Winners Comments

After One Of The Best Ever

Wolfgang Ullrich

“This was a very emotional win, a very good and a very special race against very good and very strong competition.

“I am particularly pleased that this is our third consecutive win, the second time we (the factory team) have achieved that.  That means we can keep the trophy again.

“I am particularly proud that this trophy is an all TDI diesel driven treble win.”

On the prospects of Audi returning in 2009

“You know that we announce our plans for the year ahead in October but there is a big chance that we will be here again next year.

“We announced a 5 year motorsport programme and ACO LMP racing was a part of that.”

Tom Kristensen:

“This was the best, and the hardest of all my wins.  This was motorsport on the very highest level.

“Of course I am happy and proud about the number of wins but its about the team.

“They gave us the car, the tyres and the best drivers available.

“They also gave us the weather forecast and they helped us to make exactly the right calls. If this had been a fully dry race we probably wouldn’t have won.”

What were you thinking about at the end of the race?

“I was concentrating on not running over Daniel Poissenot as I knew he would be standing in the middle of the street!”

Rinaldo Capello:

“The car in the race poster never wins the race here.  In 2004 Mr Goh had paid a large amount to have his car on the poster and we persuaded him not to do it.

“When I saw the poster this year, not only with our car but with me in it I wasn’t happy at all but now I hope we are on it again in 2009.

“In terms of performance it seemed we had no chance but in the pits it was faultless.  We took fuel, we changed tyres and that was it.”

Allan McNish:

“This win was very different, but in some ways very similar to my 1998 win.

“On both occasions I didn’t have the fastest car but it was a good and reliable one and both times it was settled in the final hour.

“This one was the hardest Le Mans I have ever lived through.  We couldn’t make mistakes.  We had one chance and we took it.  Even if we hadn’t won we could have taken pride in the way we fought for the whole race.  We had to put huge pressure on Peugeot to make the opportunities that we got and that required long stints to put us in that position.

“Everything had to be perfect, not to take the win but to even have a chance of taking the opportunity if it came up. It did, we were and the result is almost unbelievable.

“In 2000 it was painful to lose, in 2004 it was one of those where stupid things happened.  But in 2007 we were off into the distance before the accident.  That one really hurt not just because we lost it but because I really didn’t believe that we could replicate the perfection that the team produced again, particularly as then we were not only so much faster than the rest but made all the right calls and made absolutely no mistakes at all.

“I am very grateful indeed to the whole team that they managed to prove me wrong!”