Allan McNish: Going the Distance

It's great to be back racing in Europe with Audi in the Le Mans Series and I'm looking forward to sharing my experiences with you here on autosport.com through the year.

In my column, I hope to share our highs and lows, give you an insight as to what it is like to race for a factory team in sportscars, and hopefully, give you an insider's view into our Le Mans 24 Hours campaign. Warts and all!

Racing against Peugeot in the Le Mans Series is what we having been waiting for - and the sport has needed in Europe - for a very long time.

When Audi began sportscar racing in 1999, the category was enjoying a halcyon period with several manufacturers providing a very competitive group of cars on both sides of the Atlantic. Then within 24 months, most of the manufacturers left to do other things and sportscars fell into a lull, at least in the top prototype category.

So, we have been waiting on Peugeot, or a team like them, to come back and fight for supremacy at the top of our sport. And, while they competed at Le Mans, Peugeot's programme and Audi's did not clash anywhere else last year. This season however, we have already gone head-to-head at Sebring, and Audi and Peugeot are both committed to full two-car programmes in the LMS.

That, and the fact that Porsche, which won Sebring (with its competitive LMP2 RS Spyder) and Honda, now have works programmes in the American Le Mans Series, means sportscar racing is seriously competitive again. These are the circumstances we want, because Audi is a racing team and I'm a racing driver. We are not interested in anything except pure competition.

So, while fifth position in the opening round of the LMS at Barcelona on Sunday was disappointing for me and my team-mate Dindo Capello, from a personal point of view, I really enjoyed the fight.

To be blunt, Peugeot were extremely fast all weekend, and particularly in qualifying. If I knew why that was, we would be doing the same, but, come race day there were still a few instances and situations where we were better. Over a race distance, we know we are closer to them on pace as well.

Last year we saw Peugeot's potential at Le Mans, and they took pole position at Sebring last month as well. Right now, they have got to be seen as favourites as we look ahead to Le Mans. They have very good pace, they'll be on home ground, they've had a year's experience and they've got good momentum.

Strange as it may seem coming from an Audi driver, we are wee bit of a David to their Goliath, because we don't have Peugeot's sheer pace. Instead, we've got to try and use every little trick that we know to keep in touch and to put them under pressure.

There is no question there that there isn't a resting place for us now. The competition's got tougher, they are very good, they know what they are doing and they deserve our respect.

But, while Peugeot's Marc Gene and Nicolas Minassian won the race at Barcelona by a lap, ahead of our sister Audi driven by Alex Premat and Mike Rockenfeller, it was interesting to see how fragile their drivers were under pressure. Both their cars were damaged in incidents with backmarkers, and that was encouraging.

Before we had the slow puncture and then the alternator belt break, I had been able to stay with the leading Peugeot and we even led after the caution period.

I've been doing this job long enough to know how these races play out. In endurance racing if you have a performance disadvantage, even a small one, you've got to get in there and fight. You can't sit back and expect reliability issues to hit your rivals. If you fight, you can turn the race around to your advantage.

We saw Peugeot have reliability problems last year and at Sebring, but at the weekend, their loss of time was due to accidents and driver mistakes. Now they have proved that they can run the distance technically, we have to stick it to them.

That's not to say reliability won't be a factor this year. Competition diesel racers, including Peugeot, by their nature have issues in this regard. Barcelona was the first race both of their cars have run through without a technical problem.

We have had quite a few different problems as well, although it's not been one consistent issue. I'm not too concerned too much about reliability for Le Mans, because we've obviously got an endurance test coming up and bits and pieces to try on the car.

But I'm very interested to see whether Peugeot really have got it licked or not. We will race at Monza and Spa before we get to Le Mans. Monza will be hard on the engines because there are long periods where the throttle is wide open and it's also tough on gearboxes because we are just going up and down them all the time.

Then at Spa, the high G-loads in the fast corners will introduce another element to test the cars.

There is no question we are looking at them as much as they are looking at us right now.

If we have an advantage this year, it's in Audi's strategy and race craft.

In the LMS, you've got up to 49 other cars to overtake, and there is a lot that comes into racing on such a busy race-track; car adaptability, driveability, reliability, and that's notwithstanding the driver's influence and how good he is in traffic. In those instances, we are very good.

Dindo Capello pits during the Barcelona 1000km © XPB/LAT

Also you often get pitstops under the safety car in endurance racing. We got out in the lead at Barcelona purely because our guys are very good at pitstops. Part of the reason for this is because we were under severe pressure from Porsche last year in the ALMS, where for much of the season the LMP2 cars had a weight advantage over us.

Therefore, we are totally attuned to pressure situations and what we have to do to respond when we are not necessarily the quickest.

But we don't intend to rely on canny race craft. We know that Peugeot have got a little bit more grip than us, and in race trim, a little bit more top-end speed, and we are doing everything we can to improve the R10 TDI to make it more competitive.

We are working hard to try and catch up the performance gap and we are obviously working on reliability as well because that is something that bit us hard in the last two races at Sebring and Barcelona.

Also it's going to take us a while to learn how the LMS works. Audi has been racing sportscars for the best part of a decade, and there have been Audis in the LMS before, but as a factory effort, this is our first attempt.

A silly example of how much we have to learn is that in the ALMS, five minutes before practice starts, everybody dashes into the fast lane of the pits so that they can be first out on track. If you miss that five-minute slot then you don't go out until the last car has gone, which means you get caught in heavy traffic.

In Europe you can't do that. It's little things like this that can knock you off your rhythm. If you have ten of those things through the course of a day, then it has a big knock-on effect.

As drivers we've also got to learn the different competitors' cars and drivers. We need to learn who we can trust to dive down the inside of when lapping, and which people we have to take a sharp intake of breath before giving total 120% commitment to passing. Peugeot's drivers already have a year's experience of this.

And while we're on the subject of the competition, it's not just Peugeot that we have to keep an eye on this year. The new Lola Aston Martin, which finished third on its debut at Barcelona, was very impressive. I looked at its lap times on occasions during the race and on a clear track, it was fast.

Then there are the ORECA-run Courages. They have just recently introduced a new aero-package to that car, and we all know what that team is capable of. Plus there are the likes of Pescarolo.

Jos Verstappen, Porsche RS Spyder © LMS

One car that did piss me off a little bit, was the Van Merksteijn Racing Porsche RS Spyder. I thought I'd escaped those damn Porsches back in the ALMS, so when I looked in my mirror on the warm up lap and saw Jos Verstappen sitting behind me I thought, oh no, here we go again! They were good last weekend. Jos is an excellent driver, but even the team boss Peter van Merksteijn was a lot faster than I expected.

When we go to the Nurburgring and Silverstone, a well-run LMP2 car like that is going to be very competitive.

When I got home from Barcelona, I watched the ALMS race from St Petersburg (old habits die hard!), where my Audi Sport North America teammates were racing against the Penske Porsches, and I've got to say it made for mega entertainment.

Watching LMP1s and LMP2s fighting side-by-side for the lead really showed up the difference between the European and American sporting mentality.

To Americans, sport is entertainment, so they love their safety car periods for 'apparent' debris on the back straight. But a pure sporting European racer doesn't like that because it is not the through-bred stuff we are used to. To us, the fastest guy from A to B wins and if the guy in second can't compete, that's his problem.

In America they help the weaker guys and penalise the stronger ones to create a show, but they are obviously doing something right because their TV figures and their spectator figures are absolutely superb.

I think there are a lot of lessons we can learn in Europe about how they sell racing to the fans, and the show they put on.

Until next time,