Interviews Midday - Finish
Radio le Mans - Nick Damon, Joe Bradley, Graham Tyler Eurosport -Jeremy Shaw

David Brabham – Aston Martin #009

“I have no idea (if it’s wetter at the back of the circuit); the lap times are up and down at the moment, and we’ve got wets at the ready if we need them. Darren is out there and he’ll be a better judge of the situation. There’s no point taking risks and we can afford to be conservative.

“It’s been a hell of a fight with the Corvettes; we knew it would be tough and it has been. It’s great to be a part of the battle.”

John Doonan – Mazda

“We’ve seen a heroic effort from KSM after the crash in qualifying, but sadly we had a gearbox failure at 3am.

“We’ve been developing the engine in the ALMS with BK and Kruse is the first team in Europe to run the engine. We’ve seen good results in the LMS and were hoping for one here; but I got to have a shower at three o’clock and didn’t want that opportunity. For the first six hours, the car just ran like a top.

"For us, the engine program is very relevant to our road car engines – we race what we sell and we sell what we race. I’ll need to shake the piggy bank a bit harder to think about LMP1; but we’ve got a great partnership with AER and Lola and we may have some surprises coming in the next few months.”  

Johnny Mowlem - Creation AIM #14

"For me, this has personified what Le Mans is all about. The team did a great job after practice, then Stuart and I both had blow-outs; I found myself sliding along the barrier for 200 metres at 160 mph! The floor was broken in my crash, so the team glued it back together and we carried on. Without the blow-outs we would be in the top ten.

"One of the blow-outs was due to a cut tyre, but mine was too badly damaged to determine the cause. Mike Jankowski had invested in tyre sensors and that saved us twice more." 

Mika Salo - Risi Ferrari #82

"Everything is going exactly like we planned; no problems at all. We've had such bad luck all year, but not here. We've still got two hours to go, however, so we have to take it easy to the end."

Peter van Merksteijn – van Merksteijn Porsche #34

“It’s unbelievable what is happening now. We’ve got an hour and a go and we hope everything will be okay. The quality of the Porsche is great, everyone knows that. This is the first time the car has raced at Le Mans and we’re leading; and I believe the second LMP2 is the other Porsche. The whole team has done a great job and I want to thank them all. Unbelievable.”

Tim Greaves – Team Bruichladdich Radical #26

“We’re really delighted to be still in it. We had some problems early on – a seatbelt kept coming undone while Gunnar was in and he had to keep stopping to get it sorted; that lost us several laps. Then we had an ECU problem and an off in the wet at dawn.

“It’s Radical’s tenth anniversary this year and we’ve already built over 800 cars. Everyone likes the idea of driving them – they’re fast, comfortable and entertaining.

“One of our drivers couldn’t come up with the budget, unfortunately, so that gave me a chance to repay Ben a few favours; he’s a fun guy to have around and Gunnar has been a real asset to the team.”

Jos Vertappen - van Merksteijn Porsche #34

"I think nothing can happen now - there's 25 minutes left and we've got a seven lap lead so they can't catch us. Peter's in the car now - it's his toy, so he can finish."