One might not think that this year's 24 hours of Le Mans race was particularly exciting if they didn't bother to read beyond the headlines of AUDI WINS AGAIN (it took the second, third, and fifth positions as well). After all, the R8s from the Audi teams have basically dominated the P1 class over the last four years. So where's the news in that?
Well, what if you were to learn that overall victory for the entire 24 hour race was determined by less than a minute, or that one of the winning drivers tied the legendary Jacky Ickx as the only other person to win at Le Mans a record six times? I don't know how everyone else defines an exciting race, but this combined with the amazing work several pit crews accomplished to rebuild (and re-race) wrecked cars sure piqued my interest, maybe not for the entire twenty-four hours but certainly at the end of the race and during several reviews of the highlights.
When time expired at 4 pm Sunday, the Audi Sport Japan Team Goh comprising drivers Tom Kristensen, Seiji Ara and Rinaldo Capello led Johnny Herbert's Audi Sport UK Team Veloqx by a mere forty one seconds bringing Audi's total of wins at le Circuit de la Sarthe to four (since 1999; Bentley won overall in 2003). In the GTS Class, Corvettes took first and second in somewhat of an upset as the ProDrive Ferrari 550 GTO Maranello never totally recovered from a crash late in the evening and gave up the overall lead with just four hours remaining. The Peterson/White Lightning Porsche GT3 RSR took tenth overall and won the GT Class with drivers Massen/Bergmeister/Long.
Only an hour earlier, under terrible racing conditions at the 24-hour endurance race at the Nuerburgring, two BMW M3 GTRs edged out the Porsche GT3 MR of Lucas Luhr for the overall victory.
For a complete recap of the race and the results, see www.americanlemans.com and http://adac.24h-rennen.de/live/liveresult.asp.
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