McNish proud of 'perfect' performance

McNish, along with teammates Tom Kristensen and Dindo Capello, celebrated their triumph in the number two Audi despite rivals Peugeot starting the race as favourites after filling the first three places in qualifying.

McNish admitted his team had to do a flawless job to beat the French cars, and claimed that he would have been even if they had not won the race.

"We knew that we couldn't make any mistakes. We knew that if we had any technical problems we would be out," said McNish.

"The pitstops and driving had to be perfect, otherwise we wouldn't have a chance. The one chance we had was in the morning when it was raining and we took it very well.

"I was very, very proud of the job we did, even if we hadn't won, because we did everything perfectly.

"We knew we couldn't compete in qualifying but we knew we had a good car in qualifying and we knew we had to be very aggressive right from the start to have a chance.

"We had to put pressure on Peugeot because without pressure you don't make mistakes and the opportunities may never arise, you have to create them," added the Scot, whose team had been beaten by Peugeot in the first three Le Mans Series races this season.

Sunday's win earned McNish his second Le Mans victory, exactly ten years after his maiden one.

"It feels very different to my first victory, but also very similar because in 1998 we didn't have the fastest car, but we had a very good team and good reliability and we had to fight 100 per cent to win the race," he added.

"It was also very similar because it was only one hour before the end."