Allan McNish talks to Auto Express
Le Mans legend chats about his attempt to win the French endurance event for the third time.
Winning Le Mans once is a great achievement, but 40-year-old Scottish ace Allan McNish is bidding to add a third crown to his previous victories in 1998 and 2008. He joins Italian star Dindo Capello and Dane Tom Kristensen – the most successful driver ever at Le Mans with eight wins – in sharing the lead Audi R15 TDI. Catching up with McNish at Audi’s flagship dealer in West London, the first thing we ask is how well he gets on with his illustrious teammates:
“Imagine sharing a cramped, personal office with two guys for the best part of half a year – that’s how it is. But to win you’ve got to work well as a team and we get on really well. Tom and I are similar – very competitive – but Dindo is different, when we’re getting too stressed he takes us off to get a coffee and relax which works well.”
On meeting the likeable Scot he’s clearly in tune with what it takes for him to be a very competitive, energetic racer:
“I don’t do anything special to train for Le Mans. We do five endurance tests and races a year so they keep me fit. In the run up to the race I just try to relax and conserve energy – for me Le Mans is more mentally and emotionally demanding than physical because the track has such long straights.”
McNish tells us the hardest part of the race to be early in the morning. And at last year’s event this proved particularly pertinent. “We knew the Audi wasn’t quite quick enough to beat the Peugeots, so driving at that time of the morning, still with ten hours to go, knowing that the best result we could get was third was seriously mentally demanding.”
But despite how tough it is to race at the Circuit de la Sarthe, McNish relishes the challenge of driving the track, “particularly the big, fast, meaty corners of Indianapolis and the Porsche Curves which you really have to attack.”
It’s not just on the racetrack that McNish enjoys the thrill of driving. Unlike a lot of racers who don’t care much for road driving, he’s not averse to going for a spin, particularly when he’s back in Scotland:
“I don’t do that many miles in a year because I fly and get chauffeured around a lot. But when I’m back in Scotland there’s a great bit of road between Dumfries, which is where I’m from, and Moffat. There’s one downhill straight followed by a right-hand corner that’s identical to Hawthorns at Brands Hatch I used to drive all the time when I was younger – I was always fast at Brands as a result!”
Despite dabbling in F1, it’s clearly the great team atmosphere of endurance racing that McNish thrives upon. In the week before the race, endurance is the name of the game as he has countless interviews, appearances and other commitments to attend, as well as scrutineering and qualifying before the flag drops on June 12th.
“We do a full grand prix season’s worth of mileage in 24 hours. And that’s without changing any parts on the car, except stopping to change tyres and add fuel; without any crashes into backmarkers; without any other racing incidents. You have to drive a perfect race to win Le Mans because if you don’t, someone else will – that’s what it takes to win.”
