June 18: Audi dominates the Le Mans 24 Hours

Such was the effort of the four-ringed marque, nobody really stood a chance against the trio of Audi R8s. The cars were developed especially for Le Mans and underwent six months of testing before taking to the track for the world's most famous endurance race.

The ultra-successful team of Allan McNish, Stephane Ortelli and Laurent Aiello was re-united by Audi for the 2000 race having won the La Sarthe classic in 1998 with Porsche. The victor's spoils, however, went to the sister car of Frank Biela, Tom Kristensen and Emanuele Pirro after gearbox problems hampered McNish's R8 late on Saturday evening.

A brief pitstop enabled the Audi mechanics to whip off the complete rear end and bolt on a replacement, but the time lost dropped the No.9 car down to third place. A spirited fight back from McNish involved a draining multiple stint early on Sunday morning, but it was to no avail and the 1998 winners had to be content with second spot.

"I pushed hard all the time," McNish said afterwards, "It was only at my final stop when it became apparent we could not catch Pirro. For the last couple of hours I was going for it, but with more than two minutes to make up it was obvious we would have to hold place for second."

The only other car to lead the race was the Panoz of David Brabham, Jan Magnussen and Mario Andretti, which slipped into the lead in the hands of Brabham following a period under yellows during the first hour of the race. The LMP Roadster S did not hold the Audis for long and by the second hour, Brabham was swallowed by the silver trio and demoted to fourth.

Motorsport legend Andretti returned to Le Mans for the eighth time and turned in some very respectable lap times during the 60-year-old's late night stints in the Panoz. This year could be Andretti's final trip to the La Sarthe circuit as a driver and the sense of occasion was heightened further still by listeners bidding live on Radio Le Mans for the former Formula 1 and CART champion's race gloves.

Le Mans 2000 was definitely Audi's year and talk immediately turned to 2001 in the post-race press conference. Second-placed Laurent Aiello said it all: "Who knows if we'll be back, nothing needs to be improved, we got the top three."


"I was doing max revs at 300 kph. There was a big fire and it took me 10 seconds to stop the car. It's a shame, at the start of the race things were looking good."

"Somebody must have been smoking the most massive joint. Not that I know what it smells like of course. My sister told me."

"The car is perfect, apart from the mechanical problem..."

"The Audis are really mega. They haven't had any really bad luck, but then we haven't had any good luck."