, don't they?
51:36Checking inside the huge, gaping, whale-like mouth of that Audi and clearly looking for debris or something that might be causing it to overheat.
51:46As we see the two Pescarello run cars, the diesel Peugeot and the petrol engine Pesca Judd swapping positions on the racetrack.
51:54Well, they are a couple of laps apart, several laps apart.
51:57Number two is on pit road, Magic Marco.
52:00Marco Werner is still at the wheel of that one.
52:03Again, a scheduled stop here for car number two.
52:06And again, ready to go with the nose.
52:08Three, two, one, as soon as the fuel...
52:11I was spot on!
52:12As soon as the fuel hoses come off, click, off come those fasteners, off comes the nose.
52:16So again, and maybe, Simon Hill, this is because of having just six hours of relentlessly wet running on Wednesday where really nothing got done in terms of hot, dry conditions.
52:27And then Thursday, we didn't start till seven at night till now.
52:31We have not run in the heat of the day like this at all at Le Mans this year.
52:35And so we're now perhaps seeing them changing back to a more evening configuration where the track is getting a little less slick, a little less slippery as maybe some of the heat comes out from the sun.
52:47Yeah, the temperature changes and the rubber is increasing massively now.
52:50Obviously, we're getting more and more and more, 65 laps now of intense driving for these guys throughout the 55 cars.
52:57And that could be a factor too.
52:58Also, the real key thing, if you said quite rightly, Martin, is that they are still really thinking, right, we pretty much think we know where we need to go with this car.
53:06But the only way you're going to find out is when you get Dindo Capello, Alan McNish and the rest of the guys going, this is what this car's doing for me at the moment.
53:13I need, as a racing driver, the car to do this.
53:16So one way of doing it is an aerodynamic change like that or a setup change, which has to be done quickly, as we've seen.
53:22And it does make me laugh when I see that, that the way these guys are hovering over the car, ready to go with their spanners there to do the job of this rule of let's have two guys, only two guys.
53:31It's going to be cost saving.
53:33No, it's not. It's just changed the way they go about it.
53:36The fundamental problem with that cost saving is you can't run one of these cars with just two mechanics.
53:41You need the whole team of mechanics, so they're all here anyway.
53:44Anyway, so like a NASCAR race, Jeremy, we're seeing the cars, the teams chasing the setup of the car as weather conditions change, as the track rubbers up.
53:53It's going to be very interesting.
53:55Yeah, quite frankly, I hate it that the pit stops take so long in the Le Mans series, but that's just a perfect event.
54:01Well, if you want quick pit stops, you can go to Formula One, because you don't get racing, but you know.
54:05Yeah, that's too fast.
54:06Right, let's get down to the pit road, catch up with Lucas Luhr.
54:10Lucas Luhr, the cars were just inside, and your car changed the front. Why?
54:16Lucas, the car was in the pit, it looked like you were changing the nose at the front. What was that all about?
54:24So yeah, we're trying to balance the setup of the car. Well, obviously from the start, it's been clear that Peugeot is quite a lot faster than us, so we're trying to find a bit of pace.
54:38Can you give us a little more details? No.
54:43But it doesn't look that bad at the moment. We want 20 hours still to go, so a lot of changes can happen here. Peugeot is going very, very fast though.
54:56Can you go as quickly as that? Well, car 3 had a few problems at the beginning, but we're still fighting.
55:07Okay.
55:08And we're here, we will not give up right till the end.
55:11Well, Didier-Andre Pierrague and Frank Maillot, we talked about them a few minutes ago, and the car could not possibly have stopped in a worse place if they'd sat down and scratched their heads and planned it.
55:21It's not only just about at the end of the laps, he's got to do another whole one, he's on the opposite side of the pit wall where he wants to be.
55:28Now, somehow, he's gone through the start sequence and got that car going again.
55:33I'm not quite sure what was up with it, but it's a very bizarre place to choose to park for a Sunday picnic.
55:39That has all the sort of indications of a kind of come out of the chicane, call for a gear, nothing happens, car suddenly won't work, some sort of electro-hydraulically issue maybe.
55:52Gone for the good old-fashioned switch it all off, switch it back on again.
55:55Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, and would appear this time, luckily for Didier, it has worked.
56:00The other option might be he was sitting there flicking on the reserve tank pump.
56:04Yes, it could well be the one.
56:05So, you know, not everybody is still absolutely on the money when it comes to how far the fuel goes, possibly.
56:10But, yeah, it seems unlikely that it was anything other than either fuel or electrics, because if it was more major than that, it wouldn't have got going quite so quickly.
56:18There was no pools of oil and no smoke, which is a good sign from that point of view.
56:23So, we're going to take a quick commercial break. You can see the standings there in front of you.
56:27This is after four hours of the Le Mans race.
56:30Peugeot still very much the dominant force here.
56:33They've got track position and pace.
56:36Audi are doing some serious head-scratching in the Le Mans 24 hours.
56:45Welcome back live to Le Mans, where, as you can see, it's a Corvette 123 at the moment in the GT1 class.
56:52Looking there at the 64 car, the second of the Corvettes in the running order.
56:57Don't forget, leman.eurosport at yahoo.com is our email address.
57:01Get to a couple of the questions in a short while.
57:04Thank you to everybody for pointing out that Bruno Senna did not crash the Orica car earlier on.
57:08It was Stefan Ortele, incidentally.
57:10I had had my eyes off the screen while they changed over.
57:14Peugeot lead, one, two.
57:16Audi, three, four.
57:18And Aston Martin, the Lola Aston Martins, Aston Martin Racing in five and six positions overall.
57:24So let's have a quick word in the pits.
57:27We're going to catch up with Dr. Wolfgang Ulrich.
57:29He is the head of the Audi racing operation.
57:32Dr. Ulrich, I've just asked Lukas Lohr why the front was switched to both cars.
57:41We've really had a chat with Lukas Lohr about changing the noses on the front of the cars.
57:46He couldn't tell us an awful lot.
57:48What about it?
57:49But what we're trying to do with the new bodywork, the different bodywork is to get a bit more pace out of the car.
57:56We've had a bit of problem with the steering on the cars.
58:00So we're trying to sort the cars with a problem that hasn't appeared during qualifying.
58:08Are you going to find enough speed to catch the Peugeots?
58:12Well, certainly we're going to try to.
58:14Thank you, sir.
58:18The gap is seemingly a little larger than they expected to the Peugeot after qualifying.
58:24So Mark Hall and Liz Halliday joining me in the booth now.
58:29And guys, it's been a frantic start to the race.
58:33And Mark, it does seem that Peugeot have basically used the hare and the tortoise strategy, only they didn't have any horses.
58:40They've just, any tortoises, they've just gone pairing off at the front and built a substantial advantage over Audi.
58:46And now they are sitting, doing a good race pace, maintaining that gap.
58:51Yeah, now Audi should be worried, very, very worried at this point, because Peugeot have been forced inting their tyres in this heat.
58:57And they were still, Sarazan was still running close to 25 at times in this heat.
59:03I mean, that is quite, quite of great concern to Audi.
59:08Audi, we know a bit more about Audi.
59:10We've been down there.
59:11What's happening?
59:12This new nose shape is just sucking up any debris there is around the track.
59:15We saw it with Alan McNish a couple of hours ago.
59:17He had something jammed in the front.
59:19I mean, you know, we've used this phrase before.
59:21Peugeot are going down the straight, sucking all the rabbits out the hedges and now just picking them up.
59:26Yes, it's a bit of an unusual situation.
59:32There's only one time we've ever seen Audi not on the pace.
59:35That was the first year they came here with the R8s and the R8R and R8C.
59:39The first ever Audis that raced here, then the race was won by BMW.
59:44Since then, whenever an Audi has been here, it's won the race and more than often clean swept the podium.
59:49So this is an unusual situation for the team to be in, fighting back.
59:53Not a situation they would want to be in either, I think.
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